Nurse, Pet Rescuer Who Saved Thousands of Dogs Passes Away From COVID-19

Animal lovers and advocates have lost an ally after the recent passing of Valerie Louie, a beloved nurse from Oakland, California who spent her free time helping rescue dogs.

Hero for dogs and humans: Louie, who worked caring for patients at the Highland Hospital for over three decades, died of COVID-19 on Nov. 25 at age 60, reports the New York Times.

When not helping patients, Louie would volunteer at rescue shelters and bring abandoned dogs she found to loving homes in the Bay Area.
This year alone she found homes for 80 dogs before getting infected with COVID-19. This year’s Christmas tree in her household was decorated with photos of the dogs she saved.
She started her career in the emergency department and worked as coordinator of advanced life support before she fell ill.
Louie passed away after two weeks in an intensive care unit at the Mission-Bernal campus of California Pacific Medical Center, contracting the virus in late October. As of this writing, details of how she contracted the virus remain unclear.

Her legacy lives on: The single mother left behind her son Andrew Louie, 21, who revealed that his mother had saved “probably thousands” of dogs.

Andrew, who was also infected with the virus but has since recovered, is currently in college, studying to become a nurse himself.
Her friends also say she saved thousands of dogs serving as a volunteer at Rocket Dog Rescue, reports KPIX 5, she would always ask around “is your puppy getting over parvo” whenever she knew a puppy was not doing good and she’d volunteer to take the puppy to the vet herself.
“I knew she worked until 10 or 11 o’clock at night. We would be out looking for a dog that was missing and here she would come,” fellow volunteer and friend Tammy Hilrich was quoted as saying.
Meg McAdam, another friend of Louie’s, shared the selfless nurse would remove ticks off the rescued dogs and check out their medical condition before bringing them to the vet.
“She was just amazing. It was just second nature to her and she would always take the dogs that other people wouldn’t take,” McAdam said.
Louie’s friends have set up a GoFundMe account to help her son relieve the financial stress ahead.
“I’m just gonna miss her. It’s really like a big chunk of me has been taken out,” Andrew was quoted as saying.

Feature Image via (left) Rocket Dog Rescue, (right) GoFundMe

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