Gus Kenworthy Mourns Death of Puppy He Rescued From Korean Meat Farm

Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy made headlines back at the 2018 Winter Olympics when he adopted a puppy named Beemo from a South Korea meat farm during the competition. Unfortunately, Beemo passed away on Thursday due to a birth defect that caused him to have an enlarged heart.

Kenworthy broke the news about the death in a heartbreaking Instagram post on Saturday night.

“Two days ago my beautiful baby Beemo passed away. It was completely unexpected and Matt and I are beside ourselves trying to cope with her loss,” Kenworthy wrote to begin the post.

Kenworthy adopted Beemo along with his partner Matthew Wilkas, and the three lived happily together up until a week ago when Beemo started having health issues.

“For a week or so we’d been worrying because she was showing less and less interest in her food. There were several trips to the vet and on our final visit this past Thursday I asked them do a full body scan in case there was an underlying issue they had missed. Beemo went into a panic attack during the x-rays and her breathing became rapid and shallow. The scan revealed that her lungs were deteriorated and that her heart was too big for her body – a birth defect we had no way of knowing about. Unable to treat her there, I rushed her to the emergency vet where a breathing tube was put down her throat. They hoped that with a respirator breathing for her they could get her vitals back to a normal level so she could be treated but they were never able to do so.”

Kenworthy admitted he’s been trying to cope in the days since she had to be put down.

“The past two days have been a blur,” he said. “It all happened so fast that it’s still hard to believe it. The ER doc told us that even if we’d somehow spotted the issue earlier it wouldn’t have made a difference in the end. He said that she’d been living on ‘borrowed time’ from the get go. Beemo was truly the best thing that ever happened to me and I feel so fortunate for our borrowed time together. I’ve never loved anything or anyone in the way that I loved that dog and she is and will always be deeply missed.

He wrapped up his post by reaching out to any and all dog owners out there.

“If any of you have pets up in doggy heaven please tell them to go find Bee because she could really use a good play date right now. RIP sweet creature – your daddy loves you more than you could ever even know!”