When your dog dies

And don't watch Marley and Me either....

Sorry about your loss. Losing a pet...cat or dog or whatever...is tough. I lost 2 cats within 4 months of each other. They were 16 and 17. I cried for about a week. Their remains are on top of my dresser in my bedroom. Sportschick's poem was great comfort to me.

 

Or Turner and Hooch.

 

I have already been warned about Marley and me. Turner and Hooch doesn't hurt as bad because they soften the ending a bit.

But either one of them are Dust Bowl City movies.

 

Wow, reading your story brought tears to my eyes. It's so easy to get attached, and I don't know what I'm going to do when my little boy's time comes. I can't even fathom how heartbroken and lonely I'll feel.

My dog recently broke a bone in his front paw and is in a splint and not able to run around for six weeks. We usually go for runs together, and since he can't go, it breaks my heart because he looks so sad when I leave without him, and I know he can't understand why he can't go.

That's what's so hard I think is not being able to explain things to them.

I'm deeply sorry for your loss, and I'm sure the impact your dog had on your life (and vice-versa) is what will get you through it.

 

Not a day/night when I come home and I don't head for the back door, where Abby would always been waiting.

It's been a year and I still miss her something awful.

 

It's silly, on a logical basis, to equate the death of an animal with the death of a person, but damned if it doesn't have the same impact when it's a real companion you've had for a long time. Sorry for your loss.

I for some reason once picked up a children's (or at least children's-type) book about "dog heaven," where the dogs go and sleep on clouds and eat ham sandwiches and ice cream biscuits while waiting to reunite with their families. Corny stuff.

One morning my 16-year-old golden retriever couldn't stand, was panting hard, it was obviously the end. Before gathering him up to go to the vet, I sat on the floor and read him that stupid book (it's worth pointing out that he had long been deaf). So hard, but in a strange way, it allowed me to make a little bit of peace with it ahead of time.

 

I really need to get a dog. Who needs to breathe anyway?

 

I wasn't home the day our 16-year-old Chihuahua Abby died from complications of congestive heart failure. My mom found her lying in the utility room dead. I got a frantic voice mail message from her that Abby was dead and she was taking her to the vets.

Mom wrapped Abby in a blanket, put her in the front seat and drove to the Vet. She had called ahead and the vet, Dr. Norris was waiting for her inside. Mom said she couldn't bring Abby in, and one of the doctor's assistant walked towards the door to get her. Dr. Norris told him to stop and said he'd go get Abby. That has to be one of best stories I have heard. It still brings me to tears thinking what a nice thing that was too do.

 

http://www.theweek.com/article/index/89914/The_last_word_Why_old_dogs_are_the_best_dogs

 

There's something about an animal dying that inspires a visceral reaction out of us. My sister's dog died a few weeks after our Mom died, and she was hysterical. The night they decided to put her dog down, she couldn't even speak, and she was barely coherent for the next day or two, especially b/c her dog was running around the backyard an hour before my brother-in-law took him to the vet. I told her she was being a good owner and a compasionate one by putting him down (he had tumors on his ass, the vet said he only had a couple weeks at most and the poor dog was having a hard time getting up and down the stairs, was bleeding out of the ass and was puking terribly the night before) and that at least he had one more good memory before he went to the great beyond.

My sister was sadder about our Mom dying, obviously, but she was never really hysterical about it. I'd chalk it up to the emotion from Mom's death bubbling to the surface, but we knew from the moment my sister got her dog that she'd be a wreck when he died.

Who knows why that is? I mean, parents love us purely and unconditionally too, and it breaks my heart to say it, but my Mom was in such bad shape by the end that she was just as dependent on my sister as her dog was. But there's just something about pets that bring out the rawest of emotions.

Very sorry for your loss, Zimbabwe.

 

Jack is four months old today (I think, guessing by the vets estimate).
I look forward for him to have a long, happy life like Madle did.

 

I'm so sorry to hear about your loss. I've lost two yellow labs so early in each of their lives that I felt worse for them than for myself or brother. Both were killed right in front of my driveway, probably no more than three years old. Darby passed away on Martin Luther King day when I was 13 and Buster got hit when I was 20. To this day I want another lab but it's just so god damn hard to find a place that allows pets where I live.

So sorry.