Our dog Pookie has been with us for 15 years....I got her for Valentines Day from my dh the first year we were married, she is a shelter dog, sheltie spaniel mix. She was my first baby when I could not have one. She has been truly wonderful to my children and anyone else she has met.
She has been steadily going down hill for about 2 years, but over the summer things came to a head. She could not hold her pee and was going all over the house, so we made up an area in our garage for her. Now though with the weather colder we bring her in and gate her in our kitchen....it is so bad that she does not even get up at night to bark to go out, she just pees on her bed. She lost so much weight she is literally skin and bones, you can't tell because she is very fluffly furwise.
Things came to a head last week when it was pouring....she has taken to walking around our house over and over for hours, so much so that she has left a rut where she walks....but she was doing this in the pouring rain...she hates the rain and would always run out, do her business and run in. It broke my heart to see her like that and she would not come in for us.
Needless to say she is very old, very frail and weak and we think she either had a stroke/dementia/alzheimers because of the circle walking. We made the painful decision to end her suffering and have an appointment tonight.
Today we made a print of her paws into clay that we baked and then we took tons of pictures of her for the other side of the paw print frame. I plan to get a garden stone and make her a special garden with her ashes.
Finally to my main question....how does this work. She is the first dog I have to deal with this...the ones from childhood died of natural causes...and I feel extrememly guilty even though logically I know it is the right thing to do. What do they do when we take her in....all of us are going, the boys insist on being with her at the end and we decided they are old enough to do so. Are we allowed to hold her, pet her....etc.....
Thank you for reading and for any info on this....I am just sick and didn't sleep at all last night...there will be a huge hole in our family tonight and in my heart as well...
She has been steadily going down hill for about 2 years, but over the summer things came to a head. She could not hold her pee and was going all over the house, so we made up an area in our garage for her. Now though with the weather colder we bring her in and gate her in our kitchen....it is so bad that she does not even get up at night to bark to go out, she just pees on her bed. She lost so much weight she is literally skin and bones, you can't tell because she is very fluffly furwise.
Things came to a head last week when it was pouring....she has taken to walking around our house over and over for hours, so much so that she has left a rut where she walks....but she was doing this in the pouring rain...she hates the rain and would always run out, do her business and run in. It broke my heart to see her like that and she would not come in for us.
Needless to say she is very old, very frail and weak and we think she either had a stroke/dementia/alzheimers because of the circle walking. We made the painful decision to end her suffering and have an appointment tonight.
Today we made a print of her paws into clay that we baked and then we took tons of pictures of her for the other side of the paw print frame. I plan to get a garden stone and make her a special garden with her ashes.
Finally to my main question....how does this work. She is the first dog I have to deal with this...the ones from childhood died of natural causes...and I feel extrememly guilty even though logically I know it is the right thing to do. What do they do when we take her in....all of us are going, the boys insist on being with her at the end and we decided they are old enough to do so. Are we allowed to hold her, pet her....etc.....
Thank you for reading and for any info on this....I am just sick and didn't sleep at all last night...there will be a huge hole in our family tonight and in my heart as well...
It's been over a year for me and I still have tears streaming down my face as I think back on it to describe it to you. But when I think of her now, my first thoughts are of when she was fat and healthy, not when she was frail and sick at the end. For the weeks afterward my first thoughts were always of the end and of her final moments, and that was really hard. It does fade a little, though, so that the happier memories are what I remember first.
to all of us who have been through this. It's like losing a child. Hope you find peace Mama.
