Still Makes Me Cry Like A Baby

Last night I found out that a friend of mine had to put her dog down this past week. He was an older dog and it was time. Of course she is very sad.

I emailed my friend to let her know I was thinking of her. She replied back telling me how she was feeling. While I read the email, I broke into tears…which led me to write this. Most of you know that I recently went through the loss of my dog Koho earlier this year. Clearly, I am still not healed from the loss of my pet. The new puppy certainly gets me through the day to day, but talking about it, thinking about it, or hearing about other people going through it makes me fall apart in a big way.

I think at this point, it’s not the missing her that makes me fall apart. I do miss her, but Rigby does a pretty good job of distracting me from that. Whenever it pops into my mind, I go directly to sitting in the vets office and having to make the decision to put her down, while she sat with me on the leash as I talked to the vet.

She had been pretty sick for about a month and the vets couldn’t give me a reason why. She got sick when she ate and had lost so much weight. I knew that morning when I got up that that was going to be the day. I took her into the vet in the morning for one more test, one more chance. I went to work while they kept her for the test. After back and forth phone calls and a lot of talking and crying with work friends there was still no diagnosis.

I was so exhausted and just a mess. I knew what I had to do and was set to do it. At the end of the work day, Jason came with me and was my support in making that decision (thank goodness) because the vet had no intention of telling me I needed to do it as he was ready to run more thousand dollar tests to find a diagnosis on my sick, 15 year old dog. Telling the vet that I thought it was time KILLED me. They asked if I wanted to be with her when they put her down. I couldn’t do it. Remembering that part is what pushes me right over the edge. I so don’t regret not going with her because there is know why I could have been there while they did that to my best friend, but thinking about them taking her out of the room, and her not knowing what was about to happen just makes me so, so sad.

I can picture that day vividly. I don’t think I feel guilty about my decision, because I know in my head that it was the right thing, but I can’t seem to push the picture of them taking her out of the room and me seeing her for the last time out of my head.

It’s so silly really, because I am fine. I’ve just been so teary since hearing from my friend about her experience. It brought back these memories. Maybe getting it down for the world to see will facilitate some closure.