Hi Rachel,

In my mind, a pet, especially a dog, has a good life until they are ten. After that, the problems can start.

The arthritis ~ every being gets that, even humans, as we get older. No guilt there!

The claws ~ if clipping them bothered her more than dealing with them, the dog wasn’t in THAT much discomfort. You would know, believe me! No guilt! You didn’t feel guilty about it when she was alive, so it doesn’t serve you now that she’s dead. We had a dog growing up who would NOT let us put in his eye drops. That was a contributing factor to him being put down. (At age 14). The other had Cushing’s Disease and was put down around age ten. Some dog owners say, “Spend the 10K, keep them alive.” No. We did everything.

Your dog was loved, walked, fed, slept in the bed! Sure she wasn’t groomed a lot, but what animal is? I had a cat who would be a fur mat if we didn’t painstakingly tease the mats out. P.S. Sometimes he wouldn’t let us!

In short, your dog was HAPPY! Not because he was well groomed. But because he lived a full life.

Next pet, just make sure every season you bring him into a groomer’s. So much better than doing it yourself!

Blessings,

Inky

• This reply was modified 9 years ago by Inky.

Oh Gosh, I know this must be such a difficult time for you right now, Rachel. Not that any of us can really remove your distress, but if you read / like Eckhart Tolle, I wanted to share a video of him talking to someone about letting his dog go – TinyBuddha’s spam filter doesn’t allow me to paste a youtube link in here, but if you search for cL6Y3qXZmj0 on youtube, you should be able to find it.
I hope it helps!

Losing a pet is like losing a family member. When I lost my first dog 6 years ago, I couldn’t even be there when they had to put him down. Still regret it. I a puppy a year later. Same breed and color. Named him the same. Still thing about the old one though, but I couldn’t have made a better choice by getting another dog. It’ll get better for sure. Hang in 🙂

Dear rachel:

It is something, to have an innocent life all dependent on you, to have this power over an innocent, vulnerable … person, be it a dog or a young child. They look up to you; you are everything to them. You were all that and more to your dog, the person she looked up to. There is a lot of responsibility in that position of power. And now that she is gone, you are wondering if you abused that position of power. You are wondering if you didn’t live up to that position of power, of being everything to her.

When someone looks up to you with those innocent eyes, seeing nothing but good in you… you want to be all that those eyes are seeing in you. Of, the torment of not being all that.. you could have, should have.

This is one reason why I did not become a mother, wouldn’t consider it. I couldn’t tolerate this kind of responsibility, being so high-and-mighty and powerful in the eyes of an innocent little person. The guilt over failing was to much to bear.

And this is it, I think that this kind of guilt, burden comes with the job. Some of it is what you will have to bear and cannot be eliminated. It is a kind of pain that you have to live with. Once you realize it, the pain will weaken.

It was impossible for you to be PERFECT with your dog. You must understand this concept. There is no such thing as perfect, as a perfect parent. The term used is “good enough parent” – because no parent is perfect. Every parent misses something important to the child in any one day, not being there for the child here and there. Every single one.

Can you live with the pain that you were not perfect with your dog, that you never could be, even if you had your dog back? And can you live with that pain that must be lived with?

anita

You loved that dog. I can see that. If I can see it, I know that dog knew it. That dog would not hold anything against you. That dog loved you and would not want you to feel bad. I don’t know where your dog is now, but I am certain she is fine and I think you know that too.

The sweetest dog I have ever had died two weeks ago. Sunny was a blond Crocker Spaniel. She was 17. I got her at a rescue 3 years ago.

I had taken her to the vet a week before, and the vet said it was not time. I was so happy and took her back home.

She had a good week, but on Saturday she didn’t eat. Sunday morning I got up and couldn’t find her. I looked all over. And then again. And then again.

Sunday afternoon I happened to bend down to pick up a piece of paper and I saw her in these bushes. She had not been gone long.

The bushes were near the door to this garage apartment I have that Sunny loved. She tried to move in that place. She liked it because I go over there to cook a lot of the time. She always ate. What I ate. The day before, Saturday, when she didn’t eat–she was out there all day. At 5 I went and got her and closed the door to the place because I wanted her inside my house.

When I saw her in the bushes I knew she had wanted to go in the apartment. I felt awful because I hadn’t left it open. I can’t blame myself though, because I didn’t know.

Saturday was the first day she never ate. The vet told me to bring her in when she was having more bad days than good days. Saturday was her first bad day.

I.also felt bad because I hadn’t found her. I felt awful.

I buried her with Daisy, my beagle, watching.

We went inside and Daisy cried all day and I cried all day.

The next day it came to me, something told me that Sunny died in an ecstatic state and that it was good I had not found her, because I would have interrupted that.

Sunny was the sweetest dog.

I have this beagle here that weighs 50 pounds. She got that way eating less than half of what Sunny ate and Sunny weighed 20 pounds. I am having a hard time keeping Daisy on her diet. She looks at me she thinks I am not feeling her. She doesn’t know why. It’s not always real easy for us to do what we are supposed to do. But Daisy is at the point that she can hardly get out the doggie door, so I have to now.

Jusr as we have a responsibility not to abuse our dogs–we have a responsibility not to abuse anyone, including ourselves. Our responsibility to ourselves is just as serious.

There are too many homeless dogs for you not to take one. Do it when you are ready.

But think about going to the rescue and walking dogs today. If I were your priest, that would be your penance (except I am not your priest and I don’t think you are guilty of anything.) But if you feel guilt, then walk dogs every day for however many days–and each day, as you walk those dogs, just let that guilt you feel just vaporize as you walk those dogs. (if you are Catholic or Episcopalian, go talk to a priest. If you are neither, an Episcopal priest doesn’t care–and. The Episcopal priest can hear a confession. I do not mean to be promoting Christianity–those are the only two places I know of where you can confess and somebody will tell you you are forgiven. (and they will also tell you why you have to drop it, it’s over, you are forgiven at this moment–but they will give you some penance, something like walking dogs, but they will tell you it’s over at that moment. I like talking to priests.

There are Buddhist and Hindu clergy in most medium size cities and they probably have similar procedures.

The Peace Keep You!

Dear bjelleybean:

Your story touched me deeply and your last line: “If love alone could have kept you alive, you would have lived forever”- sent chills through me.

What an amazing testimony to love between man and dog, between you and the late Mr. Chili.

When a dog, like a young child, is dependent on you and looks at you with nothing but love and trust, complete, truly unconditional love and trust, it is the most precious thing there is or can be.

I am sorry for your loss.

anita

I realize your post was over two years ago.  My westie died 5 weeks ago and I’m not doing well, I’m crushed.  I should have forced the vet to do blood work to see if they could detect Addisons disease but even the autopsy isn’t clear, she also might have been poisoned.  The vet missed it and I missed it.  I feel such sadness and guilt.  I miss her so much.  I wrote the following.

________

In 2010, we adopted a 10-week-old west highland white terrier.  In hindsight, even without scaling any grand heights of self-awareness, it seemed an unashamed attempt to inject some past childhood joy into my current family.  As a child our family had a westie and I had seen how even in an often-fractious household a dog could bring a family together; indeed, our westie had been showered with affection, her photos fill childhood albums, my father even had a friend blow a glass statue of her.

So now, middle aged, married, and with two young children, my own family had a westie, and, with respect to my wife and mother-in-law’s Russian roots we named her Nika.

It is difficult to understand the bond between man and dog.   We filter everything though language and to imagine what goes on in their consciousness is perhaps wishful thinking.

So wishfully, I can only try to interpret the eager tail wags, her ears dipping and rising, the different tones of her barks, or as Russian dogs speak – “guff-guff.”  Chasing my kids around the pool, barking fiercely, that game was called “life guard” and she would not be content until the kids had jumped into the water.    And in the morning, with her banned from adult beds, she would do her rounds, scratching at the door and coming into my room, her ears pasted back, her tail wagging, and after bashfully looking to make sure my wife (who enforced the dog bed rules) had left she would put her paws up on the bed and lick my nose.  On some mornings I would pull her under the sheets and she would lie still, unseen to my wife exiting the bathroom.  Then she would clump down the stairs with me as I, still groggy with sleep, walked into the kitchen to see my daughter munching on a Nutella covered bagel.

“Car ride, car ride Nika,” my daughter would say, as Nika put her small white paws on Sophia’s chair; each morning those words sent Nika into a tizzy, thrilled to be participating in the six-minute drive to my daughter’s elementary school.  One morning Nika had been allowed in the school –  they seemed to relax the rules for twenty-pound terriers who fall in love with everyone they met – and she went into the middle of the room of grade fours and sat down, her ears flattened with joy, soon rolling over for a belly rub as children flocked to her.

And she was such a terrific mooch, she had taken dog training lessons, but nothing had ever stuck, she had never learned a trick, coming on command often seemed to be more of a case that she was going that way anyway and she had no problem with putting her paws up on your lap as you ate, asking for a morsel of “measa,” the Russian word for meat.   And my mother in law would blow on a small piece of beef, cooling it down and drop it to our waiting beast.  When I didn’t give enough meat my English challenged mother in law would say, “no scrooge, give measa!”

Frequently in the evenings I would come home late after a long commute and as I entered the dark kitchen, as the family slept or stared into a screen, I would feel the rough paws of Nika on my knees.  When I came in through the front door, I would look through the narrow rectangle of glass to see her white furry face, black nose and twitching ears looking at me, her brown eyes glistening with what I would only see as uninhibited joy.  And sometimes when I spoke to her – my daughter would chide me gently for speaking to this near mute creature – she would cock her head from side to side, desperately trying to understand my words.

Four weeks ago, I went to check on Nika in my daughter’s bed.  My daughter was up, but as our morning ritual played out sometimes Nika would sneak back onto her bed and I would go into Sophia’s room to visit our little beast.  But Nika was gone, she had passed in the early morning; she was still young at 7, cruelly taken by some unknown disease or heart failure, the pains she never was able to articulate.   I rushed her to the vet and, though she was still warm, there was no bringing her back.  I drove home, staggered to the front door, “she’s gone, she’s gone” I said.  “Haroshea sabaca,” good dog, good dog, my mother in law cried, clutching my daughter in the desperation of grief.

Having lost a mother at young age, a dear friend a year ago and other relatives I had hoped for some inoculation from the effects of grief.  But no, the house was quiet, no click, click of Nika on the kitchen tiles, no placid white face waiting patiently; all I noticed was the bottom of the kitchen door out to the backyard, the paint worn away by the gentle erosion of a small white terrier’s paw asking a thousand times to be let out to pee.

The comparison contest of griefs is futile, surely yes, she was not as treasured as most wives or children, any day’s newspaper tells of stories which would certainly trounce my grief.  But Nika was with me and they are thankfully “there”.  So, in the days following her death, there was always a tinge of embarrassment when I met inquiries into my wellbeing with, “my dog died.” And certainly, now four weeks on, society accords me no more tears, it’s of course well known that Elizabeth Kubler Ross’ stages should gobble up no more than a half day each and emotions lasting longer than a few days is nothing more than bourgeois indulgences.

But all I know is that the space at the end of the couch is unfilled, the window by the door now clear, the landing on the staircase is empty, no longer guarded by the little westie who would sit waiting to bestow on her family her endless affections.