How Did You Cope With Putting Down Your Animal Par, The loss of a very dear friend.

[Shy Doglover]

on JUne 9, 2003, I had to put my best friend Blazer down and in fact, he wasn't only my best friend but at that particular time in my life, he was my only friend. The town where I was living at the time was very cliquish and didn't seem to like outsiders at all. Since April 14 of 1990 we had been together and in retrospect, I realized that I had indeed been very lucky that he had lived that long. He was nearly 15, and that's pretty old for a large pure bred dog like a black lab. From 1990 until early 2001, Blazer had been my guide dog. We had gone thousands of places together and experienced so many unbelievable adventures together. He enjoyed sharing beer with me, getting high with me as well, and he was a master at getting women to come over to us. Needless to say, since he was my eyes and had actually saved my life a couple of times thanks to idiots that had run red lights on streets that we were crossing, and since we were together 24 7, when the time finally came for me to put him down, I was absolutely devastated. I felt so guilty and angry with myself. He was still basically pretty healthy. He never went off his food. He still seemed to be enjoying life. The only problem was that his back legs were really beginning to go and even though one of my other roommates had two dogs of his own, he was constantly yelling and swearing at me that Blazer was having accidents on the second hand carpet that he had gotten from his brother that hadn't actually cost him a cent. It seemed so cruel and unfair when Blazer had been so loyal and devoted to me and had improved my life in ways that I would have never dreamed possible, that when his life needed to be improved because his back legs were going, the only thing I could do was put him down. I realized on one level that it had to be done and that Blazer had served me well and now it was time for him to move on, but to me it seemed just so cruel and heartless to say thank you for giving me your entire life lovingly and unselfishly. And now as a way to say thank you buddy for everything that you've done for me, I'm going to put you down. It just seemed so unfair and I simply couldn't handle it. I was racked with grief and I didn't want to talk to anyone, not that there was anyone to talk to in the first place, but I was an absolute basket case. I wanted to be with him. I wanted to join him, I wanted to kill myself. I sure as hell did not want to go on living another day without him that's for sure.

Well at that point, in stepped Shadoe, my roommate's little Australian cattle dog. That's when just like Blazer, I began to find her lying right next to my bed every morning as soon as I woke up, and as soon as I was awake, she would jump up on the bed and begin to shower my face with kisses. I would cry and cry and cry on this dog, and she'd just keep on licking my tears away, and as the months passed she just kept on becoming more loving and sentuous until I began to think of her as my new lover. That was all her fault and I swear she knew it. She was the most amazing dog I've ever known apart from my own Blazer. She was extremely intelligent, very crafty with an incredibly saucy side to her. She was incredibly affectionate and just instinctively knew what to do to drive me to ecstasy in ways that I didn't think any dog would even think of! She was absolutely wonderful to me, no wonder they call these dogs nurse dogs. She was a tremendous help in allowing me to heal until the day of her own death which was ironically just two years and one day after Blazer's, June 10, 2005. I was naturally very sad to see her go, but being that she was literally gasping for breath and about to slip into a coma anyway, I wasn't nearly as sad at seeing her being put down as I was Blazer. I felt that I could have let Blazer live a little longer but with Shadoe, it was really past her time to go but she wasn't my dog. When she left this world, she had breast cancer, heart congestion and a tumor on one of her lungs and that was what was causing her breathing problem. Sure I missed her terribly and I still feel the terrible loss today. I know that in this situation with so much loneliness and so few people to talk to, I know that if she were still alive I'd have trouble posting on here because she'd be constantly enticing me to get on the bed and have some heavy frenching sessions as she always did until just a couple of months before she died.

So, what has helped you cope with the loss of your best animal friend, another animal? Time? Just what has given you the strength to carry on? It's damn hard to do isn't it.

Shy

[clint424]

When my first dog died from kidney failure I cryed for days, I still miss him and its ben 10 years.

[monadnock]

i was bawling like a lil child and unashamedly so fannie was my love and my better half in all respects. we never did have sex cause she was fixed and unresponsive to advances but she was my love. I held her in my arm as she received the shot and she just relaxed on my shoulder no longer in pain from the cancer that ravaged her body. earlier that year the vet told me she would let me know when the time was right to have her put down and she was right. she let me know that she was in pain and no longer enjoying life. I go to her grave almost every day just to be near her I miss her so.

It took me almost 3 years to get another dog and now my boy murphy is becomming my word also. I know that the odds are i will out live him but all i can do is try to make his life as fulfilling as i can.

[Shy Doglover]

Wow clint424 and Monadnock,
I truly appreciate your honesty and you've helped me more than you both will ever know. People have said to me, "Sure, it hurts when you first have to put them down, but time heals all wounds and you'll eventually get over it" but the fact is, I haven't yet. Of course I can't have another dog in my life right now and I suppose that's actually retarding the healing process. It's getting to the point now where a few of my friends are telling me to move on, and that life goes on. They simply don't understand how incredibly close both Blazer and I were, and Shadoe and I were also and that's obvious from their comments. But I'm especially interested in your comments clint424
because you say it's been almost ten years for you since you've had to put your partner down. I guess this means that it's not so abnormal for me to still feel very lost and empty without either Blazer or Shadoe after just four years then. Thanks a million!

Shy

[rrarr]

time.. and a new pet..
They aren't your old pet but you can focus on them and they will help you heal, atleast in my experience. When my cat, Nick was getting old (16) my parents adopted a young kitten in hopes that when he died the new kitty would keep us occupied and less sad.. and too, the old cat was tired of my younger sibs being children so Julie was something to playwith too.. A year and a half later, we had them both still..
I was at a horse camp and they had 4 kittens there.. My parents forgot to pick up my friend and i so when my dad finally came I guilt-tripped him into getting my baby boy.. :rolleyes: Besides, Julie needed someone to play with so she'd stop bugging Nick.. Tahoe was only 4 weeks old when I got hm and the most ADORABLe thing ever.
Well Nick certainly wasn't thrilled at first and neither was Julie but they both got used to him and were his 'mother' and 'father' figure.. Three months later, Nick passed away. It was horrible for me to see him just slow down and deteriorate but having Tahoe and Julie helped quite a bit.

[Wirehair]

My first dog had to leave in january 2003. Fortnately I had wo dogs then, and the remainding dog helped me trough that time. Nevertheless, it was a hard time, butmemories remain, and 12½ ears give a lot of memories. it took half a year before a new dog moved in, and i did what i could that tis new dog should not look too much like the old one. A new dog is a new existence, and not a second chapter of the first dogs life, different look/color/breed help from such misunderstandings.

[lastrequiem]

These stories made me get pretty teary eyed, sorry for yor losses :(

[monochromefox]

I have never had to put an animal to sleep, although I have had 3 cats die. 2 within the last 12 months. I was devastated when my soulmate Velvey died of some disease. The vision of him turning over, but unable to move his legs will forever be burned into my mind. He died back on August 6, 2006. He was 10 years old. Taken from me too early. I cried for days off and on. And when I sit down and listen to a particular song, the tears start to flow. I was without a pet for 7 months. I didn't want another animal, but I needed someone to love. And I know that he guided me to the website where I saw an ad for Siberian Husky puppies. I guess he figured it was time for me to give the love i had for him to someone else, and 7 months later, I brought my baby girl home with me. She is my angel, sent to me from my Velvey, to shine her light into my world. He wanted me to be happy again, and I am very much happy and in love.

I believe that since I had her, the death of Nugget, our fat yellow cat, was a softer blow to me than the death of Velvey. I still miss Nugget a lot, and I miss Velvey dearly, but I can never remain angry or sad when my husky is next to me. And I know I will be devastated when that inevitable day that she must leave me comes to pass. But I hope that won't be for a very, very long time. And when that day does come, I hope that I will be there with her so she can have a loving face be the last thing she sees, and a heart-felt "good-bye" the last thing she hears.

[wyldfyre67]

I have to say... if the vet thought this was something that needed to be done... then you shouldnt feel like you did a wrong by him.. it would have been selfish and wrong to let him suffer just cuz you wanted him to stay around ... my mother had to make a decision like that last year.. it was the hardest thing she had to do... putting her buddy down.. but it was for the best cuz even though he didnt act like it.. he was suffering in silence... he was such a good boy he wouldnt have dreamed of being a bother... so please dont feel bad.. you did right by him! :wub:

[beyondpleasure]

Forgive me for not reading all of your post Shy, I have a frustration headache and it hurts to read a lot right now.

Back in 2005 I got a little border collie/jack russel mix from a friend. The name Sparky didn't quite fit, and for lack of a better name I named him Sparx, which I later learned fit him perfectly. Sparx was a sweet little thing. He was defensive of me, slept on my pillow, growled when anyone threatened me, etc. We lived in an apartment where we weren't supposed to even have dogs, so we were really careful about when we took him out. Usually, he'd stay out longer at night because of this...

One night my fiance took him out to play with him, running back and forth like you often do when playing with younger dogs. Sparx had a habit of stopping right in front of you while you were moving. As chance had it, he stopped right in front of my fiance that night and the result was fatal. 200 pounds of man doesn't mingle very well with only 10 pounds of terrier mix.

I remember my finance calling to me from the parking lot outside, he was very out of breath. He didn't say that much, just "Sparx.. Sparx. He's hurt bad." By the time I got there, of course, there was nothing that could have been done. Sparx was already gone and there was blood everywhere, indicating something inside had been ruptured. I like to think he died on contact... I just picked up his limp body, and carried him back upstairs to the apartment. I lay him on a towel on the kitchen floor and just stared at him for a minute. Now, before I go on, you have to understand that I have an innate sense of calm in just about any situation. Or well... any situation that doesn't involve spiders, centipedes, or crickets. I was numb to it at first. It was like I was floating in a dream and nothing at all had happened. I gently wrapped him in a towel and slid him into a plastic bag. I could hear my finance on the couch behind me, bawling his head off. I still hadn't shed a tear.

I took him down and set him in one of the garbage cans, where we lived we couldn't bury him. I was so upset and didn't know what to do, but I couldn't even cry. I went back upstairs and focused around calming my finance, who was completely devastated that he'd killed Sparx.

A couple hours later, leaving Sparx in the trash was eating me away. i finally gave in and plucked him back from his cold and lonely temporary grave, and made the walk down to my mom's, who lived about a block away. I just carried the plastic bag he was in to my chest and hoped the cops didn't think I stole something. I got to my moms, knocked on the door, and when she answered I just stood there for a minute. Then, as if someone flipped a switch in the back of my mind, I started bawling. Her first response was "Oh my god, did he get hit?" I just shook my head and bubbled out at the best of my ability "No.. No Marty fell on him." It took me a few more minutes before I could muster the courage to ask her if I could even bury Sparx in her back yard.

She told me where the shovel was and about thirty minutes later I was sitting in one of her chairs with a soda. I finally had stopped crying enough to tell her what had happened, and she, my brother-in-law, and I just sat there talking about Sparx and so many different things.

I felt better when I left. I got back to find that Marty had cried himself to sleep on the couch, his glasses pressing hard into his face. I took off his glasses and sat at the computer, and just vented to the world in an online journal I had.

I had no way to cope, no way of knowing how to cope.

The next day a miracle arrived.

My friend, who is my current roomie, found a mangy puppy near his house. He brought her over. Right after I'd bathed her the downstairs neighbor found another puppy, a soft black little thing who was just too friendly. We'd already decided to keep one. Which one though? The two of us talked about it and decided to keep the one our neighbor had found, we didn't have the extra funds to care for mange and other possible disease. We disinfected what the first puppy had touched and took her to the SPCA, then returned home to... Velvet.

Velvet was our way of coping. She was our blessing when there was no ray of hope left for us to be happy without Sparx. While she didn't fill the void in our hearts for having lost him, she did ease off the pain and make us smile. It took her a whole of three days to settle in. Amazingly, she was mostly house trained and only had a few accidents, she already knew how to sit. She had to be loved by someone. We posted bulletins and wanted ads. Even though we already loved her so much, someone out there must be missing her.

No one ever called to get her. No one said she was missing. We shut up about it and accepted our blessing for what it was. An amazingly soft black bundle of joy that helped to ease our pain...

Heh.. I didn't intend for that post to be so big, but I just can't help but vent in a topic like this. Sparx was our life when we had him, and Velvet is my life now. I don't know what breed she is, or how she wound up in our arms, but she's the best dog I've had in a long time...

If you loose your special someone in fur, all you can do is cry. Let yourself vent and cry and get it all out of your system. Then, pick yourself up and try to go on. Somewhere down the line, someone else with big brown eyes and a slimy cold nose will steal your heart. The pain won't be forgotten, but it will definitely be less.

As for having to put a loved pet to sleep? Sometimes it's what's best for them. I don't think you were wrong in doing it. I've had to do different measures before, but I just can't talk about that here.

This post has been edited by beyondpleasure on May 31 2007, 02:49 AM

[Fluffywolf]

Yeah, I've been through a few dogs in my years, and its such a shame when they get put down. always makes me sad

[energydog]

Short and sweet, every time I did it I cried my ass off as I held on to their bodies and rocked for a bit and gave them a final kiss on the nose pad good bye.

[luvmydogknot]

I'm always sad when I lose a dog. I love all my dogs. It's like losing a brother or a sister.

[Blikkies]

2005 ,I had to put my best friend and companion, my Rhodesian Ridgebackmale down, after 13 years of friendship.To cope I had his neckband, his collar,his doggy nameplate and his toys in my hands for days after that.Smell it , taste it and feel it makes yhou cope with this amiss.Cried and mourned for six months.Then he would only live in my memory on.I bought myself another Rhodesian Ridgebackpuppy and he is now going to be 2 years old in July.He makes me happy all over again.He is unique and would replace the other one.Hang in there and do mourn, to get it out of your sisteem.

[rus80]

We chang our lives with every animal aquired / birth and we are shaped, trained and molded by them, they like one of mine may save our lives and when they die our lives are changed again..
We morn and greave death like we selibrate a birth.. We learn from every companion we meet.

There is a right of passage in everything, we need to remember that no matter how painfull, it is as it should be, and a nother companion will come to us in time to be cared and loved...

There is a horse or two and a few dogs I expect to meet when I go..

Rus