My wife and I lost a piece of our hearts yesterday. Our dog of nine years, a 12 year old Terrier mix, declined very quickly this week and x-rays found her to have a massive fluid build up, a terminal hemorrhage, in her chest cavity. The vet got her comfortable and let my wife and I say our goodbyes yesterday afternoon.
She was the happiest, go-luckiest, little lover girl ever. All she wanted was to know she was loved, to love on you and leave some fur ("glitter"), lick you, and demand belly rubs.
We never understood how her original owner could have not cared about her. She was a "stray" from Tennessee whose owner couldn't be bothered to pay the leash fee. Rescued from Tennessee to a foster group here in Illinois, we fostered her to get her heartworm treatments and fell in love with her (and she complimented our first foster fail).
She was our parrot on car rides: standing on the center console leaning against us as we drove. She was our fur missle in drive through lanes: we had to fight to keep her from making Starbucks or Dairy Queen a self serve station. She was our Monterey Jack from Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers: she could hear and smell the cheese from the refrigerator and practically floated toward you to sample it.
Its cruel how dogs are our best friends for such a short time, yet we're their best friends for their whole lives. She's the fourth dog I've loved and lost in my life, first one I was there to the bitter end. It's the suddenness of her loss that hurts the most. We should have been having quality/end of life discussions for our first dog, and Am-Staff mix, due to her hips/arthritis, not our spry Terrier.
Attached are photos of her photogenic self for a dog tax of reading my spilling of virtual ink. I don't know if it helps me grieve, but it doesn't hurt to try.
At the end, the vet said we did our best and there was nothing any of us could have done. She was proud of us for catching it at this point, she said typically she's seen owners hold on way too long making it even more devastating for the owners and unintentionally making the pet suffer.




