my dog Lad

august 10, 1989: that was the day i had to put my beloved Lad down.  so yesterday, on the 23rd anniversary of that sad occasion, I felt more than a bit melancholy.  yeah, even after all these years.  he was only 7 when he died, much too early.  but he had fallen ill in the spring and been through a surgery that only confirmed the diagnosis.  the one thing I felt really badly about, in terms of his treatment, was the ordeal of changing his bandages during his final months.  he bore it like a champion, but his skin was raw and it hurt me to go through the routine each time.  i thought i was doing the right thing at the time, and i do think i was, at least the best i knew how to do to hopefully save his life.  sometimes I try to second guess if it was the right thing, but in my head I know it was.

he was happy and active until the end, but he grew weaker and weaker over the summer, and one morning as I woke up I heard his weak cough and simply knew that it was time.  before he got so weak that he couldn’t stand or worse, had a crisis that might cause him, and me, acute distress.  I called the vet and made the appointment for that afternoon at a time when there would be few pets in the waiting room. 

I spent those last hours with him, just petting him and talking to him.  I lay down with him on the living room carpet, telling him I how much I loved him and how much he had meant to me.  I cried uncontrollably, and he licked my face to comfort me.  he was the best, such a sweet sweet dog.

taking him in to the vet’s office was just the most awful thing, knowing I’d be coming back home without him.  but I stayed with him through to the end.  some people can’t, finding it too hard to watch their pet die.  but I couldn’t imagine leaving him in that room with the vet to spend his last moments alone.  not my Lad. 

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yesterday I sent a short email to my brother terry (that’s him in the pic with Lad) expressing my resurgence of grief.  he has two dogs, sisters, both quite old currently and one has a serious larynx problem.  he also had their mother and their grandmother, whom i refer to below as "grandma" and "mom".  he had a pair of border collies in the 80's, both of whom died young, one especially young and abrupty. here's his reply to my mail, excerpted: 

This doesn't surprise me in the least. I've been through the same many times.

I'd always opt for a chance at life. I didn't interfere with [mom dog] for an extra day in the hope she had Vestibulitis rather than a stroke. It happens. My neighbor's dog, right here on the road, has had it twice and recovered fully after a few days. He's around 16 or 17, a very long life for a border collie. But, as it turned out, [mom dog] didn't recover and actually had a dreadful passing.  I could - and do - weep over it. But I can't second guess my decision, not really, except as an excuse to torture myself. I held off similarly with [grandma dog] and she died peacefully in her sleep and loved life up to 36 hours before the end. Even a mere 12 hours before the end, she surprised me by getting off the bed to go with the others, daughter and pups, for a walk and then coming home and (unexpectedly) still wanting her share of sausage.

So there's no telling. I couldn't deprive [grandma dog] of a moment of it. Nor [mom dog] of the hope. We wouldn't for a human and we'd never look back, so why do we think we should for a dog?

There's no way out of it. You get an animal and if you love the animal, you will suffer in equal measure. You will be judge, jury, and executioner over and over and over again. No matter what you did or didn't do.

You make a contract with the animal to take care of him/her for subservience, obedience, loyalty, devotion, and attachment. Ok. The animal lives up to his or her part (well, ahem ... except for obedience, maybe) but in the end you can't live up to your end of the bargain. You're not god. Yet, in a way, you promised to be. You lied. Shit, we can't take care of ourselves in the end, never mind anyone else.

Life just sucks, that's all. For them and for us. Maybe if they weren't so cheerful about it all, it wouldn't feel so bad. :-) But they wouldn't fight to live so hard no matter how much they suffered if they got no joy out of life.

All I can say is that I know it well, it can hit at any time. I've wept 20+ years after the death of a border collie for all that went wrong and for all I did wrong. I wept for a death to come for dogs still living because its inevitability made it as real as if it had already happened.

For what it's worth, he probably loved you - there's no accounting for taste (j/k) - and you permitted him those three months of doing what he loved: eating and being around you. :-)  

[sister dog A] has been having trouble breathing for a year now. It can't be very pleasant. But then she also has been really happy sometimes, all through that period. Could I deprive her of that? I feel miserable myself often enough, and yet I laugh at things in a day - should I give that up?

I met Lad only once.  For me, he was not only loveable, but instantly loveable.  That's how I remember him.  I'm glad I didn't have to go through what you went through.  But as i said at the beginning, I have indeed been through it.  There is no remedy.  

So I can't comment on Lad. I have no idea. But maybe second guessing yourself is always a losing proposition. Ask the expert! :-)