Today a week ago we were SO excited! Sadie was coming home tomorrow and we could be together and walk at the beach, behind the office the way she loved to do each afternoon-always nagging me to go, even when we couldn’t especially when we couldn’t–and the kitties would be so happy and all would be right with the world.
I hate that it wasn’t that way and now nothing is right with the world. Today I thought “hey-I’m not crying when I wake up! I’m at peace! wow!” and then…nope. I am reading about losing a beloved dog or cat, and there is help there-and no promises that all will be ok soon. Also a note from my sister in law and her husband was really good. They said basically that if you are feeling guilty and sorrowful, it is proof that you did it right-if you didn’t care you wouldn’t. It is the last great act of love for Sadie. Jay and Mary also and other friends have said about my feeling guilty that we really did the right thing and that she was suffering and we did this in love-and not to second guess ourselves. The advice I am reading all say that while guilt is absolutely what every caring pet owner feels who experiences euthanizing a darling, you best find a way to not keep doing it–it only makes it much much harder. And me, the guilt fairy forever. I want to talk to the doc and have a final appointment to talk about what happened. It didn’t go as I wanted, and I am actually realizing that we never said goodbye to her. I was so worried about her not being upset, and distracting her with her peanut butter jar-and the business office people who came in and had us fill out forms-FORMS REALLY!!!!??!–and the kid tech who burst in uninvited and unannounced who was upset and insisted on saying goodbye to Sadie-THAT helped–and Sadie having a moment of “I got to get out of here” while we were waiting for the vet and going to the door–was that her feeling her urge to pee, which she did regularly, even with the catheter in, or was she sensing what was about to happen and she was saying no? Oh man. I don’t know. I really hope not. Anyhow, it was not like our experience with Keiligh -here at home. peaceful and quiet and orderly and kind. When the vet came in, it was fine. But all the others and that we had to wait and I had to work to keep Sadie not anxious, etc–we didn’t say the words good bye. I told her over and over, Sadie I love you-you are such a great dog, a good girl, so great. i love you. Petting and stroking her constantly and telling her we loved her. I told her that we weren’t trying to trick her, we just couldn’t fix what was broken and we love you so much. But no goodbye. Did she get it? Did she know? After, when she was gone, the vet wanted to know if we wanted time with her body-I looked at Tim and he was so hurt and crushed and trying not to weep and I wanted to take care of him and he said no, so I said no, we don’t too. and we left after thanking vet people and crying with them. I don’t know if it would have helped-she was gone. it was just her beautiful shell lying there. we did with Maggie-but we had not known she was going to go when she went into surgery, and we had no other time with her.
If I could turn back the clock, I would have asked Tim if we could just continue talking to our vet the next day about this, and then taken more time to organize everything. Everything seemed like a crisis and we have to decide NOW-I don’t know.
A take away from this and recommendation to others-if at all possible, do it at home. we could have waited to arrange things and just kept her longer at the hospital with the catheter in maybe-we knew it wasn’t great for her to put it off and we were in agony after we had faced what we felt we had to do-just waiting until the afternoon was awful. For me, i was also worried about Tim and Suzie and Alec, knowing that the next day was a work day and that they would not have time to deal then so we better do it now when they have a Sunday to deal–but that was probably not right to be worried about that. If you can’t do it at home, do all the business stuff in advance before you spend time with your darling in a room. Tell the vet people that you want to control who is in the room with you and do it. That tech kid barging in on our time and grabbing Sadie and starring in her eyes so hard really bugged me.
I don’t know. I wanted it to be easy for Sadie. I guess it was-she fell asleep to us stroking her and saying we love you. The fact is that I don’t think we were capable of saying the words goodbye. Still can’t.
Well it is no good going over what we did and didn’t do- it is done. Sadie is not in pain and she is not feeling panicky all the time that she has to pee. She can bark anytime she wants, she can run without any arthritis, her feet don’t hurt her, her legs aren’t giving out on her, she can jump up on a couch or into a car no problem, she can eat anything and not get the runs, she can chew all the grass she wants. she can eat cat poop with no ill effects. she can run with maggs and kk all day and poke bug in the tummy anytime bug will let her. she can go indoors when she wants and be outdoors all day long, she can walk to the lighthouse and back without any pain. she can sleep without worry about needing to go out to pee all night. she can be happy and free all the time, and she knows how deeply we adore her and loved being her masters-haha. she was so the master. and I loved that. I loved her impishness-“crazy girl.” was what I would say to her and she would grin and bark some more, as we passed a house where maybe ONCE a dog had barked at her. she never forgot and loved loved LOVED to bark at those houses. I loved her to and I don’t care a bit if others didn’t. Dogs bark. Get over it. LET THEM.
I love you Sadie. All I want is for you to be so happy now. Are you? Can you let me know? That would be great.
Remembering Sadie 