Sunday

I wrote my pastor last night telling him I probably wouldn't be in church today because of my dog's passing.
I'm still a bit of a train wreck here, I am going to miss that dog terribly.

He wrote back and told me how he had to put his Golden Retriever down a few years back and that it was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do - and then told me he would see me in church tomorrow, which is now today of course.  Maybe, maybe I will go, but I woke up this morning, looked over at her empty bed and started all over again.  I don't really like showing that kind of emotion in front of people, going to church may be a bit much.

I was thinking about the drive to the animal hospital last night.  I remembered thinking: if they tell me I have to put that dog down, I am not ready for that.  I can't do that today. The whole situation changed in that little room, with her laying there, breathing semi-heavy - apparently she had fluid around the lungs as well according to their ultrasound - just laying there.  I have been fighting for this dog's life for 2-1/2 weeks now and when the conversation came up about putting her down, my mind changed at that point.

How much longer am I going to go through this mental draining?  Feeding her with a turkey baster and attempting to get fluids down her throat and worrying about her while I was at work and seeing her yesterday - barely able to walk.  It was the right thing to do, yes, but that doesn't make it somehow easier. But it was time, she wouldn't have lasted much longer, anyway.    I was a bit surprised that my crying - I couldn't contain it in that room - was getting the doc teary eyed, too.   It did make it a little easier that the person that was going to inject the drug into Coco's veins to put an end to her life was not somehow detached and unemotional about the passing of an animal, which many people think is stupid that you would have the same kind of emotional reaction as you might have with the passing of an actual human.

That's it for me today.  There isn't really anything else for me to talk about, as I don't really care about anything else right now.  I am sure that will change by tomorrow or soon enough, but for today, I am going to get up the pics of my dog and remember the good times that we had.

Editing this one:  They had all these options of what to do with the body.   Euthanasia and take the body home - no thanks.  The ground around here is too rocky, it would take days to dig a hole that deep.  Cremate - but don't get the ashes.  I thought about them taking my dog's body and throwing it into a trash can or cremating her body and doing the same thing.  No, not this time.  Cremate and get the ashes in an urn - with urns apparently going up and up in price.  Thanks, I'll take the plastic container one.  I don't want to KEEP her ashes, I just don't want them ending up in a landfill somewhere.  She loved the great outdoors and that's where those ashes will go.  I will take them up to the property in the mountains and release them over a portion of the land that is unused and unusable and on the adjacent property - which is the Tonto National Forest.  I think that fitting. She absolutely loved it up there, running and follicking around in the woods and having a grand old time.

ben