It's just a dog.

[dan_pdx]

Stuck, I'm so sorry to hear about Wally. It sounds like he had a great life with you, and you gave him the grace we'd want for ourselves if we had late stage / inoperable cancer.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Well, I'm not feeling suicidal today. I do keep thinking I have to let him out when I wake up. I keep expecting to see him when I look up. I sat on his spot in the yard last night. I didn't feel anything though. He just feels... gone.
I wish I knew this was coming. I don't think I could have saved him, I just think maybe I could have prepared myself better. I was starting to think about him dying, but I figured I had another year or 2 before he just didn't wake up one morning.
My dad gets in tonight. So that's good.

[dan_pdx]

I'm glad to hear you're in a better headspace today. We said goodbye to our dog in the spring and I understand what you're going through. The acute stage of grief won't last forever, hope you can keep your head up and think of all the good times you had with Wally.

[powdrhound]

There can’t be one of us that hasn’t felt like we were failing our pet when we made the decision.
But you don’t. It’s just part of the cycle of life.


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[muted reborn]

I bought some shitty Chinese dog treats, from a fancy grocery store, thinking all the reports about shitty Chinese dog treats was solved ten years ago. Pretty damn sure I killed my dogs feeding them, both had similar kidney failure that killed them and they were pretty sick after eating the treats. Also I didn't realize one stopped eating for weeks because the other finished her food, and should have brought her in to a vet sooner but was struggling to get an appointment during COVID. Shoulda just gone to the ER and not internet diagnosed her. She should have lived another 5-7 years. Other dog was old already.

So don't feel guilty like I do, ha. You can always do worse!

[stuckathuntermtn]

You know what's kind of weird? The Humane Society did the cremation. The vet's office is basically across the parking lot. They just called and told me I could come pick him up, and I want to right now, but I better wait till my dad gets here. That's a high speed road and it wouldn't be good to drive it at 70mph by myself in tears.
On Friday, I asked if I could carry him there. I was told it didn't work that way or whatever. It bothers me because for some reason, it seemed right. Like closing a circle. I got him there one July day in 09. I wanna say it was within a couple weeks of moving here from my weird 2 years in Bozeman.
It wasn't where he was from, it wasn't his home, he wasn't even there much more than 48 hours, but it was almost 14 years ago to the day that we found each other there and it would have been a little like carrying him home. Or at least it would have been like escorting his body on its final trip.

I pressed the button that cremated the woman who was like my grandmother while holding hands with her adult children. (I was barely an adult at the time, and some of them were already quite old) so I could have handled taking him on that last trip. He was so light at the end so carrying him would have been easy.
He was very light because he was shrinking as he got older and hadn't had much of an appetite. I just figured it was all the heat and smoke. I think that's made him lose it before. I wish I'd known what it really was if only so I would have been less stern with him about his food. I don't think I could have done anything to save him, but I do think I could have treasured our remaining time together more and prepared myself.

And you know what pisses me off? 2 of my oldest friends haven't bothered to come by. They only had to give me a hug and leave. One of them doesn't even live a mile away. Somehow my dog dying at 5:30pm on a Friday wasn't convenient enough, I guess?
Oh, and today I donated his remaining food and joint pills to the foodbank where I volunteer. Someone who needs it will use it. That was actually what I was doing on Friday. My shift 10-1 helping people check out. I started there after my brother died. Then I came home and found him dying on the floor. I guess no good deed goes unpunished, huh?

[stuckathuntermtn]

I put some of his ashes in the river today. I wanted to do more of them, but I didn't want to have a Big Lebowski type situation going on.
They gave me his remains in a nice box and a clay heart with a paw print.
Inside the box his ashes were just in a ziplock bag. That's it. That's all. 14 years of the best friend I ever had and he's a bag of dust.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Here he is. Maybe the first morning together. He was 7 months old and already over 40lbs. They told me he was 9 months. The other picture is not quite a month ago. I guess I should have taken a few more.

[bmg97]

Man I hate when this thread gets bumped. Sorry for your loss.

[liv2ski]

Stuck, losing a dog is the hardest thing I have ever dealt with. I am still haunted by Shadow's passing and after Kava died, I could not discuss him for years without crying. They can really get into our hearts like nothing else. I sure have never cried over a human (I know, I suck) like I have a dog or cat. It is ok for you to have a lot of grief now. Maybe down the road you adopt a new best buddy and the hole in your heart will get much smaller.
Take care...

[Harry]

Stuck: I’m very sorry to hear about Wally. You gave him a great life, and at the end he needed you to do the right thing. And you did it, ending his suffering. You did the right thing by Wally, don’t second guess that. My advice, go volunteer at the Humane Society. Lots of good animals end up there, they need love right now, just like you do.

[Kevo]

So sorry, Stuck. Thanks for giving Wally such a good life.

[ticketchecker]

Sorry Stuck. They depend on us for everything, including making the hard choice. It’s the last solid we do for them. Peace bro


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[muted reborn]

Inside the box his ashes were just in a ziplock bag. That's it. That's all. 14 years of the best friend I ever had and he's a bag of dust.

huh, mine came back as dust too but with big pieces of bone, part of an ear, and most of the tail.

[irul&ublo]

Sorry Stuck. They depend on us for everything, including making the hard choice. It’s the last solid we do for them. Peace bro


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That. It’s the final kindness you give them in a life full of kindness. RIP to yours and my guys Alex, Schultz, Cosmo, Samson and my girl Carly.

[stuckathuntermtn]

huh, mine came back as dust too but with big pieces of bone, part of an ear, and most of the tail.

WHAT?

[stuckathuntermtn]

My vet sent me a personalized hand written sympathy card. I was even able to decipher some of the handwriting. Amazing.

[liv2ski]

This thread

[Supermoon]

Fiona Apple in an email cancelling some tour dates:

“It's 6pm on Friday, and I'm writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet. I'm writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later.

Here's the thing.

I have a dog, Janet, and she's been ill for about 2 years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She's almost 14 years old now. I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then — an adult, officially — and she was my kid.

She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.

She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders.

She's almost 14 and I've never seen her start a fight, or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She's a pacifist.

Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact. We've lived in numerous houses, and joined a few makeshift families, but it's always really been just the two of us.

She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.

She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me, all the time we recorded the last album.

The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she's used to me being gone for a few weeks, every 6 or 7 years.

She has Addison's Disease, which makes it more dangerous for her to travel, since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.

Despite all this, she's effortlessly joyful & playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago. She is my best friend, and my mother, and my daughter, my benefactor, and she's the one who taught me what love is.

I can't come to South America. Not now. When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference.

She doesn't even want to go for walks anymore.

I know that she's not sad about aging or dying.

Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That's why they are so much more present than people.

But I know she is coming close to the time where she will stop being a dog, and start instead to be part of everything. She'll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.

I just can't leave her now, please understand. If I go away again, I'm afraid she'll die and I won't have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.
Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes just to decide what socks to wear to bed.

But this decision is instant.

These are the choices we make, which define us. I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love & friendship.

I am the woman who stays home, baking Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend. And helps her be comfortable and comforted and safe and important.

I need to do my damnedest, to be there for that.

Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I've ever known.

When she dies.

So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and I am revelling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel. And I'm asking for your blessing.
I'll be seeing you.

Love,
Fiona”

[BmillsSkier]

What a nice tribute.

[Mustonen]

Always liked Fiona Apple. I like her more now.

[riser4]

I'm a little weirded out by people who wear socks to bed. Otherwise, yes.

[mcski]

Always liked Fiona Apple. I like her more now.

This.

[riser4]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/21/enter...cli/index.html

[scrublover]

Not at the bridge yet, but we have maybe a couple weeks. The last week led to going in for a checkup this morning, whereupon they discovered an enourmous splenic mass. Fuck. Princess Lumpy is living up to her knickname. We've already decided againsta nything invasive. Lily is nearly 14, and we're not going to put her through that. The minute she stops eating/drinking/bathrooming/wanting to go for her walks or seems otherwise too uncomfortable, we have a very good vet who will come to the house. I can deal with patients dying all damn day long, but this fucking hurts. I should have taken more pictures when she was younger.