To think that its just not bloody fair!

[LEMmingaround]

Dogs only live on average 12(?) years? This means i have sobbed my heart out already four times over lost dogs. It is genuine grief.

Am just sitting with one of my JRTs snuggled on my lap, he snuggles right into me - he was a rescue dog and about six months when he got him. I love him so much (as i do JRT1 who is 8) JRT2 is about 2 now - he was snuggling right up to me and putting his head into the crook of my neck, he does this lots, its like he can't get close enough he is a wuss and doesn't like being cold.

It then dawned on me that one day i'll be making that awful decision that most people who have ever owned a dog has had to make. For both of them :(

It is simply not fair - that is all.

(yes i know there are worse things going on the world and im getting upset over something that is, please God, a fair few years away, although i lost my last dog when he was only 4 to bone cancer, and its all a bit selfish and pathetic, but i honestly felt sick to my stomach at the thought of the inevitable)

The only way DH and I are ourselves feel better about that (when it happens to us- our dog is 7) and about the dogs we have lived and lost, is that at least because of their shorter lifespan, we are able to see them through till the end. Instead of obviously them outliving us and living on unloved and uncared for

"Loved and lost", even

Old jrt was pts before Christmas. He was sixteen. I miss him but its not too bad as I still have fat jrt, she's twelve this year. Can't imagine there being no dog though.

Very soppy I know, but they even look like my dogs.

My mum still has our family pet, a small chihuahua cross terrier (not sure which!) who is now 17 and a half years old...any day soon I am expecting to go to mums and find the dog bed empty :(

You're right OP, it is so unfair. I'm a real animal lover and have loved & lost many pets, but will always own animals. It's heartbreaking losing them, but still absolutely worth the years of love, laughter and loyalty they give.

My cat is an absolute horror. She has a leg fetish - she once wounded my right leg so badly it took three months and five courses of nuclear strength antibiotics to heal it up. She hates everyone except me and everyone hates her - definitely pussy-no-mates. My grandkids are terrified of her and I have to keep cat and kids apart when they visit.

She's a beastly, treacherous animal and she's nine years old. I love her to bits, of course, and dread being without her!