I lost my dog tonight

[WhoisitnowRalph]

I can't quite believe it. She was 12, she's had spinal pain for years and lately the drugs she's been on long term just weren't cutting it. She's been so uncomfortable, getting very little restful sleep as she's up and down all night growling to herself, and in the last week she started doing it (jumping up in pain, pacing and growling) in the mornings as well as in the night.

I'd given her as much pain relief as I had available tonight then topped it off with tramadol, but she just couldn't sit or lie comfortably at all. DH and I have argued so often about when it would be time, as these issues have been around for a long time, but suddenly we just agreed that she'd had enough.

Vet had to give her 2 shots of sedative as she was super aggressive to the end, but she finally fell asleep in my arms with me and DH telling her that she was our best girl.

I feel absolutely wretched. Sorry if I don't comment for a while, I needed to write this out.

I made all the arrangements for her cremation this morning, settled all her bills, and was calm and serene. Then I went downstairs to gather up her things, had a good sniff of her harness and lay on the floor and wept.

I just can't imagine a life without her in it, even though she was a massive arsehole and hated everyone. What's the point of a house and a garden without my best girl. I miss her, I just want to touch her again.

Ok "wept" is a bit poetic, it was more ugly snotty open mouth sobbing really. Embarrassing.

I am so very sorry. There's no pain quite like it.

It's been a week since she died and I've carried on as normal. Been away for work, did my job, inbetween bouts of crying.

It got better every day. By Friday I could smell her harness without crying, and I was able to pack up her gear and donate it to the local dog warden for strays, and collect her ashes from the vet without breaking down.

But I feel like all I've been doing is pushing it away. DH has done his crying and won't talk about her any more, and interrupts me if I'm trying to talk to someone else about it. I keep looking from her pictures to her tiny parcel of ashes and I cannot conceive of the fact that her body is literally gone. She doesn't physically exist, her beautiful face and her eyes and her silly ears and her crappy shitty knackered spine don't exist anymore. I just want to touch her again but she has no body now, not even a cold dead one and I can't bear it.

I know I'm talking to myself and probably wallowing but it's alright, it's cathartic anyway.

I'm down to a very discreet weep in the car now, just a minute or so on the way to my destination and occasionally on the way home again. Doesn't last long and it's not as raw, I just feel a big emptiness when I think of her and the tears roll a little bit.

The rest of the time, I'm OK. I've ordered some canvas prints of her, and her ashes are currently positioned on a shelf so she can see the footpath outside through the living room window - something she was never permitted to do whilst alive as we were forced to keep the blinds permanently shut, due to her relentless obnoxious barking at the slightest movement (gobshite).

DH cooked a roast chicken for tea and we both solemnly looked down at the spot on the kitchen floor where she would have been waiting, patiently, for her share. Hot chicken was the only thing she would have sold her soul for, she didn't give much of a toss for anything else.

I miss you Gwimpy, my little bat-eared grouchy shithead. I hope you are running with Leon and Frankie, Roman and Juneau, Lucky and Max, and having a great time bossing them all around. I hope you have an endless supply of hot chicken, and that your back doesn't hurt anymore, and that you know we loved you.

Oh OP
I love the sound of her! What a character. I am so very sorry for your loss. She may have been a bit of a jerk from what I've read, but I've no doubt she knew she was loved and that she loved you too

I'm so sorry @WhoisitnowRalph 💐💐💐💐

Haha yep she was an arsehole Neron

My rufty tufty DH, uncharacteristically distressed the day after she died, wailed "She was a horrible dog, nobody liked her except for us!"

I do think she was misunderstood, she was quite fearful and found the world intimidating, and she managed her anxiety by being mean and aggressive and keeping everybody at a distance. I got bitten by her a few times, and she has attacked other dogs, bit someone very badly who knocked on the door, and actually grappled a toddler to the ground. She was horrible, difficult to manage, and was pretty much the main source of strife in my marriage!

But she was my child substitute and I protected her fiercely. She might have been vile but all she really needed was reassurance, and for that she would always rush to me. I keep worrying that she's at the bridge looking for me and I'm not there to comfort her.

I'm so sorry.

She was obviously so very loved - how lucky you were to have found one another.

I’m so sorry you’ve been crying into the void here! I don’t know how I missed your posts??

I’m crying now at the thought of you two looking down at her chicken watching spot!

You’re doing really well though, much better than I did/do. I wish I was more like you.

Cross posted Tarquin, thank you. Even the vet commented once or twice that she was lucky, as many would have given up on her psychological problems years ago! But we had her from 8 weeks old and she was my responsibility. It wasn't easy but I never gave up, not until the night she told us she'd had enough of being in constant pain.

Aww IncrediblySad it's ok. I'm wallowing, there are far worse things than losing a much loved pet - but I feel I can wallow discreetly over here.

Our first cooked chicken without her was tough! She'd have been making little hooting noises to remind us not to forget she was there.

Oh well, it is so painful isn’t it? But with time the pain eases and you start to feel better. I needed to put my 17 year old to so k sleep as he was really dying in front of my eyes, he was all full of energy and playfulness, didn’t look his age at all but he had dementia and became a bit of a handful in the last few months. I noticed he was struggling to get his back legs to sit and the vet check confirmed there was damage to his nerves and was gone within a week.

As sad as it is, that dog was the only constant in my life for all those years, plenty of moves, fertility problems, career changes, new kid, divorce, new life and he was always to my side.

I admit I find it very difficult to cry but for more than a month I continued filling his water bowl because someway it felt as if he was still around and wrong not to do it or I was so conditioned to do it. But filling the bowl became the dog equivalent of lighting a candle for a person who has left. Someway it made me feel a bit more peaceful to put it in a way.

I thought I would spread his ashes in a place he loved, his run around like mad place, but between one thing or another he has stayed at home for years. I don’t have his ashes in display, they are now stored with instructions for us to be sent to fly together after I die and I’m cremated.

I spent so many years dealing with his health problems that I convinced myself I didn’t want another dog. I lasted six months. The new one has a completely different personality, I love her as much even if we have a completely different relationship. She has healed a lot of the pain, is not a replacement to the irreplaceable but another little person in her own right.

I hope you find some comfort in the memories you have built together.

Thanks for your post Idiotindisguise - very comforting! I know what you mean about filling the bowl, although I couldn't actually bear to see it filled so I kept it out and empty for a few days - like she was just away from home and would be coming back.

But DH was struggling to see her things, so I gathered up everything and donated it. I kept a few bits - her lead and harness, the last toy I bought her (which she wasn't up to playing with), her hannibal muzzle, her favourite tiny tennis ball. I still give her harness a good sniff.

She had nerve damage after her accident and surgery, so she had some weakness in her back legs and terrible tremors for years. A vet behaviourist suggested her aggression was due to back pain (she effectively had brittle discs, and most likely some lesions on the spinal cord), so she started a regime of pain medication in 2015. We tweaked it many times when she had acute relapses and needed morphine, but she usually rallied and was back to her normal grotty self in time.

Over the last few months though, there was no acute episode but she was just uncomfortable all the time. She snapped at me a few times when I was lifting her or drying her feet, and she was constantly restless and couldn't settle, so something happened in there. Her whole demeanour changed, I could even see it in her facial expressions - she gave very meaningful looks, and on the last evening she was horribly agitated and kept staring desperately at me. I'd had yet another conversation with the vet about changing her medication again, but it suddenly became obvious that she was tired and done with everything.

We can't really get another dog for practical reasons...we are both out at work, and although she was used to it (it didn't start out like that, our circumstances changed) we couldn't impose that on a new dog. Sadly.

I said the same... then I found myself walking for an hour before work, riding home to walk her at lunch, and again for another hour before I went to bed... (for the record, I do not even enjoy walks! )