Hello @Helplessandheartbroke and all you lovely people.
I started catching up having got back from hospital today but got to the part about the dog with no eyes. I want you to know that although some animals can cope really well with one eye, both is a completely different of fish. My grandparents’ cat was saved after being bitten in the head by a badger and once home, having lost an eye and an ear, she crawled under the sofa and didn’t come out for weeks, a previously happy, lazy lap cat basically shaking with fear and hiding. Physically the rest of her was fine and viable but she was suffering the whole time. They don’t need to even be terminal or in physical pain for it to be the kindest thing to put them to sleep.
Back to being the cat person interloper… fairly unpleasant stay in hospital for a week where they patched me up as best they could, which wasn’t very well as my legs gave way at the top of the stairs and I slid down on my back, which hurt horribly. I was missing Velvet the whole time and feel very lucky to have her around. However, my mother isn’t really warming to her even now and is always comparing her to our late old cat who has been gone for a year.
Speaking of which, the catching them out of the corner of your eye, not wanting to put their stuff away, activities and places reminding you of them, it’s all part of the denial stage of grief and with pets it’s almost always extra difficult because the last time you see them they could almost be sleeping. It does pass but it’s so difficult, your brain takes a while to adjust to the gap in your life and it’s totally normal, though really painful, for it to last ages.