Hard Decisions are infact, Horrible.
Today I had to make a horrible decision. Okay so last night I really had to and by this morning it was finalized.
Let me take this back a few years...
Eleven years ago my mother and I bought sister puppies from a breeder. (The second and third dogs ever gotten from a breeder I might add. We are very much an “Adopt don’t shop” family. ) Bringing then home my mother tells me that she would like for them both to have a litter of puppies and then spay them. Why, I still to this day don’t know why I listened to her but I had no money and was a child, so I did as I was told. (I also hadn’t gone through the biggest changes of my life yet so I was a completely different human then.) I now wish I had pestered her more about spaying them because as they got older they had their health issues, or well at first it was just my mother’s dog, but slowly mine followed suit.
Which brings us to a week or so ago when my mother calls me with chilling news. “You dog has cancer. We were going to remove her growth but we can’t because it could kill her. We could have weeks or we could have days, so you should come see her. “ No one wants to hear that news. Turns out being spayed could have reduced her chances of cancer. According to the vet cancer is very common in this breed of dog but it’s more so common once their hormones change. Needless to say when my mother told me this I wanted to scream.
Also you maybe wondering “Why didn’t you have the dog if she was yours?” Well remember how I mentioned that we got siblings? Well I was still home then so the two dogs grew up side by side. Separation wasn’t ideal by the time I got my own home and could have her.
Anyway, so last week the SO and I went up and spent the afternoon with her and she acted like the picture of perfect health. I’m talking happy attitude, exuberant energy, eating and drinking all the foods. Just the happiest of pups, just one with a growth on her body. Everything was good until my mother calls me yesterday (or well by the time this posts it will be a few days prior so we shall say Thursday) and tells me that she’s gotten worse and the growth has ulcerated and she is bleeding a lot and it isn’t looking good so I say I’ll come back up Friday after the SO gets off work and spend the rest of the day with her because I can’t make a judgment call without firsthand knowledge. Mother agrees and that was that, or so I thought. She calls me back that night while I’m painting and tells me that it’s even worse and it’s the worst she’s seen and that she doesn’t think she will last the weekend and that I had better come earlier than planned so I can have more time with her. At this point I’ve tried to turn my emotions off so I numbly make plans to get there earlier.
Today I get my father to pick me up and I come home to see my dog. She has a tired smile on her face but wants to run in the back yard anyway, so off we go immediately. I watch her lope about sniffing here, chasing a bird over there, just being her usually happy go lucky self. Then the breeze shifts and I am hit with the smell, it’s a smell I know all too well because after all I once worked in a big box pet store. It’s the smell of death. If you’ve never smelled it I pray you never have too because those of us who have smelled it knows it sticks in your nose of a while, even if you change clothes. It’s there, that horrible awful scent.
That’s when I knew, I knew I could not make her stay when her body was literally shutting down. I knew that she was being her happy go lucky self for our sakes. That was when I agreed with my mother. We had to let her go. The thought tore my heart to pieces. She’s the second dog I had from puppyhood that I would have to send over the Rainbow Bridge, but I refused to do it with tears in my eyes because I knew she would just try to make me feel better.
So she got her cheeseburger and her puppichino that we normally wouldn’t give her due to her tendency to gain weight easily. Boy did she go to town. We made paw print impressions together and we made a lap around the yard together. All things she loved.
Of course being my dog she tried to fight it. Both the cancer and the medicine. I never said she wasn’t stubborn. Loyal, stubborn, and hardheaded.
Truly my dog.
Letting her go is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I know it was the right decision but my heart is wounded right now.
I will eternally love you Kaith Artemis. Watch over me please.
Hard decisions SUCK.