My dog died.

Well, the truth is that I put him down, or more correctly, I had the vet do it. I curled up on the floor beside and petted him as he went.

He was my loyal friend who saved my life. I am crying as I think of it. It happened this morning after a night of repeated seizures when I could only hold him and tell him he was a good boy.

I've never felt so helpless.

There's a 24 emergency vet, we took him in the early hours, came back after they called this morning with their test results.

We got to take him for a short walk. He wasn't comfortable. Part of it must have been the room, it was purpose built for this situation. He must have sensed our agony, and the agony of the countless others, human and loyal companions, who had been there before.

I've cried more for him than for my dad.

I hope he is in the 'dog and cat heaven' that my folks told me about as a kid. And I hope he's waiting for me.

Heaven would be walking with him again, checking out new paths, watching him swim in lakes and rivers, running hard, chasing geese, coyotes, rabbits, and deer, and trotting up to me with his tongue hanging out.

I'm very sorry for your loss.

49greg said:

Well, the truth is that I put him down, or more correctly, I had the vet do it. I curled up on the floor beside and petted him as he went.

He was my loyal friend who saved my life. I am crying as I think of it. It happened this morning after a night of repeated seizures when I could only hold him and tell him he was a good boy.

I've never felt so helpless.

There's a 24 emergency vet, we took him in the early hours, came back after they called this morning with their test results.

We got to take him for a short walk. He wasn't comfortable. Part of it must have been the room, it was purpose built for this situation. He must have sensed our agony, and the agony of the countless others, human and loyal companions, who had been there before.

I've cried more for him than for my dad.

I hope he is in the 'dog and cat heaven' that my folks told me about as a kid. And I hope he's waiting for me.

Heaven would be walking with him again, checking out new paths, watching him swim in lakes and rivers, running hard, chasing geese, coyotes, rabbits, and deer, and trotting up to me with his tongue hanging out.

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So terribly sorry for your grief. It's so hard to lose anyone you love. You have my deepest sympathy. You will see him again.

Condolences and sympathy. It's agony for the human family member. Less so, I think, for the pet, which, from my experience in these situations, seems much more realistic about "it's time to go." And at this point a loving human companion can do no greater service for the pet than to let them go and ease their way out when "it's time to go."

Very sorry to hear that. They're so much better than people in many ways. I still have the ashes of my first German Shepherd.

That sitting there petting them while they fade is the worst. But they would be there for us.

He's in a better place, running around in fields chasing things and cocking his leg on every blade of grass and waiting for you to get there.

Condolences...my friend passed on not too long ago. She was...special. We still miss her to this day.

So sorry for you loss.

I keep thinking about a 'non erotic' piece I wrote/posted some time ago, it had a faithful dog going west in it. I think I did it about the time our pup started showing his age. The reality was nothing like my fiction.

It happens, the Onion has a poster about the pain of how a dog insinuates itself into a human life, then dies. It's true.

Why can't dogs, and cats, live as long as people.

My sons dog has cancer. The vet gives the dog 60 days maybe.

My son resuced the dog 8 years ago, and the dog was seriously abused.injured. The dog had 8 years of bliss. Shit happens and Heaven happens. All you can do is take care of your part.

NOIRTRASH said:

My sons dog has cancer. The vet gives the dog 60 days maybe.

My son resuced the dog 8 years ago, and the dog was seriously abused.injured. The dog had 8 years of bliss. Shit happens and Heaven happens. All you can do is take care of your part.

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We keep telling ourselves that he had ten plus years of great fun, and we saved him from some bad and painful months.

49greg said:

I keep thinking about a 'non erotic' piece I wrote/posted some time ago, it had a faithful dog going west in it. I think I did it about the time our pup started showing his age. The reality was nothing like my fiction.

It happens, the Onion has a poster about the pain of how a dog insinuates itself into a human life, then dies. It's true.

Why can't dogs, and cats, live as long as people.

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I have a story here, "For the Love of Pete," which parallels this (and which has been received well and was given a Green E) (https://www.literotica.com/s/for-the-love-of-pete).

It starts with a dog coming into a guy's life when a dog--and this particular dog--was the last thing the guy wanted and goes through to the inevitable end. On page 2 of this story, there's a vignette that comes essentially from my experience that provided the height (of many heights) of my regard for my father. The protagonist (taken from something I watched my father do) pulls into a vet's parking lot and sees a guy sitting in another car and crying (as I, later in life than this story, did as my wife took our cat into the vets for that last visit). He discovers that the guy has been sitting there for a long time not being able to take his dog in to have it euthanized. The protagonist takes that walk for him, which leads to a loving relationship. I can understand the owner not being able to take that last walk, but, for the pet's sake, someone has to.

My condolences. Really.

My favorite dog Big Jake was a surrogate child. He filled that space before I reunited with my daughter after a 30-year separation I thought would never end. (She was adopted-out at age two.) Jake's last years were painful and heroic and ended with euthanasia after a neighborhood goodbye party. My grief was worse than for most of the passing of my human family, save a murdered grandmother. Jacob was the son I never had, the last child I would never see again -- till my daughter reappeared.

A few years later, we had to put down our extraordinary cat Karmina, a sly HILF (Highly Intelligent Life Form). The vet said, "If you do everything right, this is how it ends." Our animal companions have short lives and become precious to us as our human families disintegrate and dissipate -- thanks, commercialism. A cousin spent over US$10k on his sick cat in its last year. Was he nutz?

We have no pets now. We travel too much, can't take them with us, can't leave them home, can't stay around to tend them. We'll have no more animal companions while we're ambulatory. Maybe then our pets will outlast us.

As a vet, I can tell you, I feel the pain and agony each time I have to put a beloved family member to sleep. I am truly sorry for your loss, I know it was a tough decision to make but it was the right and selfless thing to do! He can no longer feel pain and is now up there in doggy heaven doing all the things he loved to do.

So sorry, Greg. Nothing sucks quite like having to say goodbye to a faithful fur buddy.

49greg said:

I've cried more for him than for my dad.

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I understand that one all too well. I lost my pup of seventeen years and my ninety-year-old mother in the same six months, and like you, I mourned more and longer for dear Bandit.

49greg said:

Why can't dogs, and cats, live as long as people.

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There is a story floating around Facebook about a young boy of something like nine or ten, that heard the same thing from his dad when they had to put down the dog he had grown up with. This innocent but very wise child looked at his dad and simply said, "Maybe it's because dogs learn how to love and get along with everyone so much quicker than people."

.

You did the right thing. You gave your pooch a good life and a humane passing. Somewhere there is a dog in a cage that hopes you can do it all over again so it can have a better life too.

Our furbabies always seem to part with us to soon. But though they are gone from this world, they remain a part of us forever. I'm so sorry for your loss.

49greg said:

Well, the truth is that I put him down, or more correctly, I had the vet do it. I curled up on the floor beside and petted him as he went.

He was my loyal friend who saved my life. I am crying as I think of it. It happened this morning after a night of repeated seizures when I could only hold him and tell him he was a good boy.

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You have my sympathy.
I've been in the same position.
Come to think of it, it's the only time that my Grandson ever saw me crying; so unusual an event he went and told his Grandma.

Astonishing how hard those loses hit us, how deeply the love of a pet can curl into us. I mourned the lose of a dog two years ago. I mourn still. It's embarrassing, and somehow deeply affirming.

My sympathies.

We have cats rather than dogs and over the years we've needed to put a few to sleep. We have a good friend who is a vet tech, and when the need arises she comes to our house.

That lets the ailing cat slip away in the comfort of it's own home--sometimes on my wife's lap, which is usually where they prefer to be--and sometimes in the warm place where they usually sleep.

My sincerest sympathies; I've spent a lifetime losing my canine friends, and each loss took a little piece away from my heart, and then a new friend came and took his place, and my heart healed again. I have three huge black Labradors now, Nanook, Chinook, and Sitka, they're my boon companions, the world's smartest gun-dogs, and they guard and protect my wife like she's their prized possession. My home is littered with pictures and portraits of those who are gone, and reminders of the three who choose to live with me now (plus Lori's rescue pooch, Benny the Spanador), firesides for them to lie beside, warm kitchens for them to plead for treats in, like Labradors are supposed to do, and paddocks where they can pretend they're puppies when the day's work is done. I love my dogs, and I loved all the dogs I ever had, and I still miss them all keenly.


I love this quote from 'The Last Hero', by Terry Pratchett, on the subject of pets and Heaven:

"Few religions are definite about the size of Heaven, but on the planet Earth the Book of Revelation (ch. XXI, v.16) gives it as a cube 12,000 furlongs on a side. This is somewhat less than 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic feet. Even allowing that the Heavenly Host and other essential services take up at least two thirds of this space, this leaves about one million cubic feet of space for each human occupant- assuming that every creature that could be called ‘human’ is allowed in, and that the human race eventually totals a thousand times the numbers of humans alive up until now. This is such a generous amount of space that it suggests that room has also been provided for some alien races or - a happy thought - that pets are allowed.”

I remember that passage and I hope to God it's true.

Someone once asked that if I were elected king and could fund either (and only one!) research into a cure for cancer or to make dog's lives longer which would I choose? I'd shoot myself. Having lost a wife to cancer and having had to put down two dogs and losing a third it is an unsolvable question.

I'm very sorry for your loss, we lost one of our furry friends not to long ago as well.

sorry for your loss, it always hurts.

I am sorry to hear it. I've said goodbye to two dogs and it broke my heart both times.

Shankara recently started a dog appreciation thread over in BDSM Cafe: http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1394417&page=3

49greg said:

I keep thinking about a 'non erotic' piece I wrote/posted some time ago, it had a faithful dog going west in it. I think I did it about the time our pup started showing his age. The reality was nothing like my fiction.

It happens, the Onion has a poster about the pain of how a dog insinuates itself into a human life, then dies. It's true.

Why can't dogs, and cats, live as long as people.

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I am not an author on Lit, but I saw the title of the thread on the board and had to express my condolences. Hope that's OK.

I read a story once that was in Reader's Digest and it has since floated around the Internet. I'll share the gist of it.

A vet in a small town came to a home to see a sick dog. The dog, who'd been sick for a long time and was known to the vet, had cancer and was in the end stages. The vet told the family, including a little boy, that there was nothing that could be done for their pet, and the parents decided the merciful thing to do would be to have the dog put to sleep.

They were worried about how to explain to the little boy what had happened. It was the child who came up with the answer. "We're put on earth to learn how to love people and take care of each other and do good things, right?" the little boy asked his parents. They told him yes, that's what they believed. "Well," said the little boy, "dogs already know how to do that, so they don't need to live as long as us."

Gets me every time.

OP, I am so sorry to hear of your loss. I believe in the Rainbow Bridge, and I think your faithful friend will be there. Dogs (and all pets, really) are too good to not go to Heaven. And I agree - most of the time I don't think we deserve them. They're so much better than we are.