My sincere sympathies and condolences go out to you.
It is so sad when you lose your best companion, but you know that you have to do your best for them and that is what you did.
Thanks, I think my wifeās unspoken ambition is to parade Gigi around the Marais one morning and then lunch at a resto where the dog gets her own chair.
5 Likes
Make sure you have painted her nails, and she is attired in haute couture, otherwise wonāt get a seat! We popped into a pet shop in the Marais to buy a new leadā¦and backed out rapidly having been blinded by bling (and the price tags). Cruftās best of breed counts for nothing if you arenāt dressed correctly.
1 Like
My cat is okay with the vet if heās with us (most memorable occasion was when they said theyād had to wait for him to stop purring in order to listen to his breathing) but Iāve already decided to pay for a vet home visit should he need the last rites. As much for me as for him š„²
2 Likes
My hooligans are all KC registered descended from champions but they donāt seem to have any inkling of their lineageā¦
Are you talking about the wife or the dog? Both?
1 Like
Thank you for the kind words
1 Like
Thank you Jane. Everybody is so kind in their replies. I guess we all understand what it is to lose a pet.
Condolences, we all felt like that about Nanna who died aged 16 and a half leaving an enormous lab/pointer shaped hole in our lives.
9 Likes
Iām so sorry for your grief. My dogs are my life, reading your sad words makes me hug them all the harder. (Which they put up with.). 
2 Likes
My friends dog also called Nana, a Spanish sheepdog, has just had to be put to sleep. I feel that she left it later than we would have done in the circumstances.
A pet is a soul we love. 
. There is no solace for grief but time. I wish you well. Sx
3 Likes
Thank you Susannah, I really appreciate your kind message.
That is so grim 
She is a lovely person, but, strangely, she never plays with her animals.
I think she misses out on so much.
But having just been through the process itās a very tough decision to make. A living being relies on you to say when enough is enough !
3 Likes
We made this decision 16 months ago for our big boy Dylan.
We knew him inside out and realised that it was time to say goodbye. He had been under treatment for a week or two but he was no longer the Dylan we knew and as he looked at us he seemed to be telling us that he wanted peace.
I took him to the vets and said my goodbyes.
An hour later we were sat at home when the phone rang, it was our vet telling us that she had taken it upon herself to take a blood test and as a result she thought Dylan might recover. It was quite a shock to us knowing that our big boy was still alive when we had condemned him to euthanasia.
We raced back to the vets and Dylan came home. For two days he was much the same and on the sunday evening he ate his first good meal of yorkshire pudding and meat gravy, his favourite. He still had that sad wanting look in his eyes and the following morning he died in my arms.
Vets are very clever people but will never no an animal like its owner does.
6 Likes
Better a week too early than a day too late, I think. Too many people are sentimental and make it all about them rather than the welfare of a 4-footed family member. We owe them a decent life and that means a decent death. I wish it were the same for people.
10 Likes
And when it is your own dog itās not always easy to see that. I had the most precious of rescue Airedales, Smudge, who had been desperately maltreated. He came to us physically in a bad way and I spent most of the rest of our time together finding ways to keep him as healthy as possible, including nursing him through the night he nearly died with tick fever by sleeping in the kitchen next to him and using a pipette to get water and manuka honey inside him every hour. He lived, but gradually went downhill over the following six months as his immune system was not strong enough.
A friend saw me slowly, slowly walking with him one day and the next time we met she talked about when itās time to let them go. Our vet came to us so he was comfortable in the back of our car. He grumbled when he left me and even now, I still wonder was it really time?
2 Likes