Preparing myself before making a heartbreaking decision!!!

29 May 2011 2 Comments

by Linda in death of a loved one, grief counseling, love, Love and the passing of a pet, spiritual growth Tags: love of our pets, passing of a pet, pets

My Boy now in heaven

I am writing this now in preparation for making one of the most heartbreaking and unselfish decisions of my life because I am unwilling to watch my baby boy suffer. We have been together for close on 13 years, and through some of the hardest times of my life.  He adopted me (he just showed up on my doorstep one day), approximately 6 months after my husband died.  He sat on my husband’s grave for long periods of time even though they never met, at least not in this lifetime.

I knew it would come one day but nothing can really prepare you for this.

My beautiful boy Ben has reached the time of his life where he is suddenly old!!

Over the past few days his arthritis has flared up to the extent that he is finding it very difficult and tiring to walk.  We have been visiting the pond most of the time now, (he is too lame to walk as far as the river these days), but even in doing that he has to stop and take rests here and there.  It is so painful for me to see him limping along when not so long ago he was trotting along the street  like a young pup even though he is approximately 14 years old.

I am planning a visit to the vet in a couple of days, hoping to get him some acupuncture treatments.  In the meantime I am feeding him a cocktail of holistic, herbal remedies, which unlike most dogs he eats the pills or whatever straight out of the dish.  Some of which I know for a fact taste awful.  He just chews up the pills and sucks up liquid medicine like it was food!!!  I’ve never seen any animal do this before.  (It sure beats having to drop it down his throat).

This will be a short post but cathartic for me.  It is helping me adjust and accept what I am going to have to do, if I am lucky, maybe in a few months, otherwise sooner.

I have cried and cried, the tears fall as I type this, but I know it will help me when that awful moment arrives.

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“Once upon a time there was a young dog  who decided all by himself that he didn’t want to stay with the family he had been born to.  He had lots of brothers and sisters and was never allowed inside the house.  One day he decided to look for a new home. 

He found the home of an older lady just up the hill who had recently lost her husband and was lonely;  he just showed up by the front door one morning  just in time for the lady to arise from her sleep.  She looked at him through the screen door; he was all excited, butt wagging (he didn’t have a tail) and smiling a big smile.  The lady invited him in but he was a bit wary at first, though it didn’t take long before he decided it was safe and entered the home.

This was the beginning of a long relationship between the lady and the dog.   The following morning she took him for a walk to the local store  on a leash.  On their arrival back home there was a telephone call from a young girl who called herself Terri.  She said that she had seen us walking;  her and her parents had been the dog’s owner before he decided to look for a new one – that she had called the dog “Karma”.  The lady caught her breath in anticipation of what the girl was going to say – she needn’t have worried, Terri was a nice girl and told the lady it was OK, that she could keep him, she said “he chose you”.

The lady named the dog Ben

The dog was very special ; the ashes of the lady’s husband were buried under a tree on her property and that was where Ben chose as his spot, he sat there day after day, hour after hour for several months.

He was a daredevil – he made friends with  everyone he met.  Quite often one of his siblings would visit (they just lived down the road from us).  When that happened they would venture out together, who knows where?  All the lady knew was that frequently she got a telephone call in the early hours of the morning from a stranger asking if she had lost a dog.  The calls came from all over the area, Cliff Castle Casino in Camp Verde, Cornville and all sorts of places.  The stranger on the telephone always brought him back.   Sometimes Ben and his sibling would just go visit the creek because he would come back soaking wet. 

He was such a happy-go-lucky dog, always smiling, always ready to befriend new people.

It is now 13 years later;  the lady and Ben have been inseparable – they moved from the desert property that Ben had adopted her at.  He really didn’t care as long as he was with his owner although he didn’t care for the fences.  He was used to open range so that he could come and go as he pleased, although he was much older now and a little arthritic.  His hearing was also impaired although he didn’t seem to care about that.

Now he is unable to walk properly!!! he is getting an X ray today but it doesn’t look good.

This may be the end of the road for Ben.  He has been and of course still is the most wonderful dog, inside and out.

The lady is preparing herself for the worst

The lady is me”.

After several weeks of reprieve, Ben was feeling a lot better having been given some anti inflammatory medicine, he is now worse again, so much so that he can hardly put his leg down onto the ground.  The time has come as I knew it would and I have to do it quickly.  I can hardly stand to watch him and he is not happy now, I see that.  Sharing all of this with all of you helps me.

In the next few days my Ben will be in doggy heaven – he has had a wonderful life.

The fateful day came on or around July 11; I just could not bring myself to let him go on any longer.  He had at last lost the zest for life.  A very kind neighbor took me and Ben to the vet to be put out of his misery. We brought his body home, dug a hole and buried my baby boy in it.  It was almost the hardest day of my life.

However a few days later a friend took me to the local animal shelter and there I fell for a little girl, beagle/spaniel.

I could not imagine living without a dog in my life so I adopted her.  She is a sweet little girl, just about 1 yr old; her name is Gracie and completely unlike my Ben.

She will never be Ben, no dog ever could be for me, but she is good company.

My new little friend

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