I made the decision to have my dog put to sleep last week. It was the hardest decision I have probably had to ever make; apart from, maybe, when I was seven years old and had to choose which dog I wanted to keep from the litter. I chose the neurotic one with the silly face who liked hugs.
I did good.
She was rubbish at down stays and it stopped us from getting a Bronze obedience award when I was eight, and she ate my dinner once, but she cherished my Pingu plushie that I gave her and she made an awesome Rudolph when we once entered a fancy dress competition. She was awesome.
To slowly watch her get less happy and do less dog things made me sad. She used to enjoy rolling around on her back snorting and then just lying there with her tongue hanging out to the side and her teeth on show where her lips all relaxed. It was the stupidest thing ever but she did it purely for her own enjoyment. And she used to make her strange happy sound when I rubbed her ears, but when I came home for Christmas this year she had stopped doing those things. I could have waited longer before deciding it was time, but I would have only been waiting for her to get worse and that didn't appeal to me at all. She tried to eat my advent calendar the night before she went. She didn't die sad. Not completely.
She may have been a dog but she was most certainly a friend. And I miss her. And I am so desperately trying to keep it together but I am most definitely failing.
I don't quite know what to do without her.