Goodbye, Tia.
Mar. 2nd, 2009 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pacificpikachuThank you so much to everyone who left a comment on the last post. I feel so fortunate to have friends like you guys. ♥
We put Tia down this morning. Dr. Schuff said that it was either neurological damage or cancer, and that we could have put her through a battery of tests but the chances were slim that she would ever be able to walk again regardless, and the tests would probably just tell us that the problems were too severe. She whined and whined all night (which broke my heart) and by the morning she could hardly even lift her head. I sat with her head in my lap in the car on the way there, and I stayed with her as she fell asleep before they put her down. I left the room when they gave her the final injection--because I had some memories from putting Lily down that haunted me, and I didn't want to go through that again--but I was with her until the moment that she fell asleep for the last time, petting her and telling her over and over again that she was a good girl. Mom stayed with her through all of it. The whole process was very peaceful.
Honestly... I'm in denial about it, I think. I just can't understand that she's gone except in fleeting moments where I understand it in little bits and pieces. It's going to be a while until I accept it all the way, and it's going to be extremely tough. It was just so sudden, and unexpected. I miss her so much already, and the parts of the house she frequented seem so empty and lonely. I've already cried myself into near sickness and I know the tears aren't anywhere close to being over.
But, ultimately, I feel good about her life. She had behavior problems, so it would have been so easy for her to have been put down long ago, without the happiness of having a family who loved her around her, and without having lived out her life. It was obvious that all she wanted in her life was to be with someone who wouldn't leave her. Her first family dumped her when she was five, and if we hadn't saved her I have few doubts that she would have been put down at the shelter due to her problems with other dogs. Instead she had five and a half years of sleeping on our beds with us, playing with Lily and Hana, and going on walks, and so I will never regret how she lived, nor how she died--she went peacefully, in her sleep, surrounded by those she loved, and she didn't have to suffer for very long.
The thought of never getting to see her again, though, never getting to pet her, snuggle with her, play with her, take her for walks... It's so, so hard. I feel like she'll still look in my bedroom door any minute, asking with her eyes to be let in, and wagging her tail when I tell her she's a good girl.
I'll probably be doing a more detailed post on her sometime in the next day or two.
We put Tia down this morning. Dr. Schuff said that it was either neurological damage or cancer, and that we could have put her through a battery of tests but the chances were slim that she would ever be able to walk again regardless, and the tests would probably just tell us that the problems were too severe. She whined and whined all night (which broke my heart) and by the morning she could hardly even lift her head. I sat with her head in my lap in the car on the way there, and I stayed with her as she fell asleep before they put her down. I left the room when they gave her the final injection--because I had some memories from putting Lily down that haunted me, and I didn't want to go through that again--but I was with her until the moment that she fell asleep for the last time, petting her and telling her over and over again that she was a good girl. Mom stayed with her through all of it. The whole process was very peaceful.
Honestly... I'm in denial about it, I think. I just can't understand that she's gone except in fleeting moments where I understand it in little bits and pieces. It's going to be a while until I accept it all the way, and it's going to be extremely tough. It was just so sudden, and unexpected. I miss her so much already, and the parts of the house she frequented seem so empty and lonely. I've already cried myself into near sickness and I know the tears aren't anywhere close to being over.
But, ultimately, I feel good about her life. She had behavior problems, so it would have been so easy for her to have been put down long ago, without the happiness of having a family who loved her around her, and without having lived out her life. It was obvious that all she wanted in her life was to be with someone who wouldn't leave her. Her first family dumped her when she was five, and if we hadn't saved her I have few doubts that she would have been put down at the shelter due to her problems with other dogs. Instead she had five and a half years of sleeping on our beds with us, playing with Lily and Hana, and going on walks, and so I will never regret how she lived, nor how she died--she went peacefully, in her sleep, surrounded by those she loved, and she didn't have to suffer for very long.
The thought of never getting to see her again, though, never getting to pet her, snuggle with her, play with her, take her for walks... It's so, so hard. I feel like she'll still look in my bedroom door any minute, asking with her eyes to be let in, and wagging her tail when I tell her she's a good girl.
I'll probably be doing a more detailed post on her sometime in the next day or two.
