Preparing for a Pet's Death

We have a wonderful dog who predates our kids -- well,
we got Mollie from the pound when DD was in utero, although
we didn't know it yet. Mollie is a Golden/Chow/Border
Collie mix and has been a wonderful companion. And boy!
is she soft!

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~scottl/pictures/old/MolliePuppyDog.jpg

Anyway, Mollie is failing. I woke up today to find
what my Mother used to call dog dirt all over the living
room carpet, and Mollie was scarcely able to walk. (She
has big lumps -- presumably tumors -- on both sides of
her hips that have been interfering pretty severely with
her mobility). She ate none of her breakfast, and threw
up on her bed and is now holding her head at an angle.
Well, this could be a reaction to the chicken liver we gave
her yesterday -- her stomach is very intolerant to rich foods.
Or it could be the beginning of the end, and a euthanization
could be in the future for us sooner rather than later.
I'm gonna try to find a vet that will come to the house and
do the deed there, and then take Mollie away. Everyone
will be a wreck, I'm sure.

If anyone has experience with this, and how their kids
responded, I'd like to hear it.

Thanks.

Scott DD 10 and DS 7 and Mollie McButter PuppyDog, somewhere
between 12 and 15 in human years

In ,
Scott Lindstrom wrote:

*If anyone has experience with this, and how their kids
*responded, I'd like to hear it.

I usually recommend this to my clients and neighbors:



http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...1829-7871216?v
=glance
or
http://tinyurl.com/p29t

--
hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net
"uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est."
not-so-newly minted veterinarian-at-large

In article ,
Scott Lindstrom wrote:
Or it could be the beginning of the end, and a euthanization
could be in the future for us sooner rather than later.
I'm gonna try to find a vet that will come to the house and
do the deed there, and then take Mollie away. Everyone
will be a wreck, I'm sure.

If anyone has experience with this, and how their kids
responded, I'd like to hear it.

I'm so sorry to hear about Mollie's declining health. I don't have
experience with this as a parent, but I do as a child. My parents lied
to us and said they found the dog dead on the floor one morning. I
don't think you would do this, but in case you are considering it,
please don't do that to your kids. I've always felt betrayed since
finding out the truth. Your kids are old enough to understand the
truth, and I'm sure you'll get lots of replies here about how to go
about presenting it to them. And I think it would be *easier* to
handle the dog's death with preparation and the understanding of how
much pain etc. she was in than to just think the died "of old age" one
morning out of the blue with no preparation for it.

Good luck!

--Robyn

In article ,
Scott Lindstrom wrote:

This part of your post struck a chord:

and is now holding her head at an angle.

Google for Canine Vestibular Disease. Executive summary:
The dog's inner ear doesn't function for a couple of days.
Are her eyes rolling? That's apparently a good indication.

You may be able to nurse her through it.

--
My real email address is
mcintosh ##at## research ##dot## telcordia ##dot## com

"Scott Lindstrom" wrote in message
...

We have a wonderful dog who predates our kids -- well,
we got Mollie from the pound when DD was in utero, although
we didn't know it yet. Mollie is a Golden/Chow/Border
Collie mix and has been a wonderful companion. And boy!
is she soft!

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~scottl/pictures/old/MolliePuppyDog.jpg

Our dog died this summer. We did what we thought was the right thing, but
we ended up dragging it out longer than we should have, and instead of dying
peacefully, Cindy was probably in a great deal of pain and very frightened
for the last several hours of her life. Don't put things off. If she's
suffering, do something about it quickly.

DH got Cindy as a puppy, and she was already 6 or 7 years old when we got
married.

Our at-home kids are of very different age than yours. Our little boy (just
under 4 when this happened) wanted to know immediately if we could get a new
dog. We had told him in advance that Cindy was sick, and that she was going
to die. He very quickly adopted a little stuffed dog as our "new dog,"
named it Dogspots, and told us that Dogspots would be a good dog, and that
he wouldn't die.

Older son (17) didn't really ever bond much with Cindy - he was old enough
when DH and I married that he wasn't much of a dog person. But he was sad
to see her go.

I still sometimes see her out of the corner of my eye. It was a couple of
months before I went to bed without thinking I needed to let her out, or in.
Cindy always freaked out during thunderstorms, so I always think of her when
it thunders outside. I can leave a loaf of bread on the counter without
worrying it will get eaten, but I have to sweep the floor more frequently
after cooking, as Cindy isn't here to take care of the crumbs.

I did a web page after Cindy died, and I found the process very therapeutic
http://webpages.charter.net/laporters/ There is a story called "The Rainbow
Bridge" at http://www.petloss.com/poems/maingrp/rainbowb.htm. It's kind of
hokey, but I found it very moving after Cindy died.

I've never had a dog before Cindy. My cat died when I was 10, and I was
heartbroken for about three days. I cried for hours and hours after I found
her. But pretty soon, I got over it. Within a week, I was fine. Cindy
memories have stuck around far longer. I don't know if it's because she's a
dog, or because I'm 43 and not 10.

Mollie is a beautiful dog. I'm sorry.

Best,
Ann

Robyn Kozierok wrote:
In article ,
Scott Lindstrom wrote:

Or it could be the beginning of the end, and a euthanization
could be in the future for us sooner rather than later.
I'm gonna try to find a vet that will come to the house and
do the deed there, and then take Mollie away. Everyone
will be a wreck, I'm sure.

If anyone has experience with this, and how their kids
responded, I'd like to hear it.


I'm so sorry to hear about Mollie's declining health. I don't have
experience with this as a parent, but I do as a child. My parents lied
to us and said they found the dog dead on the floor one morning. I
don't think you would do this, but in case you are considering it,
please don't do that to your kids. I've always felt betrayed since
finding out the truth. Your kids are old enough to understand the
truth, and I'm sure you'll get lots of replies here about how to go
about presenting it to them. And I think it would be *easier* to
handle the dog's death with preparation and the understanding of how
much pain etc. she was in than to just think the died "of old age" one
morning out of the blue with no preparation for it.


Oh, they know Mollie is not long for the world, as we've
discussed it a lot so far. It's pretty obvious that her
mobility has been in a severe decline the past couple months.
They've asked if we're getting a new dog right away, for
example [NO!! is my answer now, but who knows if I go near
a pound ]

If they hear that I found her dead one morning, that'll
likely be what happened. Part of me would like her to
die that way, another, tidier, part of me doesn't, and
the part that just read the completely and utterly
fascinating book 'Stiff' is just morbidly curious
about the whole process.

Scott DD 10 and DS 7

Scott Lindstrom wrote:

We have a wonderful dog who predates our kids -- well,
we got Mollie from the pound when DD was in utero, although
we didn't know it yet. Mollie is a Golden/Chow/Border
Collie mix and has been a wonderful companion. And boy!
is she soft!

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~scottl/pictures/old/MolliePuppyDog.jpg

If anyone has experience with this, and how their kids
responded, I'd like to hear it.


She's a beauty!

We lost a cat in January of 02 who predated my kids. He was
12, and full of cancer. We got the diagnosis before
Christmas, and put off the day until after the holidays. At
some point, it just became obvious that it was time.

My girls were 5 and 8 at the time. We told them he was
sicker than the vet could fix (true - it was inoperable) and
that it wouldn't be fair to let him suffer. The younger one
didn't get it immediately, but the older was crushed. When
the time came, we told them the night before and all had
lots of tears. My dh took Dustin to the vet, the girls and
I were crying, but they went about their business pretty
quickly. We did have a funeral - he's in our backyard. For
months afterward, my older one didn't want to talk about
Dustin, because "it's too sad." But I didn't see tears.

Lesley
mom to Tootsie (14 yo cat) and Sammi (11 yo dog)

Scott Lindstrom wrote:

I'm gonna try to find a vet that will come to the house and
do the deed there, and then take Mollie away. Everyone
will be a wreck, I'm sure.

If anyone has experience with this, and how their kids
responded, I'd like to hear it.

Scott: I'm sorry to hear about your Mollie. The process of
choosing to have our failing Dalmatian put down two years ago
was the hardest thing I'd had to do in many years, and
there hasn't been any tougher decision since.

Our vet would have come to the house, and that was my plan.
It seemed ideal to me, and felt right. But in talking with
Mitchell, then 6-1/2, to prepare him for what Prairie needed
and what the vet would be doing, I learned that he didn't
agree. He felt it would be too hard for him to be in the
vicinity when she died.

So I changed my plan. After taking Mitchell to his bus stop,
I took Prairie to the vet's office and held her while the
barbiturate was being administered. They gave me as much
time with her as I wanted afterward.

Sigh. It still brings tears to my eyes. But I'm glad for the way
we did it. Your kids might not feel the same as mine did, but
I wanted to suggest that you actually discuss the situation and
the options if the "method" hasn't been a group decision.

--Another Molly

"Scott Lindstrom" wrote in message
...

We have a wonderful dog who predates our kids -- well,
we got Mollie from the pound when DD was in utero, although
we didn't know it yet. Mollie is a Golden/Chow/Border
Collie mix and has been a wonderful companion. And boy!
is she soft!

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~scottl/pictures/old/MolliePuppyDog.jpg

Anyway, Mollie is failing.

My sympathies. I had several pets while I was growing up and we now have an
almost 10 yr old golden and have had a few guinea pigs. The GPs are really
part of the family as well and the kids were devastated when the first two
died. When Paddy, our second GP died, my then 11 yr old daughter did say to
her siblings though, "hey, we learned something from when Ben died (our
first GP). When Ben died we hurt so much and it didn't stop hurting for a
long time. But, it did stop hurting. So, now that Paddy died, we're really
crying but we know it will stop hurting eventually." Those were her words,
exactly.

Our golden is slowing down and I imagine, no I know, that it will be
horrible here when he dies. Even my husband who has never had a pet and
really didn't want the dog in the first place, will be very sad as he truly
is one of the family.

I think, with our experience with the guinea pigs, is that the kids should
be as much of the process as they want to be. If you know that it is time
for euthanasia, allow your kids to take the lead - they can spend time
saying good-bye, or they don't have to. Let them lead the way and do what's
comfortable for them, although you give them the options. The one thing
that my kids found the most comforting when Ben died (the kids were 11, 9
and 6.5 yrs), was that I took instant photos of him for each of them the
night before it happened. My oldest kept his copy under his pillow for a
very long time, it was his way of staying close and now it's still with his
momentos.

That's the biggest part, allowing them to say good bye. Of all the pets I
lost as a child, the ones that still hurt are the ones that I never said
good bye to. The cat that was hit by a car, the dog (a St. Bernard) who was
euthanised after I'd left home.

Amazing, the imprint these creatures place on our hearts.

Marijke
Mom to Matthew (16), Anne (14) and Kevin (12)

We just went through this in March 2003. Our dog was 14 1/2 years old and
our children are 11, 8 and 6. Beau was very old and declining in health. We
were very honest about Beau in that she was getting old and wouldn't be
lasting very long. The day came when she no longer could get herself
outside, so we euthanized her (she had a ton of problems). We never used the
words put to sleep to our kids (didn't want them to be confused), but we did
say that we took her to the vet and they put the dog down. We explained that
it is more humane for animals to be put down when they no longer have the
quality of life that a dog deserves. The kids were upset of course, but I
think they handled it beautifully.
--
Sue (mom to three girls)

I'm Just a Raggedy Ann in a Barbie Doll World...
Scott Lindstrom wrote in message
...

We have a wonderful dog who predates our kids -- well,
we got Mollie from the pound when DD was in utero, although
we didn't know it yet. Mollie is a Golden/Chow/Border
Collie mix and has been a wonderful companion. And boy!
is she soft!

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~scottl/pictures/old/MolliePuppyDog.jpg

Anyway, Mollie is failing. I woke up today to find
what my Mother used to call dog dirt all over the living
room carpet, and Mollie was scarcely able to walk. (She
has big lumps -- presumably tumors -- on both sides of
her hips that have been interfering pretty severely with
her mobility). She ate none of her breakfast, and threw
up on her bed and is now holding her head at an angle.
Well, this could be a reaction to the chicken liver we gave
her yesterday -- her stomach is very intolerant to rich foods.
Or it could be the beginning of the end, and a euthanization
could be in the future for us sooner rather than later.
I'm gonna try to find a vet that will come to the house and
do the deed there, and then take Mollie away. Everyone
will be a wreck, I'm sure.

If anyone has experience with this, and how their kids
responded, I'd like to hear it.

Thanks.

Scott DD 10 and DS 7 and Mollie McButter PuppyDog, somewhere
between 12 and 15 in human years