Gone too soon.
I'm having beer, pizza and tears for dinner tonight.
I'm not even sure if it's appropriate to try a happy things post. Perhaps tears are the most appropriate thing. But I'm going to try.
The ambiguity was erased this morning; she was just markedly worse today and her eyes asked me to take care of this for really the first time.
B. was able to catch an earlier bus home and be there with us.
Eldest Son moved his schedule around a bit today to get home in time to spend an hour with Ela that I know she (and he) appreciated.
We had one more day's worth of pain pills and one more day's worth of her dog food in the house - this was a very economical time to die.
I don't have to do wound care anymore, or fight to keep River from attacking her.
The vet will dispose of her body; we're all done. I even managed to write out the check to the vet on the spot so I don't have ANY hanging threads.
In fact, that's a happy thing in itself: Ela's LAST vet bill. They were starting to become material.
She never lost the ability to get up and down the stairs to our bedroom at night or outside to pee. She took pleasure in food right up to the end (I gave her a greeny pill pocket with no pills in it just because she loves them so much.) She never had gastrointestinal problems. At least she always had her food! (I hand fed her a sliced up pre-warmed hot dog for breakfast this morning.)
We took her to the ocean on what turned out to be the last day she was well enough to go anywhere.
I doubt there has ever been a dog that had a better life than Ela did. An owner who wanted to walk miles every morning. A boy whose chore it was to romp her when he came home from school. A meaningful job (as perimeter alert) in a business where she was with her favorite people all day long. We gave her an ocean and a park with a pond and long weeks camping on a river... this labrador retriever got more water time than most dogs can ever dream of. We even gave her a muddy gash in our yard in case she felt the urge to dunk herself from time to time. She was never kenneled once in our nearly ten years together.
We've loved and lost and that turns out to be better than to have never loved at all.
I'm not even sure if it's appropriate to try a happy things post. Perhaps tears are the most appropriate thing. But I'm going to try.
The ambiguity was erased this morning; she was just markedly worse today and her eyes asked me to take care of this for really the first time.
B. was able to catch an earlier bus home and be there with us.
Eldest Son moved his schedule around a bit today to get home in time to spend an hour with Ela that I know she (and he) appreciated.
We had one more day's worth of pain pills and one more day's worth of her dog food in the house - this was a very economical time to die.
I don't have to do wound care anymore, or fight to keep River from attacking her.
The vet will dispose of her body; we're all done. I even managed to write out the check to the vet on the spot so I don't have ANY hanging threads.
In fact, that's a happy thing in itself: Ela's LAST vet bill. They were starting to become material.
She never lost the ability to get up and down the stairs to our bedroom at night or outside to pee. She took pleasure in food right up to the end (I gave her a greeny pill pocket with no pills in it just because she loves them so much.) She never had gastrointestinal problems. At least she always had her food! (I hand fed her a sliced up pre-warmed hot dog for breakfast this morning.)
We took her to the ocean on what turned out to be the last day she was well enough to go anywhere.
I doubt there has ever been a dog that had a better life than Ela did. An owner who wanted to walk miles every morning. A boy whose chore it was to romp her when he came home from school. A meaningful job (as perimeter alert) in a business where she was with her favorite people all day long. We gave her an ocean and a park with a pond and long weeks camping on a river... this labrador retriever got more water time than most dogs can ever dream of. We even gave her a muddy gash in our yard in case she felt the urge to dunk herself from time to time. She was never kenneled once in our nearly ten years together.
We've loved and lost and that turns out to be better than to have never loved at all.