dobby's mom

First of all, sit down and take a deep breath. It will get better in time. You are grieving, but also you are second guessing your decision and creating a personal hell for yourself. Stop it. I know what you feel like right now. Let me explain. I lost my beloved Fletcher just days befor Christmas (almost two years ago next month). He was only nine and I thought we had alot more time togather but fate had different plans. Just like you our vet discouraged expensive surgery options and bloodwork helped only in guessing that he had liver cancer. A grapefruit sized tumor in his dachshund/chihuahua tummy that caused him to slow down and stop eating suddenly. The night we had him put to sleep was awful. The vet was an old friend of ours and he came to the house on a Sunday night...shaved Fletch's little arm so he could get the shot into the vein easily. Mu puppy looked up at me for approval as he proceeded. My husband had dug the grave in the back yard before dark and we had to work the next day so out he went after with his blamket and bed all wrapped up around him in the dark we buried him. It had taken a bit of time as his little heart didnt want to stop beating! I was devastated. He was still getting up to go outside to potty. he was such a gentleman to the end. He was so connected to me and I knew that after ten days of not eating he would die a horrible death. the next morning it snowed. I had this obsession that he might be cold out there under the tree all by hinself under the snow. I had killed him. I was miserable, and as I work from home I spent weeks looking out my kitchen window to where we had buried him and mourned. Fast forward...a christmas puppy. I wasnt looking for but came across a litter of pups in a parking lot freezing while a lady tried to sell them. My fletcher had been a brindle color and as I inquired about her litter she pushed a 6wk old brindle boxer/pitt into my lap thru the car window.I came back an hour later to get the pup and when i peered into the kennel in the back of her truck I saw a pile of 14 puppies all different colors tying to keep warm. I spoke to them and all of a sudden I heard a sqeal and saw the pup I had held an hour before climb out from under his siblings to run to me! He remembered me ! I recofnized his markings and his wite spot on his nose. I took him home and was sure Fletcher had sent him to help ease my pain.He always walkedwith his back arched so we called him Dobby the christmes house elf Fast forward 6 mos.I had fallen in love with this new dog. He reminded me a Fletcher in his color, but also in that he would look at mike Fletcher had donr for many years. He and I connected, and he had a focus that was uncanny. I had enrolled him in dog training classes as his pitt bull side worried me. I was unfamiliar with that breed. During the training his teacher told me he was special and we should pursue therapy dog classification. I was so proud of him and he loved going out and meeting people. Then he got sick. For two months and over one thousand dollars in vet bills we couldn't identify why every ten days he would begin vomitting and dirarreah, then seem to get better and then fall apart. After 2 months of struggle and weight loss he died in my arms on the kitchen floor at 7:10 am just as my daycare children were beginning to arrive for the day. He was exactly 9mos old and he was gone. We buried him later that day in the backyard just a few feet away from Fletcher. I felt oddly like Fletcher was not alone now. I went into a funk that was intense. I lit candles one week from his death and then one month..for a while in the kitchen I lit a candle for him every morning at 7:10 just to mark the moment I lost him. Months later I would still get empotiona; when I let myself relive it all. I have another puppy. A girl this time. She is a brindle boxer/pitt named Sophie. She is healthy and sweet. She was born the day after Dobby died. I found her on Facebook and felt it was meant to be.She will never replace my Fletcher or my Dobby but I tell her all the time she would have loved them as I did. What I learned was this...I think Dobby needed me. He picked me out when I returned to the litter. I think he needed me to be patient enough to help him through whatever it was that was going to kill hom so young. Many people wouldn't have put up with his messy illness for so long. He taught me something. I had done what you are doing now. I had convinced myself that I killed Fletcher too soon. That I hadn't let him go in his time. I didn't kill Dobby, and I lost him after a long difficult illness. He died inmy arms and I felt terrible I couldnt help him. What I learned was that there is no way to know what the"right" thing to do is.There is no way to lose a pet that is easier than another. What you have to do now is accept that what you did for your pet, you did out of love. And accept that he knew that. In the moments just before he passed, you were there with him telling him how much he meant to you. He wasn't alone. My Dobby took a terible turn for the worse the night before he died. All of a sudden he wouldnt lay down and he arched his back and stood for hours. We placed his pillow besidehim and blamket over him. I couldn't call the emergany vet as I was out of money. I felt like I failed him.After he died I was hysterical at times as I relived it. My huisband pointed out that if we had rushed him to the er vet that last night, they would have sedated him and left him in a kennel all alone till morning. He would have died alone in the dark instead of in my arms on the warm kitchen floor with the sounds of children and the smell of coffee and breakfast cooking like he was used to. He tried so hard not to die. His final breath was so dramatic as I could see he didnt want to go yet. I do not understand death, but I know that his eyes met mine before he went and he knew he was loved, he knew he was care for and he knew he was not alone.You did all that you could for your cat. He knew that. You loved him, and that is a wonderful thing and sometimes all we can give in the end. Let yourself grieve. Light a candle maybe or something that makes you think of him. Just kmow that it will take time, but you will heal.Kmow that your decision was made out of love and stop second guessing yourself. Move forward slowly and carry bill's memory with you. Give it time.

AWwwwwwwwww....I think it is very helpful to see pictures of the animals of which we speak in this forum. The emotional pain is so intense sometimes, it helps to look into those eyes of our pets. It is there we see again and again the unconditional love and trust they put in us. It is was healing reminder of the connection we had and have now lost. I know I went on my way home last week and stopped by the local pet store. i played with puppies for an hour or so. It was fun, but I didn't get the urge to take one home (not that I could afford one!) I am mourning the loss of a special connection I made with my Dobby D. B. I wll know it when I see it again someday. I was lucky enough to have found it twice in one year, i will find it again in the eyes of a pup that needs me as much as I need him. And we will rescue each other on that day. Just not today.

I know what you mean about the coming home thing. It has been a week, and i still get upset every time I pull in the driveway and for a brief moment get excited to see him at the door. Then it hits me all over again that he will notbe there ever again and i cry. I feel silly, but I ache to see that happy face and wild little paws dancing around with glee just because I returned home. I continue to return home each and every time, but the dancing has ended. I am sad.

I have experienced both methods of loss in the last seven months, and I am here to say that one is not better than the other. Each comes with its own pain, and second guessing thought processes that hurt. I felt like I had taken my Fletcher's life at the end. It was convienient for me to have him all taken care of and buried in the back yard before another week of watching him not eat and only drink a little went on. But I was with him during those last days. And I know he would have starved to death had we waited much longer. But still, he was weak but receptive to me and still made it to the door to be carried outside to tinkle. I felt I had betrayed him. Cancer and all. Then Dobby came into my life. He found me from the bottom of a pile of nine puppies....twice. I left and came back and when he heard my voice he came running to me. I had to take him home! I trained him in a pet program locally, and tok him everywhere with me as i found out he was a "bully breed" and was a boxer/pit mix. He was an angel, my little angel. I had been mom to Fletcher for nine years. Dobby had the same look in his eyes when he looked at me. We connected and I almost thought that somehow Fletcher had sent him to me. About two months ago, only 7 mos into his life he began to get sick. I really thought we had fixed everything and then last wed when I came jome from college classes I found him...standing uncomfortably like he was going to throw up, or was having trouble breathing. I did not call the vet till morning. I had spebt $400 in June alone on his vet bills. I was broke. By morning he had laid down. His eyes followed me around the kitchen as I began my day and my daycare children were arriving. He whimpered. I went to him and he drew three deep and uncomfortable looking breathes, and he was gone. I couldn't believe it. He seemed fine the day before. I have been a wreck since then. 8 days now. I lay flowers on his rock over his grave in the backyard every day and I cry. There is no good way to lose a pet. It just happens.

This website is a little confusing to me but I very much want to talk to you. I lost my puppy, Dobby, at nine mos of age a week ago yesterday. He died in my arms on my kitchen floor. Let me go back further to explain...It all began with Fletcher actually. He was my daschund/chihuahua mix. He looked alot like a corgi too, we were never sure. There was something different about Fletcher. When he looked at me we simply had an understanding I had never had with the many other dogs we had through the years. I credited him with my daughter being able to go out of state for college and my surviving my husbands cancer episode almost nine years ago. I had saved Fletcher from a near death experience in the backyard when he was a puppy and had managed to jump off of the picnic table in the backyard and got his collar hooked on a rake leaning beside the table. His short little body had slipped down to the ground and in his struggles to free himself he had flipped about and actually tightened the collar about his neck till I found him makeing an awful sound, lying on his back, bleeding from his mouth. I looked into his eyes and saw the connection then that we would have with each other till the day I had to put him to sleep last fall. Fortunately I grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen and ran back into the yard to free him from the rake just in time. He ran upstairs under my bed and didnt come out for three days! When he did we were bonded in a special way for the rest of his life. He and I were inseperable. He gained too much weight when we got our lab puppies three years ago and was on a special; medication to lose weight. Everyone laughed at my poor dog. He really slowed down last summer, and the week after Thanksgiving we found out why the weight he lost in his face never was reflected in his body. He had cancer on jis liver.I was hopeful when he came home as he was so happy to be here he ate and dranks and moved slowly but acted normal. The vet said he wouldn't do those things in the pet hospital. My cheer was short lived. He never ate again and seven days later we had the vet come to the house late on a Sunday night and shave his little arm. Gave him the shot. He didn't want to go yet. The vet kept checking and his heart just kept beating. I felt like I had betrayed my best friend. I was heartsick. We buried him in the dark that night before he even went cold, and I was going nuts over it. The next morning it snowed on his grave and I was miserable. Then quite by accident I met little Dobby a week later. I think Fletcher sent him actually. He had Fletcher's eyes, and he was brindle too.......