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Drowning in grief


Wendy22

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My precious babies loved to dog out of our back hard. One being beagle and one a beagle mix. We always watch them like hawks and check on them all the time because of this. I was watching them. I saw them chasing something in the yard and I yelled for them to stop. I was on the phone and went in for a second and I got distracted. They got out and all the blame lies with me. They always just go play in the woods behind our house and come back. But they didn't. I waited and waited for that scratch on the door. By early morning, I could take it and went looking. As i was driving, I got a call from someone describing one of them and he point blank said he's dead. Hit by a car. I raced home to get my husband and the other one was laying in the garage, not in good shape, but we didn't think life threatening at that moment. He starting getting labored breathing and going downhill fast, so my husband and 17 year old son raced him to the emergency vet and he died in my sons arms on the way.According to our vet, he probably got hit watching over the other one. I am dying inside. If I would have just stopped the moment I saw them trying to get out. If I just would've gotten off the phone and brought them in. I'm consumed with guilt and grief like I've never experienced in my life. It is a cruel, unbearable pain. I don't know what to do. I can't even begin to function. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't even get out of bed. 

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Oh my dear Wendy. My heart reaches out to you. Your story is so similar to my own, which led years later to writing my book, The Final Farewell: Preparing for and Mourning the Loss of Your Pet. Here is an excerpt, entitled Memories of Muffin:

He was supposed to belong to my oldest son, but from the beginning, the whole family knew better.  Muffin was the most adorable puppy I’d ever seen: a blonde powder puff with the face of a Teddy bear. His baby charm was something he’d never lose, for even when full grown, he remained a delightful puppy-mixture of poodle, cocker and little boy: intelligent, loving and strong, full of mischief, adventure and fun . . .

But there was a part of him I knew I’d never own. He loved to hunt rabbits, and he would go through any obstacle on earth to chase them. Our two-acre yard was surrounded by fence embedded in concrete eight inches beneath the ground. Despite all our best efforts, when he wanted out, there was no stopping him. He’d spend days excavating a tunnel, just a few inches each day, in those stolen moments when no one was watching him. He’d wait until the coast was clear — then he’d be off. He’d be gone for hours, sometimes past sunset, finally appearing at the patio doors like some pathetic stray: ears matted with burrs, stuck into themselves at crazy angles atop his head; eyes bloodshot, lids drooping; paw pads cut and bleeding; body and tail covered with tics and briars and mud. One of the family would always be stationed there, ready to receive him. Tenderly he’d be delivered to the laundry tub in the basement, where I’d set about the long and arduous task of cleaning him up. I’d hold his weary head in my two hands, so grateful that he was home and safe, yet so angry at him for leaving us again — for causing me so much work — for putting himself through the agony that lay ahead for both of us, as one by one I pulled hundreds of tics and thorns from his bruised and bleeding flesh.

“Was it worth it?” I’d ask — but all I had to do was look into his hunter’s eyes, and hear the “thump, thump, THUMP!” of his tail which said, of course, “You bet!”

One Christmas Eve he went off hunting and was gone for four days. It was the saddest and most painful holiday I had ever known. I was inconsolable. How does one resolve that kind of grief? Was he dead? Was he hurt and lying in some cold, dark ditch somewhere? Had someone picked him up and stolen him? Would I ever find out what had happened to him? How could I go on with celebrations with family and friends when my heart was breaking? Shouldn’t we search for him one more time? How could I be so upset over a dog?

But, wonder of wonders, he did come home. A lovely grandmother had found him and taken him in. Although he’d lost his collar and tags, when her grandson visited and saw him three days later, he recognized him as our dog. When the phone call came, I was overcome with joy. In an instant, it had become the happiest and most wonderful Christmas of all.

Eventually, of course, his luck ran out. The day finally came when he would escape from the yard for the very last time. Chasing yet another rabbit across yet another highway, he was hit by a car. Someone found him in the ditch by the side of the road, checked his collar and tags, and telephoned the tragic news to us. My son picked him up, saw that he was seriously injured, and took him immediately to our veterinarian. X-rays confirmed that his back was broken, his spinal cord severed. He couldn’t stand; he had no bowel or bladder control. There was no saving him. After making the unbearably painful decision to euthanize him, our entire family gathered in the  treatment room, holding him and each other as he was injected. He died quietly in my arms. The vet asked me what we wanted to do with his body. I had no idea what I wanted to do with his body — I wasn’t even ready to think of my dog as dead, much less as a body! Not knowing what else to do, we wrapped him in a blanket and took him home.

I held him for hours afterward, rocking him, petting him, memorizing his Teddy-bear face, crying and saying good-bye. Finally we buried him in the backyard, underneath some lilac trees, and marked his grave with a wooden plaque my husband carved as a tribute to his memory.

I was totally unprepared for this — not only for my dog’s death and what to do with his remains afterward, but also for the intensity of my reaction. It wasn’t as if I was unfamiliar with grief.  By that point in my life I’d already lost to death a newborn infant, my father, my mother-in-law, a sister-in-law and several close friends. Having had a wide variety of pets throughout my life, I’d already loved and lost a significant number of them as well.  In my private practice as a therapist I had been studying death and dying and had been specializing in bereavement counseling for many years. Both my experience and my training had taught me that death comes to all living creatures. I certainly knew that nothing lasts forever. But losing this little dog was different. I loved him like no other animal I had ever known, and when he died I was absolutely devastated. My grief was as strong as any I had ever felt before. I canceled long-made plans to return to my home town for my high school class reunion, telling those who were expecting me that I’d had a death in the family.

My strong reaction to Muffin’s death made me realize that the loss of a beloved pet is a loss that needs to be comforted, too. I began to investigate the nature of people’s attachment to their pets, reading all I could find about the human-animal bond and learning as much as I could about people’s reactions to the loss of their companion animals. Eventually I discovered the pet bereavement movement, whose focus is on understanding and respecting the person’s level of attachment to the pet, the role the animal played in the person’s life, and the significance of the loss from the person’s point of view. I began to incorporate my newfound knowledge about pet loss and bereavement into my practice as a therapist. In my work today as a hospice bereavement counselor, I still work primarily with people who are grieving the loss of their loved ones — animal as well as human.         

As I look back on it now, I’m fairly comfortable with most of what we decided to do when my special dog died so suddenly that summer day so long ago. Nevertheless, in the many years since Muffin’s death, my husband and I have moved several times, and this dear little dog’s grave is still in New Jersey, in a backyard that now belongs to someone else. Knowing what I know now, there are some things I would’ve done differently, if only I had been prepared, if only I had planned ahead, and if only I had known what all my options were.  And I certainly would have understood better the intensity of my grief and how to manage my reactions.

I share this with you, Wendy, just to let you know that I understand, that you are not alone, and that you're certainly not "crazy" in your reactions to this most unbearable pain. What happened to your beagles was an accident, not your fault, and certainly not your intention. My prayer for you is that one day you will find a way to forgive yourself for all the guilt you're carrying now, and I hope this article will help: Grief and the Burden of Guilt ~ and see also the links listed at the base.  

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Oh, how similar our stories are. They would run off and come back the same way. Dirty, ticks, pads torn up. I'd always be mad for a minute, but their sweet faces didn't let me stay that way. I would be so grateful and think in the back of my head, I won't let this ever happen again. Yet it did and their luck ran out. These fur  babies were a huge part of the heart of our household. Our Remi, the full beagle was so in love with me! He followed me everywhere. Cried at the bathroom door if I shut it. Slept in between me and my husband, with his paws in my back so he could always be touching me. Wherever I was, he was. We were bonded like no dog I had ever had. And I only had him for five short years. Then there's my Baxter. He was a goofball and quite a weirdo sometimes. He would kiss your face off and then would just walk away. We always said he was like a cat in a dogs body. He was my oldest sons best friend. My son who had to hold him and watch him pass while trying to give him CPR. My son who now will have to live with that forever. That's the biggest part of this. I know everyone says it's not my fault. Of course, no one will say that it is. No one is that cruel to say it. However, the bottom line is it IS my fault. I could have prevented this if I hadnt gotten distracted. Period. Not saying it wouldn't have happened another time, in a different way, but it happened this time,  in the most horrible way. That vision will never leave me and I will never, ever be the same person. I'm so unbearably sad and angry at the same time. So, so angry!! Why both of them at the same time?? Why would God do this to me? To my family? I have always been a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Always. Not this time. I will never, ever believe that there is a reason for this.

 

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Wendy,

I am so sorry.  I know it hurts like the dickens.  The article Marty shared is one of my favorites, along with these:
http://media.wix.com/ugd/0dd4a5_e934e7f92d104d31bcb334d6c6d63974.pdf 

http://www.pet-loss.net/guilt.shtml 

Guilt is very common with grief.  We feel we somehow should have protected them from anything/everything.  But this started out a day like no other, you weren't able to predict what would happen, had you had that foreknowledge you wouldn't have even let them outside that day...but you didn't know.  They knew your love all their lives and hold no animosity towards you.  Dogs are the first to forgive.

 

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That day keeps replaying over and over in my head. That what ifs are killing me. I saw them going crazy chasing something. I knew how they were and what they were capable of and I didn't stop what I was doing and got distracted. That split second is haunting me.  My God, what I would give for that moment back. I know in my head I can't change it, I really do, but I can't make me broken heart understand that. The quietness of our house is brutal. The sadness in the faces of my boys. The fact that my husband is trying so hard to stay busy. It's all too much.

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  • 2 years later...

Hi, my dog has passed away last summer. He was 5 and he died in a drowning accident. Whenever I think of him all I think is what he was think when he died and that he was thinking of us and trying to find us and just thinking why we wouldn’t help him. We found his body about 30 mins after and he was long gone and just can’t get over what he could have been thinking.

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I am so sorry for your loss.  My Arlie was diagnosed with cancer 6/6/10 and I lost him 8/16/19...when he was euthanized their scales were off and they under-sedated him so the brutal shot was keenly felt by him and he went out in immense pain, it has haunted me like you are feeling haunted by the drowning.  I don't know how we stop thinking about that one bad time but I do know the love and home we provided throughout their lives is likely more dominant in their thinking than the moments at the end.  I feel we were meant to be together, he was my "soulmate in a dog," perfect for me, and we were very happy together, I'm so glad he was my dog and able to spend his life with me.  That brings me comfort, he was very happy here.  Here are a couple of articles I hope you find of help:

http://media.wix.com/ugd/0dd4a5_e934e7f92d104d31bcb334d6c6d63974.pdf
http://www.pet-loss.net/guilt.shtml
https://www.griefhealingblog.com/2014/06/pet-loss-guilt-in-wake-of-kittens.html
https://www.griefhealingblog.com/2017/10/pet-loss-when-nothing-eases-pain.html
https://healingpetloss.com/pet-loss-when-you-are-still-suffering-years-after-the-death-of-your-pet/

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