The hardest part of owning a pet is knowing that one day you may have to have them put to sleep.
This just happened to us with Oliver yesterday.
Oliver lived a long life and without wanting to go into details, his quality of life declined significantly in the last few months. Close friends and family are the only people who knew.
We were there with him yesterday morning when he was put to sleep and I’m glad that I was. Even though he had become blind and deaf we made sure that by holding his head the way we used to he knew that we were there with him.
The pain is awful. Michael and me have cried so much. I feel like I lost my best friend and that I lost someone in my family because he was family.
We made peace with the decision weeks before knowing that it would happen one day soon but that doesn’t make it any easier. I wasn’t going to write this post because this is so personal to me but I know that Ollie has been on this site over the years so I feel that I should tell you what just happened in case I am asked one random day: “Where is Sir Oliver?”
I read somewhere that the pain you feel is testimony to just how great they were. I know that we were blessed by Oliver and I never thought that I would be by a dog of all things. He taught me what unconditional love is. For me to open the front door and to have him right there. No matter how bad I was feeling that day he would be there to greet me wagging his tail just happy that I was home. He greeted each of us with the equal amount of excitement. I remember that it became our ritual for me to place shopping bags on the floor so that he could sniff inside them to ‘pass his inspection.’
This is a horrible time and I just want the pain to go away. I don’t think I have been crying because it wasn’t the right time. I am crying because Oliver has gone.