Goodbye Kirby

R.I.P.

Of course he seemed better this morning just to make sure that we maximize guilt. He even ate a hotdog and chugged a bunch of water and indicated that he wanted to go outside (in addition to the numerous puddles of pee I cleaned up this morning though). We all took him for a walk and gave him some off leash time and when we got home he was totally exhausted and ambled painfully up the steps. But he seemed to be thrilled to have been outside with us for awhile. I said goodbye, petted him, and took Sam to daycare because he didn't need to be there for this. Ben had a vet come in to the house to do it.
Ben wrote this to me:

"Well, it's over. I'm glad we were able to do it here. It was very peaceful. The vet had a kind manner which was helpful. Kirby got up when he came in, but then kind of wandered back over to his pillow like he was waiting for us. Then he just kind of drifted off. He didn't even react to the shots. In an odd way that helped me feel like the time was right. He didn't seem to be fighting it. The vet commented that he feels it's better to do this before they get too bad, and I think he agreed that with Kirby's not eating time was short.

So now I'm just kind of glum. At least I have a relatively full work day to keep me distracted."

Kirby is being cremated and we'll get his remains in about 12 days. I suspect that Sam'll have forgotten all about it by that time.

Here's the thing, I feel a whole lot of relief about the fact that I won't be cleaning up pee anymore and I don't have to watch him be miserable and I won't have to worry about him. I've been trying to heap more attention on him for the past few days andhe's been sitting close and trying to suck up as much affection as he could. I think he was feeling really miserable.
I feel a little better about it because I know that if I were feeling miserable and I knew it couldn't get any better I'd want a shot to make it all go away. It's still too bad that in many ways we treat our pets better than other people.

But the guilt is there too. Did we do it too early? I like to think we mitigated a lot of his suffering. If we'd waited until he was wimpering in pain I'd have regretted that we hadn't done it sooner. Still, the timing is a difficult decision. And given how bad he was last weekend I'm surprised he had any upturn at all.

Poor dude. But he's no longer suffering. He's no longer embarassed because he can't control his urination. He's no longer loping around in pain. I think we did the right thing. And I know he had a pretty dang good life.