The passing of a pet

[infohippie]

One of my rats has been very ill for a while. He's been wheezing and unable to balance, so the vet put him on antibiotic treatment and I've been nursing him, including helping him drink using an eyedropper. Unfortunately, this morning he died, and his cagemates have been avoiding the area I found his body in.
So I was wondering, how have others handled a pet passing away? Was it something you were expecting, or was it sudden with no early warning? Did you bury him at home? How did your other pets (if any) react?

 

[Kimarous]

Only pet I've ever had was the family dog. She was suffering from cancer that left her in constant pain, sometimes to the point where she couldn't even sleep. We decided to do the merciful thing; the vet came to the house and put her down. She died surrounded by loving family, bidding her a sad but fond farewell.

 

[Necator15]

I handled it wonderfully for about four or five hours. Then had myself a good cry on the couch, then nothing.

We buried him (Our dog, or more the ashes of our dog) in his favorite spot in the summer. (A little hole he'd dug himself that was cool. Fucking loved it there, would beg to go outside just to sit in the hole.)

 

[Monkfish Acc.]

Cat. Thirteen years old. Expected it, but expected old age or sickness, not a car.

Dealt with it by not making a huge deal. Unlike fucking everyone else in the family who took a few days to bloody cry at the mention of him.

Dog howled and moped in his bed for days. Guess he liked being picked on or something. Other cat didn't give a shit.

Buried him at a beach since I guess people thought it would be more fun to dig into rocks.

Is that everything? Think that's everything.

 

[maxmanrules]

:*( Sorry bro, losing a pet is hard.

 

[lightningmagurn]

They all get buried behind my house in deep graves, with small piles if rocks. The actual bodies are wrapped in a blanket. And 3/4 graves have 2 animals, because they died inpairs. Each grave has a homemade wooden marker.
other pets were a;ways sad, especially the dog. We would all cry for a bit, except my dad.

 

[drakythe]

When our first rat passed, in my wife's arms, there was a good cry. We wrapped her up tight in her favorite hammock and buried her. Her sisters went from Cancer, not long after. We let the doc take care of them, though, they were in a lot of pain. There was some sadness. But mostly, there is good memories. When I was younger I had a couple dogs and cats pass on us, but it never really got to me as much, probably because I was younger and they were 'family' pets.

Yeah, mostly laughing and smiling about the good times, kind of like with a person. If they were important to you, then best to remember why, not how it ended.

 

[twistedmic]

I've had four cats die in the space of five or six years. The first one, Lady, died due to sickness (feline AIDS and Feline Leukemia) and old age (she lived to fourteen or fifteen). The second, Sandy, one had to be put to sleep after developing a very rare, aggressive bone cancer in the lower jaw. Missy died in her sleep about a year and a half later, though she was despondent and sickly after Sandy died.
And Jasper (my cat since I was eight) had to be put down when he began suffering kidney failure, a complication from old age.

 

[Lerxst]

You're talking to a person who's worked in animal sanctuaries for almost 8 years now. It's harsh and not something I enjoy going through, but it happens.

Your other rats avoiding the spot you found the one that passed reminds me of things Dr. Balcombe http://www.jonathanbalcombe.com/ covers in some of his books dealing with ethology/behavior... he's also a rat love.

 

[Erana]

We had two dogs when I was born, and they both died too young for me to remember them. The dog I grew up with was such a wonderful animal, a beautiful white miniature schnauzer who was the prissiest thing with a beard I've ever come across. We were incredibly lucky to get her; she was going to be kept by the breeder, but because of a sudden need to downsize her number of animals and that she was a bit older than normal for a sold dog, we were able to afford her when we really needed her.

My parents were going through a divorce, and it was very sad for us. She came into our lives and in the ten years we had her, the worst thing I can ever recall her doing was getting into the trash once. Even when a repairman left the gate open and she had full reign to run away, she came back from running around the neighborhood when we called her name. My sister and I left home earlier than most kids, so she kept my mother from being lonely while we were gone.

We went to the beach for Thanksgiving in '09, (A tradition for us) and got a call from our dogsitter. Our dog was in the ER, having bled internally from a ruptured growth on her liver. She was gone, like that. We all cried, and were quiet and tense. We watched Fantastic Mr Fox after we got the news as a distraction and if a movie can make you smile right after your childhood dog died, its a damn good movie.

Still, of all the ways for her to have gone, I couldn't have wished for much better, albeit at a future date. I never had to see her grow old and fade away, and in all her life, her only experience of true pain was for a few hours. And the woman who was taking care of her loved her as much as we did- she actually worked at the vet hospital, and got in trouble for forcing her onto the table out of order. She was there for her when they put her down.

It still upsets me, but with her, its hard to be unhappy when thinking about her because every memory of her is so happy. Everything about her life was just so perfect, absolutely no problems in a decade of her unconditional love.
I miss her terribly, but what more could I have ever asked for?

When a pet dies, they're gone. But if they made you feel happy and loved, then they've done what they were meant to do. Its alright to let them go.

 

[larysalove]

I don't handle pets passing well.

My cat died, I took three days off of work and cried.
My gerbil died, I cried for an entire afternoon.
My family's dog died, I skipped school for a week.

When my pets now die... I don't know what I'm going to do. :[

 

[Booze Zombie]

My mother treated it like the loss of a person, she gets quite close to animals.
Our first hamster we found dead and she was quite unhappy for about a week.
Our second one we found struggling in the cage after a heartattack and my mother took it upon herself to have the little thing put to sleep so it wouldn't be in pain and confused anymore.

Now we've got a guinea pig to handle and that'll probably be the most difficult to handle the death of, as I find guinea pigs are quite emotive...

So, it's never going to be easy and all you can really do is just say "I looked after it well enough that it enjoyed a clean and safe life away from predators".

 

[M4A1Sopmod]

I have had many many pets and losing one always sucks. You should be thankful though that your rat died in a relatively peaceful fashion. My mother ran over one of our cats with a car and it was several minutes of intense writhing and bleeding before it finally died. My point is: it sucks to lose a pet, but you need to move on. Be thankful for the fun you had with it, and remember the good times.

 

[Canid117]

Several years ago my dog died after a long and slow decline of health. Ultimately the company hired by the vet to do the X-rays had mixed up the charts and the vet didn't realize the mistake until after they had started surgery and the operation left her too weak for further treatment. She died shortly thereafter and the news was broken to me right after I got home from school as I was putting the leash on our much younger dog to take him for a walk. I sat down alone in the garage for what I believe was about 15 to 20 minutes crying. After that my sadness was replaced by anger at the Veterinarians office for charging us thousands of dollars to save our pet which we gladly paid to save the best dog ever. A few weeks later they had killed her and I am still not sure on the cause of death. It has been years and I am still pissed about it.

(for those who are curious she was a 9 year old comically overweight brown Labrador with a very friendly but laid back disposition)

 

[emeraldrafael]

Well... actually, i'm gonna get a bad rap for this, but the first pet I ever saw pass was a beagle we weaseled* in a family's friend. I wasnt realy old enough to understand cause I was five, but the image is still with me, and I jsut remember thinking you poor dog you. Sicne then, I've probably (EDIT) helped weaseled six dogs (mostly by getting the weasels).

My second pet I had to put down. Great Dane got rabies, and no one really knew cause it got it during the night. Then in the morning some kids cut through our yard (like they usually do), and one got bit, so the before the state caem and took him away, my grandfather took me out and made me shoot him. its rather sobering for a 12 year old, especially since we'd had him for five years.

my most recent pet was this black lab/something mix that used to be a dog fighting dog. We took it in, and pretty much broke it and worked fromt eh ground up (which is really hard with any dog, but especially a dog who's first reaction is to go for the throat and weighed close to 120 pounds of muscle). he was my favorite, and after I taught him that I was boss, he and I were inseparable. he saved my life one day. Was out int he woods with him, and he fought off a wolf after i had slipped and fallen and fractured my ankle. Dog was a bruiser. he died of old age at 11 (and was living on a few years of extended life). it was rough, but I jus told myself its better this way, cause he would have been terminated without feeling the sense of love, or would have went back to dog fighting.


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*For those that dont know, weaseling a dog is when you take a (usually) small dog (lap size to small size) dog, put it somehwere with a pissed off weasel and basically the two fight to the death in an enclosed area. if the dog wins (and is in a suitable condition to continue living on its own) it gets a hatred of weasels and will hunt them out and kill them. I've never seen a weaseled dog lose a fight before.

if the dog wins and isnt in suitable condition to live, you put the dog down and try again if you're really serious about keeping weasels away.

if the weasel wins, you kill the weasel.

usually the only people that do it are people who live on farms.

 

[roguetrooper96]

I had 2 brown mice quite a few years ago both of them died of tumors. It wasn't a pleasant experience to wake up one day and see a single mouse walking around in its fishtank (I don't know why we had a fishtank, maybe my mum or dad used to own fish when they were younger... anyway we used a fishtank because we couldn't afford to go out and buy a cage and we figured "Hey, we might as well recycle".) and suddenly wonder "Where's the other one gone?" I'm sure the few weeks without company were rather lonely for my other mouse. Then the remaining one went, rather irritatingly that SAME WEEK (I still haven't figured out how to use italics on this site) in school we had to do two poems about dead pets, I still can't see the educational value in doing a poem (The gimmicky happy rhyming type) about something close to you that has died. We did bury them but it was rather shallowly so one day another family that moves into this house will be doing some gardening in the front garden, move some of the pebbles and have quite a shock. How we coped was just to take it on the chin and cry whenever it was needed, death is a terrible thing and I can empathise with your feelings at the moment.

 

[infohippie]

Thank you to everybody for sharing your experiences, it has helped. I have wrapped Mischief (my rat) in a little shroud and buried him in the garden. In a few weeks I will probably get two more young rats to keep my remaining two company.

 

[Artina89]

My cat died on my 13th birthday. She had cancer and had to be put down, it was a long time coming so we were just happy to put her out of her misery. I don't get too attached to pets though.

 

[Pariah87]

We lost one of our dogs in February. She was around 14 but we only had her for 10 years. She'd been found on the streets and from the way she was it seemed likely she had been abused. At first she hated to be touched but over time she became a very loving dog, but also one who liked to keep her own space. She was incredibly laid back and docile. She'd allow our other dog to do pretty much what he wanted but if he crossed the line she'd put him back in his place quickly.

Towards the end she began to lose weight incredibly quickly, going from a healthy weight to skin and bones in a matter of months even though she was eating loads. She'd also had a kind of stroke (which was scary in itself seeing her keel over one night and start twitching about) which left he very onesided. For a month or so after she just appeared to walk around in circles. Along with everything else she developed something in her hind legs which were obviously painful for her. The vets did tests, gave her various drugs but nothing seemed to work for very long. Throughout everything she never complained, or whined. She always greeted you tail wagging and with excitement, even if it was difficult for her to do.

As her health became worse again we decided that we were keeping her alive for our benefit and not hers and that it would be best for her to be put down. I took her down the vets, my mum couldn't face it, and the whole journey she sat there looking at me. That will stick with me because usually she looked out the window in the car or she panicked but this time she sat calmly just looking at me.

I'm not ashamed to say I broke down for a couple of minutes as I stood there with her after she had gone. Family and friends aside there is not a person on the planet I would have put before her in importance so to lose her cut me incredibly deep. Shit, I teared up again just typing all this out thinking about her.

Our other dog became very withdrawn in the weeks after when she didn't come home but since then he has found his feet again.

 

[Beliyal]

The first pet passing I remember is when a stupid neighbour poisoned our three dogs that lived with my grandparents (they had a big house and their our own yard, but I guess some people just fucking hate dogs). I was too little though, so I didn't really understand what happened, but I do remember that I played with the dogs and that the yard felt abandoned after they died. Next, I remember when our parrot died. It was such a smart bird (knew how to talk and greeted us with "Good morning" every day), but contracted some disease and passed away. I was really sad about it (later we got another parrot, but that one flew away when someone accidentally left both the cage and the window opened).

The worse was, however, when my first cat died. He was a just a kitten and I had him for 5 months and then he fell from the window (we live in a skyscraper). This happened 4 days before my tenth birthday and it completely destroyed me. I was depressed and crying for months, often just bursting in tears randomly; in school, on the street, during lunch. We later got another cat and he lived 5 years, until he got a disease; it was some kind of paralysis and he gradually became completely immobile. He couldn't even walk to go to the bathroom and we didn't want him to go through that torture so we put him down. I still feel terrible about it because the vet said that there is a slight chance that he would be better after a few (expensive) operation (although the chance for a complete recovery was non-existent). Worst thing was, he looked completely healthy, apart from the fact that he practically couldn't move at all and that we didn't even know if he's in pain. My mom took him to the vet and then she came back home without him; it was really a depressing day in my life, but I generally got it over quickly, probably because I was older. Still, something like that always gets me, and I feel horrible. It's just that feeling of an empty house that saddens me the most. I always form a strong bond with pets and I feel like my best friend has died when they pass away.