Your first pet you had to put to sleep.

[Michael Tabbut]

Had a cat named Kintaro (not named after anime or MK character) who had heart problems. He sort of hated me but I loved the little bastard. We put him to sleep when we learned that his heart was beginning to fail. It was a week before Christmas and the cat was only 5 years old.

 

[Sealpower]

A rabbit I once had got a small wound on his neck that got infected and grew into a horrible mess of dead tissue and blood that covered a large area of the neck. It was a difficult decision for a kid to make but I finally called my uncle to come visit bringing his .22

 

[loc978]

My family had a dog from the time I was 6, big lab mutt, grew to be about 120lbs. She died when I was 17. It started with some apparently minor breathing issue, the vet told us "she's just old"... so I started tucking her in at night (she was an outdoor dog, we lived out in the country) and making sure she got to sleep comfortably. One night (it was summer, clear and quite warm) she wasn't in her house, so I went looking for her... found her out in the garden, laying on her side, breathing hard and staring at horizon where the moon was rising. I propped her head up on my lap so she could see better and petted her head until she stopped breathing and closed her eyes. I sat there for hours afterward, crying. Buried her in the morning, right where she died.

I even shed a tear typing this, and I'm 33 years old now. If you loved that animal, it fades, but it doesn't go away... and you won't want it to... or at least, I don't.

Had plenty of others since then, a rottweiler (she was my first dog's companion later in life... had to put her down at age 14, she was in a lot of pain... used a hunting rifle. Shed a few tears over that one too, and I spent almost half of her life away overseas), another lab mutt (this one quite small, ran over by a truck at age 5), and most recently a half-breed hound (mauled by something meaner than her and came limping back, died at the vet's office, age 4)... all of them were difficult, but none as much as the dog I grew up with.

 

[Tiamattt]

First actual time was a rooster, but truth be told we never really bonded. He was already full grown when we got him and really all he wanted to do was get fed and walk around in the yard. So for a young teen he wasn't much fun to hang around with. But it was still sad that we had to "get rid of him" since a neighbor complained about him doing what everyone expects a rooster to do every morning. (although I never heard a peep from the lil guy) While it still really sucked it almost didn't count since there was no real emotional connection there.

First time where it really hurt was this pitbull we had for close to 15 years. He was a awesome dog, I'm kinda choking up while writing this just thinking about him. Unfortunately as he got older his ability to move became less and less, he absolutely loved walks but it came to a point where he looked like he was going to have a heart attack after we came home from one. Until eventually all he could do was lie down next to my bed and never leave that spot. It was clear he was in constant pain, so the only thing we can do for him was put him down. And it was completely heartbreaking, it was losing a close relative and a best friend at the same time.

Not sure what to say about coping. I cried my eyes out that day, was really depressed about it for a long time afterwards. Even close to a decade later I still get a sad feeling when I think about him. But what can I say, life goes on and the pain will get better with time. I wouldn't say get another pet immediately since as much as you'll want it to that new pet won't be able to fill the void your old one did, but hopefully someday you'll find another special animal that'll bring you as much happiness as your first one did.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going hug the heck out of my pets

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Thankfully everything I own seems to die naturally on me.

 

[Shinsei-J]

My best friend name Jimmy dog, he was a blue heeler.
We (my family) got him when he was only a couple of months old after my uncle had died and left him to us and I was born only a month or so after that. So I grew up with him and he helped me through a lot of stuff as I'd come home cry and hug him. One day after 14 years he stopped walking, I was worried, I wanted to go with him to the vet in the morning but I had school so I couldn't come along.
That day I got pulled out of class and taken to him to say my last goodbye.
I never knew a life without him so all I did was cry and I'm crying even now.
I really miss him, he was my best friend when I had no one, at that point in time he was my only one that felt like real family.

God, now I'm sobbing in bed at 3am and all I want to do is hug my current dog.
I'm going to let her sleep on my bed for tonight.

 

[The Wonder of the net]

I just had to do this, this February. My dog, Punk, a pink nosed pit bull. He had bone cancer. My family tried to say they have a choice but i wasn't having any of it. I wanted people to get one day.. one day to say goodbye. After that going to the vet was heart breaking. Walking in with him, he laying down because his hip/legs were killing him. I sat with him...

The vet was nice but killed me by trying to say I made the right choice, I was helping him because he was in pain. They let me sit with him and that was hard..... He went fast, he gasped, but over all I was soo heart broken I crawled back in the car ate just enough to feel something hit my stomach and locked myself away for a week. I just really couldn't deal with it. I still have nightmares because of my own guilt dealing with the fact he was crying and I feel like a horrible owner.

Now if you don't mind I'm going to drink my liver out of me.

 

[Rad Party God]

I've had many pets through out my life, 2 "fancy rats", a guinea pig, a duck and the one I was more attached to and I still miss sometimes was my first and only dog, Bruno.

Spoiler: Here's a pic of him.

We had to put him to sleep almost 3 years ago. To me, he was my "eternal puppy", even in his last days, he would still act playful, not as energetic as he used to, but he tried. His heart was getting weaker and he was coughing a lot, to the point where he had a lot of trouble to breathe by himself, he was basically asphyxiating if he didn't move his head upwards. The doctors said there was not much to do and he would have to take a lot of medicine and he was already old, he was 12, instead of having him to suffer for the rest of his days, we had to make the painful decision of put him to sleep.

I don't regret anything about him, we loved him and he loved us twice we could ever love him, sometimes I still dream with him, I dream of him still trying to wake me up when it was getting late, I dream him wadering around the house and sometimes I still expect him to greet me everytime I get to home, heck, sometimes I'm still careful not to step on him whenever I go to sleep.

So yeah... a great dog... and a great friend... I still miss him.

 

[Padwolf]

Hi Escapists, I just want to say my heart goes out to each and every one of you. Putting a pet to sleep is never easy, and I have to say that it never does get any easier, each wound hurts as much as the last. I'm sorry but this will be a really long post.

I have so far lost 3 pets in my life. A dog and two cats. Now, my dog Mojo and my cat Mr Tibbs meant the world to me and I loved them as much as I love the pets I have with me today. However, the member of family I would like to talk about is my other cat Snowey, also known as Squeaky. I've talked about this before, but I have to say that the blow is still fresh, still there for me. It's been two years since she was put to sleep, and still it hurts.

I loved her so much, she was my first pet, the first pet that was officially mine. I remember waking up one morning, the house really quiet, I walked around and no one was there. I went into the garden and there was my family, my neighbours, and the neighbour's neighbours, all of which were family friends. My mum turned around and in her arms was this little white kitten with big blue eyes at the time. I loved her instantly.

This little kitten grew up with me, I was 8 when I got her. She was fun, a right little madam. She hissed, she clawed, she spat out at people and just didn't give a damn. But she loved me, she would give me nose boops, and always come to sleep with me. For 12 years she was my companion and I loved her to pieces. She was with me through everything, through school, through bullying, through the first heartbreak. She was a bit of a floozy, me and my mum used to say. She'd lay in the pathway between me and my neighbours and roll on her back whenever the good looking brazilian men came up the path. She wouldn't do it for anyone else.

Then she became ill. She had kitty gum problems and had to have teeth removed. She was fine for a good while after that and recovered. Then one day she became mysteriously ill. Me and my family knew it was something bad so we took her to the vets. The vets did scans, x-rays, blood tests, everything. In the end they told us she just had a cold. We took their word for it - we have been with this vet for many years, my parents had used them before I was even thought of - I had no room to doubt it. However, I had a nagging feeling, and so did my family.

One month later I was woken up by my dog Regan. He was trying his best to get my attention, and it was really damn strange for him, so I knew it must be urgent so I got up out of bed and followed him. He took me downstairs. There was my pretty princess laying on the rug, barely breathing and her stomach was very swollen. I screamed and cried for my brother to come down and we got her to the vets right away. As soon as they looked over her they said "It's time. It's cancer, and the tumor is huge and we can't do anything about it, it's too late. I had to say my goodbyes to her there and then. To be honest that was probably the hardest moment of my life.

I didn't know what to make of it all. The vets must have seen the tumor. If it were really that big. All those scans, blood tests, everything. My poor little princess had to go a whole month in such pain. If we knew we could have had her put to sleep sooner, or maybe have had her go in for treatment. I was beside myself with rage, with sorrow. Still to this day I don't know how to handle it. I still blame myself largely.

After that I fell into a slump. Maybe it was some depression, I don't know. I just couldn't function properly anymore. We changed vets during that time. The people my beloved pets go to now are wonderful. But it still hurts like hell that Squeaky had to go through that. I know misdiagnosis happens. I do. I understand that. But it doesn't soften the blow. It's been two years and still sometimes at night I feel a cat jump onto the bed and I look and there's nothing there. Sometimes out the corner of my eyes and I see something white I think it's her. A year after my mum brought home a kitten who I named Smudge. I vowed I would always look after her and make sure what happened to Squeaky wouldn't ever happen again.

[spoiler = Squeaky]

[/spoiler]

 

[dave1004]

We weren't able to put my cat to sleep. She had been with me for a short time over a decade, and living in Canada, on a ranch no less, that's quite a feat. (Animals tend to meet untimely fates around here. Larger beasts, vehicles and more. You know.)

Anyways, it was in the middle of winter and the snow was a foot high on the roads. Our little ranch had a sort of valley where it sat in, and the snow had drifts twenty feet high. The truck was buried, it was -32 Celsius outside, and snowing, too. My cat had been suffering for a while, being about 16-17 years old and living a large portion of it outside (She was an indoor-outdoor cat), and it had taken a toll on her. I was planning to take her in, one day, maybe next week, or some other time...Well, that time never came. She was sick, weak, and dying. It was all she could do to try and drag herself to a litter box, sadly to no avail.

So, my dad and I wrapped her up, carried her outside and shot her in the head with a .22

And that was it. I'll probably never have another pet, and I regret not putting her down, but the nearest veterinarian was three and a half hours away, through a near-blizzard and snow so deep that it'd take hours just to dig the truck out, much less actually being able to drive on the roads.

In another case, we had a farm cat that drank a bunch of anti-freeze, and he was in such a terrible shape that I gave him an overdose on painkillers (Which were designed for dogs), and he fell asleep...Never woke up, of course.

Otherwise, I've witnessed dozens of cats, and sometimes dogs, too, die in sad ways on the ranch that we lived in. It was a cattle feed-lot, which meant a lot of big vehicle traffic.

I miss my cat.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Three or so years ago I said goodbye to our first family dog, our Staffordshire Bull Terrier Paisley. I'd had fish before then, but nothing prepared me for having to put down a six year old dog because of an enlarged heart condition. The worst of it was, after we informed the breeder about the genetic condition they told us that they knew of it and that the father of the litter had died of the same condition, which if we'd known about it we could have had Paisely checked and sorted out as a puppy.

Spoiler: Paisley

[http://s302.photobucket.com/user/AzureSN/media/ThePaiseV_zps2b86812a.jpg.html]

That's one of my favourite pictures, just him lounging around doing what he loved. Laying in the sun like the spoiled little thing he was.
Then just today my girlfriend has had to have her dog of 9 put down due to inoperable stomach cancer. It never gets easier.

 

[game-lover]

We've never had to put a pet to sleep. We have however had them die.

My first pet though my mom's like 3rd or 4th was a dog that got left outside in the summer, stuck to a chain. There was a divorce going on and my father, who was the only one at home during that time went somewhere and didn't think to let him roam free. The dog was dead when we got back. I was a baby so I only know what I hear. I don't even have a memory of the dog except it's color. Still...

Another dog hung itself to death on a chain connected to our fence. I was older then and we found the body when we were leaving to go to school. He was just there, propped up not moving and we kids didn't know what happened. We got hustled into the car and off. Found out later that he was dead. I was surprised but again, hadn't had a chance to bond with it.

All our other dogs pretty much ran away or something.

 

[FPLOON]

Although I never had a pet of my own, I was there when my grandmother had to put down her dog Jill because she was suffering from Cancer, I think...

I have never been so sad about something like that since... (and I have been to a couple of human funerals...)

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Last year I had to put my cat, Gizmo, to sleep.

She was a part of the family for fourteen years. She was given to us by one of my mom's coworkers when her cat had kittens. She was half Siamese and half Tabby, and she had two brothers that went to another family. We named her Gizmo, after the character from the movie Gremlins.

She never much cared for my dad or my sister because they teased her a lot, but she was very affectionate toward my mom and I. We used to buy her toys to play with all the time, but she always ended up having more fun with the packaging (she used to love playing fetch with the little twisty tie things used to secure items inside the packages). She always hated being picked up and held, but if you stood still for her she would jump up onto your shoulder and let you carry her around like a scarf (she was fairly small even when full grown, and a phenomenal jumper). We think she also might have been somewhat afraid of being alone, because she would always stay in whichever room had the most people in it (and would sit by the door and cry if we left her at home to go somewhere). Most night she slept at the bottom of my bed between my feet.

During the last few months of her life she got pretty sick. We have no idea what it was, and the vet we took her to didn't have a concrete answer for us either. It started off as a problem with her left eye. We thought she might have gotten poked or something, because she was always squinting that one eye. After a few days that eye began to water, looking kind of like tears but only from that one eye. This lasted for a few weeks, and the vet told us not to worry about it. From then she started to eat less and less each day. She lost a lot of weight, to the point where she was practically just skin and bones. The vet gave us some medicine for her to increase her appetite, but she still barely ate. Then she started getting very anti-social. She started to prefer being alone, and spent most of her time under the bed in my older sister's room (who had moved out of the house).

The last time we took her to the vet, they told us that it was clear Gizmo wasn't going to be getting any better, and at this point we'd only be prolonging her pain. I thought that I could stay composed for my mom, but it was a battle where losing was inevitable. We each gave her one last hug and said our tearful goodbyes. I wanted to stay by her side, but my mom is disabled and she wanted to leave (she had a stroke, and it made it very difficult for her to control her emotions to the point where even being mildly upset about something will bring full-blown crying fits... she felt like her crying was loud enough that it was upsetting other people at the vet). I chose to help my mom leave... but I still regret not being with Gizmo in her final moments. It deeply upset me, and still does, that she died among strangers.

I still miss her, but she lived a long and hopefully joyful life... so I can't be too upset about what happened. It's just nature.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Never had to. They all died either of old age or got run over by cars.
If I tell you there was one goldfish and several cats, you can probably guess which died how.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

1997, our border collie, Misty. She was 14 and had a failing liver and was in a lot of pain for some time. I was 9, my mum took her to the vets and made the decision to end her suffering. Came home from school and she wasn't there any more.

Haven't had another pet since.

 

[Pascal]

I had a german shepherd named Tegan when I was a kid. She was the first pet I ever had, and I loved her like a sister. She got very old, but my parents were against euthanasia, so they decided to let her die of natural causes. It was one of the worst things I've ever seen. Near the end, she was in constant pain. She would howl and cry all day and night, and was constantly throwing up her food. She couldn't walk, but would pitifully crawl in circles, like she was trying to run away from death. She lived a good life, but suffered horribly at the end. I had two more dogs and a cat that died in this way as well, and I was very vocal about taking them to be euthanized, but my parents would not allow it.

There's a conflict between not wanting to cut a pet's life short, and wanting to ease their suffering, but I believe that there is a point where they cannot enjoy life any more and when that comes, having your pet put down is the right thing to do. Letting a pet die of natural causes is cruel.

 

[Robert Marrs]

Haven't had to yet but its not long away. My oldest dog Ursa is about 12 and you can tell she doesn't have much time left. Losing weight, bum knee etc. It will be sad of course but its not like I didn't know it wasn't going to happen. Everything dies eventually. Accepting that immediately helps with grief later on.

 

[Tuxedoman]

When I lived with my Mother, we had a lot of pets. By the time I moved out we had 8 dogs, three cats, about 20 chickens, a goat and a few sheep. We lived out in the country so there was a lot of land for this sorta thing.

The upside was that I was surrounded by amazing fuzzy creatures who all had distinct personalities and their own weird pecking orders with one another. The downside is that all good things come to and end, and that there's going to be a lot of dead animals eventually..

The first one was a little Jack Russel called 'J'. He was adopted, and actually shared the same Birthday as me. However he got a series of very bad skin infections and began to chew at himself to deal with it. This lead to his condition getting worse and worse to the point where he was in a lot of pain and was advised to be put down.
If we were more knowledgeable about dogs at that point, we wouldn't have taken the vets advice and instead opted for a number of antiseptic creams and assorted other medical gear. But we just did what the Vet said, and at nine years old I sat there in the vet holding my dog's paw as he was put to sleep.

His brother was put down when I was 18, he had gone insane with age but still remembered me when I would come home to visit. However, he was put down without me knowing, which made me really angry. I understand that Mum assumed I didn't care much as I was a teenager living out on my own, but he was my puppy. What made it worse, was that my darling Grandmother had taken him to the vet, then left immediately. She didn't even stay with him while he was put down.

Mum had to work, and I get that. Grandma however didn't have to go anywhere. And I sure as hell would have dropped everything I was doing to be with him for his final moments.

Only.. Six more to go!