A generation of dogs passes…

I’m mourning the death of an old dog down who passed away recently. He and my dear Winston were the same age, and when they were young, they loved to race around the park together at top speed. Now, 12 years later, there is only one dog left in the neighborhood from those days -- and he is so old that he can barely walk.

There are many new dogs in the neighborhood, including my own new dog and the wild young dogs who run with him. But I take this moment to remember the beloved dogs who have gone before.

Forgiving myself... I took on his pain

Here's Winston a few months before the end...
the kitty in the background is still with us

It’s been a year and a half since my dog Winston died, and I’m almost ready to forgive myself for deciding to euthanize him. He was ready to go and met the objective criteria for euthanasia (couldn’t walk, incontinent, in pain, elderly, no hope of recovery, etc). But in retrospect it felt like I let him go too soon -- especially when I started going to “pet loss support” groups and chat rooms after his death, and discovered that they also provide emotional support for people who are nursing pets whose health is failing. With their support, I could have had more time with Winston!

It’s often said that when you forgive someone, you do it for your own benefit, not for the person being forgiven. But what about forgiving yourself? I can’t forgive myself for my own sake. I still feel like punishing myself for the worst decision of my entire life, the euthanasia decision.

However, I can begin to imagine forgiving my past self for the sake of those who depend on me now, including my new dog. We got him about a year ago. I can’t bond fully with my new dog while I am still stuck on Winston. It’s not fair to the new dog when I keep comparing him to Winston, forcing him to do the things Winston enjoyed, and generally feeling like I don’t deserve a dog anymore.

As much as I loved Winston, I didn’t fully appreciate him until after he died. I thought that all dogs were similar. But now I know that each one is absolutely unique. There will never be another dog like Winston. I don’t want to make the same mistake again. I want to appreciate my new dog now, while he is alive and with me. And so I will try to forgive myself.

After writing the above, I took my grief to the chat room at PetLoss.com, and received these comforting words of wisdom from BooBoosMommy: “You did what was best for him, you took his pain away and took it on yourself.”

Winston can’t be far away

Me and Winston... nothing can separate us

I am comforted by the thought that Winston’s spirit must be nearby. In life he used to follow me from room to room, never leaving me alone. Even when he couldn’t walk, he would drag himself around to follow me. Why would he be any different after death? That was part of the very essence of who he was.

My new dog is so independent that I sometimes feel rejected. It makes me appreciate Winston’s desire to be near me. Nothing, not even death, can keep Winston away. His spirit is still with me. Forever.

Winston wants me to go on

Winston kissing me... one of our last photos together

One idea has helped me move on now that my dog Winston is gone. It’s this: He would want me to keep going.

Winston would want me to keep walking on the park trails that we loved to walk together -- and even explore new trails with our new dog. He would want me to keep enjoying the scents of fresh grass and mustard flowers, the warm sunshine, the crunch of the earth beneath my feet, the songs of birds and crickets.

Winston never missed an opportunity to go for a walk. As long as he had breath, he enjoyed life. Nothing stopped him from living his life to the full, and he would not approve if I let my love for him stop me from living my life fully.

So I go on. It’s what Winston would want.

Winston calendar celebrates his life

I just finished putting together a 2009 calendar with the best photos of Winston -- and some other cute dogs and cats in my life (including Sapphire).

I did my first pet-photo calendar last year as a Christmas gift to family and friends… and as a way to honor Winston as his health was failing last December. The calendar was a big hit with everyone, so I’m doing it again. This year I'm also making it available for sale online. Check out the ad below.

Working on the calendar helps me continue processing my grief over Winston’s death, and to celebrate his life and remember the many good times we shared. Giving the calendar to people is also a joyful, personal way to connect with my “dog friends.”

Almost everyone who sees it wants to make one of their own and asks how I did it. Follow the Zazzle.com links for more info.

All dogs and cats in this calendar are real pets, photographed with their real companions, in or near their real homes. See cute puppies and kittens, dogs of all shapes and sizes… Great Danes, Lab, Dachshund, Beagle mix and more. Made with love.

make custom gifts at Zazzle

Moving on...?

I was waiting until I "got over" my dog Winston's death before I did some stuff... then this week I realized that I will NEVER get over it. So I might as well live my life as best I can without Winston by my side.

It's been close to 10 months since he "moved on."

My dog came back from heaven

We took the new Great Dane pup to an outdoor coffee shop where we used to take Winston. They happened to have a street fair, so we walked through it, having lots of fun as people petted and marveled over our new Great Dane puppy.

We stopped to listen to a live singer-guitarist, and she launched into “I Will Remember You” by Sarah McLaughlin -- the very song that I played over and over in Winston’s last weeks, while he was dying…!

I will remember you.
Will you remember me?
Don’t let your life pass you by.
Weep not for the memories.

It brought tears to my eyes as I felt Winston with us. But I knew that he wanted me to have fun, not cry because I still miss him.

Grief goes on, and so will this blog

After my latest grief meltdown, I realized that this blog must continue -- for me and for others. For others because I keep getting comments and emails from readers who say that this blog is really helping them face the end of their own dog’s life. I know from experience that there are very few places online that address the death of a beloved pet. I am honored that Winston’s story has value for them.

And this blog must continue for me because I will always love Winston. Grieving his death will be a lifelong process. I will never forget him for as long as I live, and there will be times when I will want and need to write about it.

I believe that his spirit lives on and visits sometimes, and our relationship continues to grow until we meet again at the place that some call the Rainbow Bridge and others call Dog Heaven.

Grief for old dog blinds me to new pup

My grief over Winston’s death has been blinding me to my new pup’s needs. After the pet loss support group, I had a breakthrough. A few days after processing my built-up Winston grief, it dawned on me that maybe the new pup can’t see well out of one eye. It explains a lot of his behavior quirks.

The realization that the pup may be visually impaired had a heartwarming effect on me. I finally feel that he does need me. And I also feel that he may have many other qualities that I have not yet noticed, unexpected gifts that will enrich our lives.

Pet Loss Support Group helps

I resolved to go back to the pet loss support group at the local Humane Society after my recent grief meltdown. I needed it, even though I had never met anyone there who was still grieving a dog who died eight months earlier as Winston did.

I take that back -- the therapist who leads the group is still grieving for a dog who died several years ago. The therapist welcomed me back with open arms.

This time I cried at the support group as much as I did when Winston first died in February. I told them that I had spent the first few months focusing on (reviewing, sometimes regretting) my euthanasia decision, but now I am mostly remembering how special Winston was, and appreciating his good qualities. But when the therapist asked about my current feelings on euthanasia, I found that I still struggle with that, too. “I did the best I could at the time,” I mumbled.

It was especially helpful to hear the experiences of another woman who had lost a dog who sounded a lot like Winston -- naturally well behaved and socially adept. Her new dog was hard to manage like my new dog. This seems to be a pattern, because I also heard it at the online pet loss chat group.

The woman had gotten her new dog several years before the old dog died, but it was the same struggle that I have -- comparing the dogs, wondering why the second couldn’t be as good as the first. However, she was much further along in the process, so she was able to say that we owners contribute to the problem by comparing the dogs instead of accepting the new dog as is, the way we did with the first dog. Another pattern is that the spouse bonds more quickly with the second, “imperfect” dog. Maybe Winston only seems perfect to me because he was so attached to me, but he didn’t obey my partner as much. The dog’s beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It frees me to look at the new pup with fresh eyes and fall in love with his quirks as I did with Winston when we first met.

My next post will tell about an amazing experience that I had right after I left the support group.

Grief hits 8 months after dog died

Winston at his prime in 1999, when he was 3 years old

I had a meltdown last week, crying uncontrollably because I missed my dog Winston so much, about 8 months after he died.

The crisis was triggered by my new puppy’s misbehavior on a walk. We were walking past the house where one of his favorite dog-friend’s lives. At least, I was walking past. The pup stopped and refused to keep going. He’s a Great Dane puppy and at five months old he’s already too big for me to force him against his will if he gets really stubborn. I tried every recommended training technique, but in the end I’m sorry to report that I lost my temper and yelled at him. Naturally it didn’t do any good, just scared him. Somehow I managed to pull hard enough to get him moving again.

When we got home I started crying: “I’ll never have a friend like Winston to walk with me!” I couldn’t help thinking of how much better Winston acted on walks. Winston never refused to keep walking, and always had a grateful, upbeat attitude. I had been trying not to compare my new dog to Winston, but a flood of emotions overwhelmed me. I had to admit to myself that I have not gotten over the grief of Winston’s death. I even considered returning the new pup to his breeder because I couldn’t handle him.

That night I ended up going to the online chat group at PetLoss.com. The people there are lifesavers! I get especially great support from the “wolves” there -- regular participants with “wolf” in their nicknames. They come to help others while they themselves are still hurting from the loss of a beloved animal.

I went online to the pet loss chat group without resting as I should. And I stayed online for much longer than my body could handle. I ended up getting sick with tonsillitis. But I needed a place to process the grief, and they saved me from dangerously intense grief.

Some especially useful ideas from that night:

• ABSOLUTELY MOST USEFUL IDEA: When Princeton acts up, think about how I would have handled it if Winston did the same thing.

• After they die, our old dog sends us the new dog that they know will need us or will help us smile or that will comfort us. (So Winston picked out the wild new pup for me!)

• I’m not dishonoring Winston by loving the new pup. The old dog may even choose a new pup who is extremely different just so we won’t feel guilty for loving the new one in the same way.

• Sometimes we just have to blow off steam when the new dogs drive us nuts and then go back fresh the next day.

• “Those tears you still find glistening in your eyes for Winston are but a reflection of the love you share with him. The love for this new boy will shine in your eyes one day, but it will never replace that love for Winston.”

• “Amazing thing about a heart is that it will expand to capture all the love it can. You can love your lost baby to bits and yet also love a new baby that needs you.”

It’s been hard for me to see that the new pup needs me. He’s much more self-sufficient and independent than Winston. In addition, his breeder has a lifetime guarantee that if we ever can’t take care of him, we must return him to the breeder and she will make sure that he has a good home for the rest of his life. This is certainly a great lifetime protection for the pup, but it kind of has the reverse effect on me, making me question myself and wonder whether the pup would be better off with somebody else.

When the new pup acts up, it really helps to think, “What if Winston did this?” For example, when I was leash-training Winston, I used a long (25-foot) leash at first. With the new pup, I had always used the 6-foot leash. Now I use the long leash sometimes with the new pup, and he’s much happier on our walks.

The grief didn’t end there. I’m writing a series of posts about other steps I took to handle my grief explosion.

Healing vision: Two dogs

I had a breakthrough in healing my pet-loss grief. It seems like ever since my dog Winston died two and a half months ago, I have been overcome with longing for a new dog almost every night when I go to bed.

This time it was like I could feel a dog’s presence curled up beside the bed where Winston used to sleep. I tried to sense whether it was Winston or the new dog, the one that we hope to adopt soon.

Then the imaginary dog separated into two dogs. Winston stayed curled beside my bed, and the new dog moved outside and sat looking at me through the screen door.

For the first time I could separate my eagerness to get a new dog from my desire to be with my old dog Winston again. My overwhelming, insatiable longing for a dog became more manageable as I explored whether it was mostly about Winston or about the new dog. The most intense feelings were about Winston. But the new dog also evoked strong emotions.

I used to believe that the new dog would somehow be Winston in a new body. Now I feel that the new dog will be a stranger. And that’s OK. We will build a new relationship, have new adventures, and grow together in new ways.

I slept better with the image of the two dogs in my mind. For the first time since Winston died, I dreamed about dogs.

Visiting the Pet Loss Support Group

Dillon and I went to a Pet Loss Support Group recently at our local humane society. We showed a calendar that I made with photos of Winston. The photos inspired the therapist leading the group to exclaim, “He’s your child!” I was surprised, but then again the photos did show all the love that we lavished on Winston, including taking him to see Santa Claus one Christmas. It hurt to think of my deceased dog as my child, but it did express the intensity of the loss.

Ten people were at the support group, all grieving their dead dogs and cats. Hearing their stories helped me and Dillon feel that we are not so alone, that others have experienced such loss. We all sat in a circle. Both Dillon and I sensed (or imagined) that each pet was sitting behind its owner in a larger outer circle.

For me it was especially useful to hear the other side of various issues. For example, some people kept torturing themselves by wondering they had resorted to euthanasia too soon, while others felt anguish because they had waited “too long” for euthanasia, making their pets suffer just because the owner wasn’t ready to say goodbye. It’s a no-win situation.

I also kept thinking that we could have eased our grief if we had adopted a second dog a few years ago. Then at least we would not be completely dog-less now, left alone without any canine companionship or protection. However, people with multiple dogs were still in tears, missing their particular dogs.

Some people pointed out that Dillon and I are lucky to have each other as we grieve. Most of those present were single or splitting up. It felt good to count my blessings, which are many. As they pointed out, we also still have our cat. Sapphire seems to be missing Winston, too.

Everyone had a different story as they told the circumstances of their pet’s death. It put an end to my thoughts that getting a dog without hip dysplasia might make the end easier. No matter what the cause of death, the dying process was hard. I actually found myself feeling fortunate over Winston’s relatively peaceful passing. One couple described how their dog was fatally injured in a gruesome dog mauling attack.

Toward the end, the therapist brought up getting another dog. Nobody was ready yet, and we heard stories about the difficulty bonding with a dog adopted too soon after a beloved dog died. However, Dillon and I do want to adopt another dog someday, and we were perhaps more ready than some.

The therapist concluded by reminding us that, no matter what, when all was said and done, we all loved our pets. It was the right thing to say.

Afterward many of us strolled through the kennels where dogs were available for adoption. Among them was Super Pup, the Beagle puppy that I had thought I wanted to adopt. I had gone crazy with desire for that pup a few days earlier when I found her on the Internet, but all it took was one glance to see that she was not the right dog for us.

“She’s so SMALL,” Dillon exclaimed in horror, as if smallness was a terrible deformity.

Yes, we do like big boys. We’re trying to keep open minds and open hearts about what kind of dog to adopt next. When we are ready, I trust that the right one will join our pack.

A spirit-dog cares for Winston

Last night we made Winston sleep in the bathroom on a yoga mat covered with newspapers to soak up his urine.

When I woke up in the morning I felt something I’ve never felt before: Relief that Winston wasn’t with me. I didn’t have to worry about where he was peeing or hear his endless, anxious licking. I had reached a new place in my journey with Winston. I lingered in bed, enjoying the respite.

Then Dillon’s alarm went off, and Winston started whimpering. I opened the bathroom door and we had a happy reunion among the soaked newspapers. It smelled like a whole kennel full of dogs.

I got some fresh newspapers and petted him as we lay together on the living room floor. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I thought of the song “The Rose.”

Later (10 pm)
People kept telling me to consider my dog’s quality of life in deciding whether the time for euthanasia had come. I kept thinking Winston’s quality of life was still good. Until today, when for the first time I could really see a problem.

It struck me when Dillon and I shut Winston in the bathroom and left to go on a walk in the park without him. Normally we would have taken him with us, but it’s impossible for him to go for a walk outside now. I missed Winston and felt sad thinking of him shut alone in the bathroom, lying in his own urine.

One thought helped me: I imagined/prayed that Winston was not really alone, but that a spirit dog was with him. Dillon and I always believed that a spirit dog had guided Winston to us originally. Now that spirit dog has come to guide Winston again.

When we got home, Winston seemed to be at peace. He was glad to see us, but it didn’t seem like he had missed us too much. Instead, he appeared to be refreshed by his afternoon nap in the bathroom.

Could this day get any worse? (Part 2)

Sometimes I worry that this blog is getting too depressing. But some people seem to like reading it, and writing it helps me. There has to be a place where it's OK to communicate about the hard stuff. I usually write these posts as events unfold, and then let them sit a few days so I can edit them before posting. This time I'm combining the events of 3 days into a single post... so it has a happy ending.

Jan. 20, 2008

Today I cried real tears for my dog. “I can’t take care of my Winston!”

This after he had diarrhea all night and all day, and me cleaning it up every few hours. With his advanced hip dysplasia, he can't move fast enough to get outside when the diarrhea hits. It’s a HUGE mess. My muscles ache. Honestly I don’t know where I found the strength. Musta been angels.

Dillon responded to my tears by fixing me lunch. A hamburger and a nap refreshed me for the next round of stinky mess. Dillon did the clean-up that night.

----
1/21/08

Could this day get any worse? (Part 2)

Today was another dismal day at the vet after a hard night.

Winston’s diarrhea got worse -- and bloody, too. So last night we had to have him sleep in the bathroom, the easiest room to clean up. It’s too cold for him to sleep outside. It was lonely not having him sleep near our bed, but I did sleep better and he didn’t cry, howl or whimper. Maybe it’s a preparation for the coming separation when he dies. But it was awful to open the bathroom door to a wave of stink and find him laying in his own filth.

Dillon and I took him to the vet in the morning. The “Walkabout” harness really helped Dillon lift him into the car.

“So he has diarrhea?” the vet asked innocently as he tried to insert a rectal thermometer -- provoking what he called “projectile diarrhea.”

The problem was painfully obvious to all. The vet thought it would be a good idea to move Winston to a clean exam room, where he tried again with the thermometer -- with the same result.

“Oh, shit!” he exclaimed.

“Literally,” Dillon piped up.

“Could this day get any worse?” I asked. That phrase from a previous blog has become a favorite for me and Dillon. “It probably can,” I added.

And it did. When the vet sent us home with more medicines, we discovered that the battery on our car had died! As we waited for AAA to give us a jump start, Dillon said, “It helps me to know that this will become a funny story on your blog.”

Finally we got home and I coaxed Winston into taking most of the prescribed pills. Then at sunset he vomited it all up, undigested. I called the vet, who said to try again tomorrow.

At dinnertime Winston refused to eat -- that’s never EVER happened before. My dog has always had a huge appetite.

A friend wrote a beautiful thought to me today about dogs: “I think it is better for us to outlive them because they would mourn too much were it the opposite.” I never thought of it that way before.

---
Jan. 22, 2008

Oh, happy day!

Last night I coaxed Winston into eating his antibiotic pill by putting it inside some hamburger meat -- and the diarrhea stopped.

Today he’s eating again, too.