Today our puppy had to be put to sleep.  I have put up the last set of pictures on my photos page for your enjoyment.  Please excuse the blurriness of many of them.  I need to figure out how I managed to turn up the exposure time, and then turn it back down.

August, born (about) June 20, 2005, died today, at an age of twelve weeks.  She got very sick over the weekend and could barely breathe this morning.  We took her to the vet and they x-rayed her and found that her lungs were clouded and her heart was too big and was actually blocking air from getting to her lungs.  They think it is most likely a birth defect that would have continued to give her problems.  They kept her all day and gave her oxygen.  When they give a little dog oxygen, rather than using a mask, they put it in a mostly-closed (not air-tight) aquarium and stick the tube of oxygen into the top.  By evening she was not better and was in pain trying to breathe a few minutes after taking her away from the oxygen.  We did not even get a chance to take her back home and play with her.  The vet told us that there was very little they could do for her.  So I had to make the decision to let them put her to sleep.  It was such a difficult decision to make, even though I knew it was the humane and responsible thing to do.  But we had grown so attached to her.  I keep seeing in my mind the image of her in that aquarium full of oxygen this morning, looking at us with big puppy eyes, probably a little bit high, and knowing that she trusts us completely.  And then this evening I had to make the decision to end her life and I feel like I betrayed her when she was helpless to do anything about it.

My heart goes out to anyone who’s ever lost a child, because I can’t imagine how much more strongly you must feel everything I feel now for just a puppy.  I’ve lost grandparents before, but losing someone who looks up to you as a parent (even if it is just a puppy) has an entirely different kind of emotional pain associated with it.  You may be reading this and thinking I’m overreacting; I probably would have thought that if I read something like this in someone else’s blog a few months ago.  This is really hard emotionally and I never would have expected it to be so difficult.