Well yesterday. I had Jeter put to sleep yesterday. I have a really great Eulogy to write but I am still distraught. He was my best friend and my pet. Peanut is gone to.
The day started out wrong. I should have known. I did know. I’ve known for awhile. I’ve had plans to have Jeter Euthanized for about a year now. I just have never been able to bring myself to do it. I loved him that much. He was a large dog and developed hip dysplasia and that condition got worse as he got older. He has been falling two or three times or more before he even could get out the door to go to the bathroom. Once up and steady on his feet he’d do well. Last week had been particularly bad for him. He fell, he flopped, he looked to make sure you didn’t see him. If you held him steady, he would sigh and then go on. I gave him a bath and when he tried to sit in the water I felt his bones crunching against each other in his hips. I anguished a few times about this decision I knew I had to make and I told my aunt that at the end of this semester I would do it.
Here is an older picture of Jeter.
I am sorry I am a selfish person. I wanted him alive because I love him. I was not and still am not ready for him to be gone. On top of everything else, you can understand why I’ve not been sleeping and why I’ve taken to taking my Xanax, oh there really isn’t an excuse for me.
Thursday evening Peanut came in and he had a puncture wound on his neck. Looked kind of like a snake bite but with rabies being at epidemic highs right now, we decided not to take a chance. Peanut was 11. By Friday morning his back was all broke out in a rash. My aunt left a message for the vet. When I got home from dropping Lulu off at the daycare, she told me she was going to have Peanut put to sleep. I was shocked. I was not ready. Peanut had other problems. He has had a cough for over a year, he can’t see, he is stiff when he gets up, and he pee all over if you didn’t get up and put him out a few times during the night.
Here is an older picture of Peanut.
For that matter so would Jeter.
I could not wait for the vet to call. I loaded the dogs, Molly, and my aunt into the car. We drove over there. The vet cried. He told my daughter he had really bad allergies and ran to the back room. We all did. The vet took care of Peanut first. Jeter went berserk. He clawed up my shoulder and howled and whined when the vet put the purple stuff in Peanut. It was like he knew. He saw Peanuts soul. The vet told my aunt to take as much time as she needed and started to put the stuff away and then looked at me sitting on the floor holding Jeter. He said, “No, not Jeter. I have stuff to help him. I won’t even charge you.” I told him not to put his stuff away.
I sat there with Jeter for a few minutes and wept and told him I loved him and the vet gave him a shot of general anesthesia. He laid on my lap. The vet had to put the purple stuff in six times. Jeter’s veins kept collapsing. The vet had to go into the Jugular vein. I made the comment of all things to botch. But I can’t blame Chip. He was as stressed and distraught about this as us. He looked at me like I asked him to shoot his child. The look on his face , when he checked Jeter’s vitals, said more then a hundred words. He still has a heartbeat. And he had to give him a second lethal dose. Jeter was not ready to die.
I let the vet dispose of the bodies.
I brought Sue and Molly home and made coffee and took a Xanax. I went and got the baby. On the way there I yelled at GOD. The sun was shinning and it started to pour rain. I asked the Lord if I did right. I begged him to love my doggie. I told him I regretted my decision the moment the vet put him under the general andesitic. It rained until I put my hand out the window. I asked, “Will it heal my heart if I touch your tears?” And then I was able to stop crying. When I stopped crying, it stopped raining, or did GOD stop crying?
GOD called my cell phone on the way home. Then phone did not ring. 5:13 pm. It beeped. I looked at the phone; it said one missed call and a number. I hit the send button and called it back. The voice was none I’ve ever heard before. It said, The number you have reached has just been disconnected. Was I getting a message that he had received both of my presents?
And maybe I’ve just lost my mind. Perhaps the stress has gotten to me, I don’t know. After I got home with Lulu, I was sitting in the backyard to have a cigarette. I looked up at the sky, a beautiful blue sky day with billowing white clouds. And then I saw them. A big grayish cloud that looked like a silhouette of Jeter and a smaller silhouette that could have been Peanut and the smaller one was jumping up to lick him. I blinked. No. I did not just see that. Did I? Are they letting me know they got to heaven? And I cried. I want to believe. Honest I do. I want to believe I did the right thing. But more, I want my doggies to know I acted out of love and I did not want them to suffer because I am selfish. Or am I selfish because I did not want them to suffer?
Good bye Jeter and Peanut. I love you both. You were good boys.
Labels: anxiety, dogs, God, Jeter, Peanut, pets
