This past week brought our family some exceptionally hard news.
Due to a steadily decreasing quality of life, we had to make the terrible decision to put down our beloved 14-year-old dog, Kylie.
Saying goodbye to a fur baby is very hard.When you have to tell your children that A - mommy and daddy are going to bring Kylie to the vet to die and B - what death is, it makes for a challenging few days.
I researched the best way to tell your kids about a pet's death but really, the only thing that we gleaned from articles about the topic was that it sucks when a pet dies and it's really hard to talk to your kids about it.
The matter is also complicated when it's clear that you have contributed to your child's misunderstanding: "mommy killed her hair but it's still there."
Next time I will say coloured, not dyed.
We adopted our dog Kylie from the SPCA in Victoria shortly after we bought our house (with a yard!). When we were dog shopping in the SPCA, the whole business of "choosing" a dog felt very odd to me.
There were dogs that clearly had been abused by men. It was easy to know this because I passed one of the kennels and the dogs mostly ignored me and when my husband rounded the corner, they tried to attack him through the kennel fence.
Then we walked past more dogs who were clearly not suited for our small family. Case in point, there was a Jack Russell terrier who was continuously leaping three feet into the air. This is not an exaggeration. We watched this little dog for three seconds before knowing that he was not the right dog for us.
In the kennel right beside the energetic terrier was a beautiful black dog with a glossy, long-haired coat.She was lying down on the ground while drinking water. She looked like she wasn't as needy as the other dogs and I had heard that black dogs get adopted last because they don't photograph well, so I had wanted to choose a black dog to try and counteract the fur bias in puppy adoption.
We took Kylie for an exploratory walk and she was incredibly well-behaved and her coat shone in the sun. We knew she was ours and we took her home with us the next day.Upon adoption, we found out that although we were in Victoria, Kylie was actually from Prince George. She was picked up, pregnant, from the SPCA on Gillett Street and no one came to collect her.She was fostered out in Quesnel to have her puppies and they transported her and her puppies to Victoria to be adopted out.By the time we came in to the SPCA, all of her puppies had been adopted out except for one puppy that was returned by people who were upset that the puppy had peed on the floor.
Let that sink in for a second.
Someone returned a puppy who peed on the floor.Isn't the definition of a puppy is a young dog who pees on your floor until it is housebroken?
Anyway, we knew that the puppy would have no problem finding a family and we happily took our dog Kylie home with us.
Until her very last day, she still ate and drank while lying down and we loved her so very much.
I am grateful for pets and the pure love and companionship that they bring into your life.
Our house feels empty and sad without her. Even though she was not very active in her final years, she was still present in our home and I find myself watching the patio door to see if she has made her slow way up the stairs and wants to come in.
I am still taking awkwardly long steps over her favourite sleeping places (bottom of the stairs and under your feet by the couch).
Her favourite hobbies were as follows: sleeping, eating and stealing plates out of the dishwasher like a ninja. I know from losing other pets that the immediate heartache will start to fade and that I will eventually stop looking for her at bedtime (cookie time!).
I am glad that she is no longer in pain and although I am ambivalent about the thought of an afterlife for humans, I really hope that dogs go somewhere else where they can chase squirrels all day and maybe even catch a few. I am grateful for my heavy heart because that means that she filled it and that she mattered.
I will miss you, my good girl.
