A Week Ago Today...

My husband and I made the difficult decision to have our girl put to sleep due to worsening fear aggression. We are struggling terribly with grief and guilt. She was a happy, physically healthy 13 year old dog and we feel like we betrayed her trust. We were the ones who were supposed to protect her.

We brought Sadie home from the local shelter on September 29, 2002. We believed her to be about a year old at that time. She was a bit rambunctious and not housebroken when we adopted her, but we loved her deeply from day one. She had a good temperament, and was great with the neighborhood kids and other dogs. We socialized her and took her for training. Sadie learned well, and was always the life of the party at the dog park. She was terribly spoiled, and we lavished her with our love and attention. All was well with our little family (Sadie was an only "child") until 2005. Sadie was stricken with a series of auto-immune reactions (AIHA and ITP) throughout the next few years which required high doses of prednisone to save her life. Over time, a connection was finally made back to the Parvo vaccination. Once we stopped this vaccination, Sadie did not experience any additional auto-immune episodes. Unfortunately, it appears the damage from the steroid treatments had already been done. Sadie's disposition began to change. She became fearful around other dogs, and a bad bite she received at the dog park during that time sealed the deal. She started to exhibit fear aggression around other dogs. No more dog park, and we needed to be vigilant when walking her. Despite our best efforts, she did manage to injure 2 dogs, thankfully the wounds were not severe in either case. Sadie also developed a fear of various noises, thunder, fireworks and some electronic sounds. These caused her severe anxiety, and it was difficult to comfort her. We strongly believed these behaviors were initially caused by the steroids, and then became deeply ingrained.

My husband and I seemed to be managing Sadie's issues reasonably well until about a year and half ago. I had been preparing for a business trip one Sunday afternoon. I was scheduled to leave the next day, and knew I would miss my girl while I was gone. I went over to Sadie's pillow and got down on the floor with her to give her some hugs and kisses, something I had done so many times before. Without any warning, she lunged and nipped me just below the eye. I was stunned, as she had never done anything like that before. I was upset, but decided to consider it an isolated incident. I had a black eye, but the skin tear was very minor. This past February, I was not so lucky. We had a battery issue with one of our smoke detectors. The electronic beeping sound it made sent Sadie into a fit of anxiety. She was running around trying to climb into cabinets and such to hide. My husband changed the battery, and Sadie settled down on her pillow. I walked over to see how she was doing, and when I leaned over to pet her, she lunged at me and bit my cheek. This time I needed stitches, and I looked like I had been in a bar fight for a couple of weeks. My husband and I were very concerned, and scheduled a visit with the vet. She ran some tests, which did not show any abnormalities. She indicated that perhaps Sadie was having some issues with her vision as she was now a "senior" dog, and had some visible cataracts. We decided to try some anti-anxiety medication (Prozac) at that time. Unfortunately, it only made her more anxious so we stopped it. The vet then prescribed Xanax to be given at times when we expected Sadie to be anxious (an impending thunderstorm for example). While we were not comfortable with the situation, we could not bring ourselves to consider the unthinkable. We decided to manage the situation by being extra cautious around Sadie, particularly when she was exhibiting any signs of anxiety. We settled back into our routine, with some modifications, and hoped for the best.

This past August 11, we were all on the sofa watching TV before going to bed. Sadie was sleeping peacefully. I inadvertently let my guard down, and leaned down to kiss her. She instantly grabbed my lips and bit down hard. When she let go it seemed she had no idea what had just happened. I ended up in the ER with a plastic surgeon sewing up my lips and the area above them. My husband and I were both devastated. We knew in our hearts that we could no longer "manage" Sadie's behavior. What if she had bitten someone else? One of our nieces or even a stranger? We could not imagine having to live with that. The next five weeks were both happy and terribly sad. We did our best to fulfill Sadie's bucket list. We took her to all of her favorite places and gave her all kinds of toys and treats. She enjoyed all of this special time, and obviously had no idea what was coming.

A week ago today, we called Sadie to go for a ride in the car. She was so happy, likely thinking she was going on another adventure. Our vet did her best to console us, and assure us we were doing the right thing. We felt awful for her too. She saved Sadie's life multiple times, and now was being asked to end it. We are unbearably sad and guilt ridden. We continue to wonder if we had waited perhaps another solution would have presented itself. Her life was completely intertwined with ours. Everywhere we turn there is a reminder of our beautiful girl, and ours hearts break again. We tried to find a pet loss therapy group, but there does not seem to be any currently meeting in our area. I found this site, and hoped that sharing our story would bring some comfort.

My apologies for being so long winded. It's hard to condense 12 years into a few paragraphs. Thanks for reading and for anyone else suffering through the loss of their beloved pet, whatever the circumstances, I am so very sorry. I know just how very hard it is.