My Beloved Dog Belle, The sad story of her last day Options

[noryen]

Hi All,
Belle, my dog, died 2 weeks ago on a Sunday. She was a beautiful 4 and a half year old yellow labrador.

I've been reading this site since her death and I was starting to improve, but yesterday I went to pick up her ashes from the Vet and all my emotions came crashing back on me. I have all these feeling bottled up inside and I just need to express some of my thoughts. I don't expect anyone to read this or reply to this, as it's more of me just "releasing" my thoughts. It's very long and probably unreadable since I'm writing this while in a fog of emotions ranging from grief, to anger, to guilt.

We thought of Belle as our baby. She was like the daughter we never had, and we treated her like exactly as that (i.e. a princess). It's seems so strange, even to me, that there is such sorrow is in my heart for her. As I sit here in at my desk I can't get my mind to concentrate on anything but her.

Her death that day is still clear in my head, yet strangely in a fog since it seems so unreal to me. Every Sunday our family would go out and have a nice walk in the park. Sometimes we'd go to a small local park, and other times we would go to a larger park with a big lake in it. Belle loved these walks and she always has the uncanny ability to know when it was Sunday. Every Sunday she would make "bratty" little barks just as I woke up to express her excitement about going to the park that day; she would never do this any other day, even when I took extra days off from work she would only be like this on Sunday.

Well that Sunday was no different and she was excited as ever. We were excited as well because this would be the first trip that she would take in our brand new SUV (a vehicle we bought 2 weeks ago specifically for her). As we got into the SUV she jumped up into the back and her paws left a big scratch in the bumper; something that at that moment, I was pretty upset about...

Arriving at the park at 10:30AM, things were still relatively cool. In the past, we've occasionally gone in the afternoon when it much hotter, so the temperature at this time seemed perfect to us. As always, Belle was so happy to be at the park, she was wagging her tail frantically and running all about. At times we would let the leash drop and she would be off and running, but she would never go farther then 20 feet from us. Belle would always would stop and turn her head to see if we were folowing her, only to run off again as we came close. During our walk we saw a few people and two other dogs walking along the same path as well. After one hour of walking we decided to go home and we headed back to our vehicle, which about perhaps 15 minutes away. Up until this point everything was normal and fun for the three of us.

However, on the return to the SUV things started to go strangely. As we walked back to the vehicle Belle became very tired and she wanted to sit down every few steps. After 5 minutes of this we decided that we'd let her rest and that we'd bring the vehicle around to her. But when I came back with the SUV, she had no strength to jump in so we had to carry her into the vehicle. With the air conditioning on full blast we made our way home and I could see her sitting up in the back drooling all over the seats.

We got home around noon but Belle was listless so we had to carry her into the house and we placed her in front of the fan to cool her off as she was still panting heavily. During the next two hours we continued cooling Belle with the fan and water and she started to become more alert, occasionally raising her head to look at us. However, her body was still listless and while laying there she soiled herself so we knew something was wrong and we decided to go to the veterinarian. From this point it all goes downhill (in the span of a few minutes).


*** This next part describes the moments up to her death and is sort of graphic. If you read this far, it's probably best if you skip the next paragraph... but I need to express it for myself ***
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The vet was only a few miles away, but during the trip there I saw that Belle was literally dying. I sat in the back to keep her company, but I saw that her eyes had glazed over and she had much difficulty breathing; a vast difference from just a few moments before when I could see the glimmer of life and love in her eyes. By the time we carried her into the Vet (5 minutes after we left our house), Belle no longer had control of any of her bodily functions and she was gasping for her last breaths of air. Fluid was now oozing from her mouth, which appeared to have blood in it, and when I opened her jaws to help her breath I saw that her tongue had turned blue. I was in disbelief that things could have gone SO WRONG in the short amount of time since left our house. The vet took Belle into the back room but came back half an hour later with the sad news that he could not save her. (She died of heat exhaustion/heat stroke). The vet asked if we would like to see her one last time but we could not bring ourselves to see her like that. We asked the vet to take care of her with an individual cremation, and have her ashes retuned to us in a wooden urn.
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*** That was the sad and tragic end of Belle's life ***


I'm still in shock over the whole incident. How could going for a walk (the one thing Belle loves the most to do) end up with her dying? She was only 4 and a half years old!?!

I've read other stories here about beloved furbabies dying and I completely understand the pain that everyone goes through. However, many stories talk about pets being 14+ years old (or older) and I have to think that people must receive bit of comfort knowing that their furbaby is "in a better place" and not suffering any longer... However, that notion does not apply to my baby. She could have easily lived another 9-13 years, with many of those years free from any health problems. I also can't take any comfort that this was an accident, as it was not... her death was the direct result of our 1-hour walk. I killed my baby and I'm not sure I can get over that guilt.

I'm feeling all sorts of mixed emotions... Extreme sadness over her death; Anger at myself for possibly not doing the right things at the right times; and, most of all, Guilt over her death.

I constantly question myself with questions. Did we wait too long to take her to the vet? Or was she in a state of shock and moving her caused her to die? I also blame myself for perhaps walking too long, but then I remember all the long and fun walks (like this walk) that we've done many times in the past... What made this walk different? It's just not FAIR! She was still young with many years left to live.

After her death I researched "heat exhaustion / heat stroke" in dogs and found this to be a emergency situation that can kill a dog quickly. I just wonder why I never heard about it before... I've heard all the warnings about chocolate or chicken bones, but no one ever talks about heat exhaustion, which upon my research sounds to be very common (Just search for "dog heat stroke" to see articles). I now know that dogs can not release heat like their human parents, and that dogs will quickly overheat when playing in the sun... I just wished I knew this earlier. If anything, I hope anyone reading this would spread the word to help people protect their furbabies from the same fate as Belle's.

Now I gaze at the scratch on the SUV's bumper, which initially was something that I was upset about, but now I'd give anything for her to be here to make more. I come home to a house that seems empty and it's like a huge part of my life is now missing. It's strange that Belle didn't occupy all my time before, but now she is all that I can think about... Again with the feelings of sadness, anger, and mostly guilt.

I've probably written enough for now (and writing this has been therapeutic for me). If you read this far then I thank you for listening to me.

[noryen]

Hi Gingerspal, Arnold, Muffins, dobielover,
Thanks again for your words of support and encouragement, I really appreciate it.

Now that she's back home with me I’m trying to spend more time grieving over her loss instead of blaming myself for her death. It's just hard when I look around the house and see reminders of her everywhere I look.

I miss her so much and I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the most devastating loss I've ever experienced in my life. My grandparents and several distant relatives have died during my life, but I've never been so distraught as I am with Belle.

As dobielover has suggested, I think I’ll make a tribute to Belle. I think that sounds nice and it might help me through these sad times.

Again, thank you all for "listening" to us,
Cindy & Dan