Missing My Buddy, Bowser, death of dog Options

[grayman]

Hello, everyone. I discovered this site a day or so ago as I was looking over things on the internet to help me recover from the loss of my loving buddy, a Pug named Bowser. He had just turned 12--it hurts me that he only made it to the lower end of the "average" age for his breed.

Bowser was only in my life 7 of his 12 years. He was my wife and son's dog before my wife and I married, and i took to him instantly. In fact, he was instrumental in marrying my wife, in some ways. My wife and i met on an internet service, and the fact she mentioned her dog in a sweet way really touched me. My wife is a wonderful and caring person, though I do envy her now because she is taking his loss less hard than I am, though she is still definitely sad. Anyway, in addition to being just unbelievably loving and cute, Bowser's presence in my life represents many moving things. I am pretty sure we will want another dog at some point, and I know I can love another dog, BUT I also know that no dog will be as special to me as my buddy, and that really, really hurts.
He is obviously irreplaceable, so is what he represents--the dog who was there when I was married, etc. These are some other things he represents:

I had not had pets throughout my adulthood, after growing up in a cat family as a child. I only had a dog briefly (for 2 years) when I was very young, whom my family had to give away (in good health) because she was too much to handle (a Great Dane on a small property, etc.) I always consdiered myself more of a dog person, but I had cats instead. I was hurt when they'd die,. but for various reasons, it didn't hit me like this. First of all, I never had an animal die where we didn't have multiple animals, so there wasn't the compelte void there is now with this loss. When you've known animals together, it seems to me that
part of the dead animals live on in the other animals who were a happy part of their life, and it helps you cope (at least for me). But with Boweser, there is none of that. He's just gone, and that's it. Also, because I hadn't had any pets since moving out on my own as an adult (I was married at 37, so we are talking quite a few years), he was really my first adult pet, and my first long-term dog. On top of that, my wife and son had a chance to know him the full 12 years, and see his trajectory dowhill. Because he was only in my life 5-7 years, it seems like a premature death--right at the point at which I've become most attached, he is gone. So, there are many circumstances accounting for my surprisingly intense attachment.

I also grieve the way he died. Here's the gist: He was slowing way down (blind, deaf, and just slow moving, but still otherwise seemed happy and healthy).
Myu wife was concenred with some gimpiness he had in his walk, so we took him in for X-rays to look at his bones, etc. They found a splenic mass which they were prtetty sure was a main cause of his anemia, which was partly explaining his slow-movingness (slept about 90% of the time, etcc. but was still very lovoing and affectionate if you woke him up to interact, still ate normally, etc.).

Well, they did the surgery, and found that his spleen, which was quite twisted and large, had NO cancer. However, they did find where it had been leaking blood, and it was only a matter of time until it reptured if it had no been removed. Also, the bening tumor it had is akind which can turn cancerous. So, it was good to have had the surgery, EXCEPT.....two days after the news was received of "no cancer," about 1 week after the surgery, I woke up one morn ing and found him near death, seemingly out of the blue. No eating, barely could stand, very little response to me. I knew in my gut that this was probably the end, and it was painful to be on pins and needles for 3 weeks leading uip to and during the surgery, get this news of huge relief, and then have this happened. He was rushed in for emergecny care, and died 3 days later. I wrestled with whether to put him under on day 2 because he was clearly miserable, but vet advised giving it another day to await some test results. On day three, he imprved very slightlky--nibbled food a bit, amde some effort to move and stand up.
My wife had been out of town on day 1 and 2 and had not seen him, and so when she saw him on day 3 for the first time, she was very dsitraught and said we needed to put him down now, because he looked so horrible. in my heart, I felt it was the right time, because we were both there to love him, etc. BUT, my mind overruled--it was very hard to consider euthanizing a pet who was showing some improvement, no matter how slight. The vet said this was trul a "on the fence" situation--the odds were definitely against him, but she had seen dogs in his condition pull through ,and there was some slight improvement, etc. I decided to hold off and take it day by day. Then, the next morning, we got the call that he hadn't made it trhough the night. I felt awaful, becasue I had expected that call the previous 2 mornings, and now it came the morning after he was actually improving a bit. It crushes me knowing he died alone, in a strange dark place, no feeling of love. And yet, I know if I had euthanized him the previous day, I would have second gueesed myself forever about whether he may have turned around, etc. The vet reiterated after he died that the situation on day three was truly "on the fence."

The irony is, if his spleen had been cancerous, he would have lived several weeks or months longer. He likely could have lived longer than he did without the surgery, too, which makes me somehow wonder if we shoulodn't have done it. BTW, they don't know what killed him, but they suspect post-op infection or post-op blood clot, even though they admit a week later is a bit late for that sort of thing. He had extremely high white blood cell count, but little temp. I also wonder if some food i changed him over to may have caused this, but they insist almost definitely not. (MOre on that in another post perhaps)--he became extremely ill a day or so after I started giving him some canned food over his normal dry food, which he didn't eat much of, even before surgery, because he was missing some teeth, and it took him extra work to chew it, etc. (Teeth had been surgically removed in the past). They had wanted to see him regain some weight because of the anemia, and it seemed to me that his reticent eating of dry food wouldn't help with that, so I tried introducing some of the canned food into his diet, and then next thing I knew, he got sick and died. (Can was within the expiration date, etc.) I talked to three vets and they all felt it was almost definite that the food was not the thing that killed him, but the timing of it, and his odd turn for the worst after a week of seemingly positive recovery, leaves me wondering.

Well, I'm rambling, but that gives you some idea of my roller coaster concerning his death.

I will follow up later I suppose. I am hoping sharing my grief with people who understand will help me some--it is day 5, and I don't cry quite as much, etc., but I am still bothered by "what ifs," etc. At least I know that he felt as loved and happy as a dog can be up to the last three days of his life--but his loneliness during that time really haunts me.

Thanks for reading, grayman

[tanbuck]

Grayman, I'm glad you've found this site but sorry that you had to find it. My heart goes out to you as you go through this awful time. I can understand your roller coaster as my husband and I went through sort of similar situations this entire year with our cat, Frasier. Like your Bowser, in the end, I'm not 100% sure what caused us to have to put Frasier to sleep. Sometimes, I think he began to give up and developed a complication beyond repair. I don't know.
But I and almost everyone on this forum, I think, can really understand your "what ifs". We've all had them and still have them. It has been 7 weeks since Frasier died and I'll go along just feeling sad about him but functioning otherwise and then Bam!, the guilt and "what ifs" come out of nowhere. I don't understand it but I guess it is normal.
You will probably go back and forth over the medical aspects of his death a million times. I know I have. I also know that I will never know the "right" answer. And that is maddening. But, on the other hand, maybe the "right" answer as to when I should've put him to sleep, the "right" answer as to what was really wrong with him, the "right" answer as to whether he was really suffering, etc. would only torture me if I knew.
I'm so sorry Bowser passed while he wasn't with you. I know that is difficult. Even though each one of us has had different scenarios, we all have that "thing" we wrestle with. But it sounds like you had a wonderful relationship with him and I'm very sure that he knew that. I know with cats, at least, when they are on their deathbed, they will disconnect from you and everyone in the house. It's like they go into some other place in preparation for death. Maybe they don't see death the way we do, I don't know. But, maybe Bowser went to that place as well and wasn't really aware that night that you weren't physically there with him. Again, I don't know. I'm sorry. But try not to beat yourself up. You were doing everything you possibly could for his good. Take care of yourself and remember to just keep breathing. Some days are alot harder than others. Keep posting.
-Donna