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

[grayman]

Thanks for the kind words. I am entering into the second phase of grief, anger, and obsessing on what "mistakes" were made that led to his demise. My latest suspicion is that it might have been the antibiotic he was on after the operation--the vets considered that right away, but more or less ruled it out because the symptoms did not manifest themselves for 5 or 6 days after he started taking the antibiotic. But since then, I've read symptoms from this antibiotic sometimes don't show up for a week. If that's true, I wish they had considered that. And the morning I found him almost dead was the morning after he finished his last dose--I keep htinking, IF that's what did it, he may have survived if I had just skiped the last day or so of the medicine, etc. But the people at this clinic are known for being very competent, and they clearly treat the animals and their human companions with great tenderness, etc. so if they made a mistake, i don't want to blame them. I know they feel really badly about Bowser also--after all, if you are a surgeon, you just naturally want to see the patient make a full recovery or you feel like you failed, etc.

Last night my wife and I had dinner with some friends who lost a cat a week earlier than Bowser's death. Ironically, they brought their cat in to be looked over (died the next day) the same night I picked up Bowser from what seemed like a successful surgery. (same vet) Their cat had kidney problems from birth and it ended up getting outside one night, and wasn't found until the next morning, almost dead. . . they couldn't save her. They were pretty sad too, but not quite as much because they have a young child (though it's hard knowing he cannot understand what happened), and they just closed a deal on a home which is good news, etc. But they knew our dog and were sad with us--it did help some, and we only spent a fraction of the evening discussiing our animals. (The husband and i had a chance to talk more when we went to pick up the take-out--he's far less "talk things through" than I am, and the depth of his sadness was pretty apparent. He said he had taken a day off work to try to deal with the loss, etc.)

Anyway, thanks for the kind words. I stiull know deep down that I'll never feel the same way for another dog, and that bothers me. Maybe God will surprise me and bring a dog our way, when we are ready, toward whom i can open up my heart all the way.

Boy, this has been tough.....

Thanks for everyone's kind words, grayman

[goliath]

I stiull know deep down that I'll never feel the same way for another dog, and that bothers me. Maybe God will surprise me and bring a dog our way, when we are ready, toward whom i can open up my heart all the way.

Dear Grayman,

Losing a special furlove in any situation is difficult to say the least. I am so sorry that you have crossed a path in your life that has forced you to have to cope with such a loss. The grief we endure after our furloves pass into the next world has got to be the most painful times of our life. Bowser was and is your special love and nothing can ever change that.

When my sweet Goliath passed away so suddenly nearly two years ago, I thought my life was over too. I didn't find LS until two months after he passed. Those two months were very dark and empty for me and quite frankly I really didn't want to go on living. Once I found LS, little by little I became able to pick up the broken pieces of my heart. After spending pretty much 24/7 here for a very long time, I came to realize that Goliath never really left me at all. His loving spirit remains within me and all around me.

Like you, I couldn't comprehend ever loving another. But then I realized that to not bring another doggylove into my heart and home also meant depriving myself of all the years of joy we could have together. Though I miss my Goliath and think of him each and every day, I also remember all the wonderful memories he and I made together. Those memories were his last gift to me to hold dearest to my heart for the rest of my life.

As reluctant as I was to let another puppy into my heart, God saw to it that one fell straight out of Heaven and into my arms. There was an article on the internet about a little chihuahua boy and his family that had been rescued from a filthy puppymill. I read the article and all day long I found myself thinking about this family that needed a loving home. Finally I just had to inquire more about this doggy family.

We adopted the only male in the bunch and named him Browser. A dear friend of mine from this forum adopted one of his sisters and named her Sasha. The mom and other female were adopted out too to loving families.

This didn't happen until about 6 months after Goliath passed away and I know in my heart that he would be so happy for me and for Browser. Goliath's life was filled with love each and every day he was here and it will also be that way for his baby brother Browser. Goliath wouldn't have it any other way because he loved me too. Browser's presence in my life does not diminish the love I have for Goliath in any way. But I love his baby brother very much. It was meant to be for me.

May you always feel the warmth of sunshine that your Bowser brought into your life. How blessed you were to have lived such a wonderful life with such a special doggylove.

Hugs of love and comfort from my heart to yours,
Beth