No One Wants To Make This Decision

A reflection on euthanized pets

Our lovable yellow Labrador and loyal companion of 13 years, Amos, is dead.

The worst part is, we killed him.

Not directly, of course. The vet and the drugs she administered did that.

But still.

We decided that it was time.

It was the tragic yet inevitable end to learning a few months ago that his body was riddled with cancer. I wrote about that here.

Amos was euthanized.

Put down.

Put to sleep.

Sent to a better place with no more suffering.

However you want to say it and whatever euphemism you want to use, the reality is, he died.

He’s dead.

And it sucks.

Amos died peacefully in the late afternoon on December 17, 2021.

He was held by my wife, Jen, and I as his life-long trusted veterinarian administered the fatal dose of drugs.

Jen sobbed, tears streaming, as she held his face with both hands, looking into his eyes and saying over and over, “I love you so much, buddy. You’re a good boy. I love you, Amos.”

She watched the life drain out of him. Jen wanted to be the last face he saw. She was Amos’s person.

I held him around his once robust and muscular but now scrawny, bony middle and whispered in his ear that I loved him and he was a good boy. I also held up his paw and leg so the vet could have easier access to the IV port to give him the drugs. Tears rolled down my face and dripped onto his fur.

It was over quickly.

One moment he was breathing. The next he wasn’t.

The vet placed her stethoscope on his chest to listen for a heartbeat. She gave me a slight nod.

“He’s gone,” she whispered.

Jen and I have had to do this four times.

It never gets easier. I think it gets harder.

The first time was with Rosie. She was a yellow Labrador that was a stray I found at work.

She was just hanging out, lying down under some steps. No one knew where she came from or who she belonged to. There was no collar, no tags. She was very disheveled.

I took her home at the end of the workday and we adopted her into our family. She was very sweet and lovable.

Unfortunately, Rosie had congestive heart failure. Her breathing was loud and labored. She was only with us for about nine months when we had to put her down because her lungs were filling with fluid and she couldn’t breathe.

Rosie died on April 26, 2006.

Two details are particularly terrible about this loss.

First, I wasn’t there.

Second, Jen took Rosie to the vet for a checkup, not an appointment to end her life. It wasn’t remotely on our minds that this particular day would be Rosie’s last.

Tragically, the vet’s prognosis was that Rosie’s condition was so bad and she was suffering so much, the humane thing to do would be to euthanize her. The recommendation was the sooner the better.

Jen called me at work, sobbing, to tell me the news.

I should have left work right then. I’ve always regretted that I didn’t.

The next time we had to make this terrible decision was with our yellow Labrador Abe.

Abe was Jen’s dog. She had him before we met. There’s a lovely story about how she held him in the palm of her hand the day he was born. The breeder was a family friend, and so when he was born, Jen got called right away to visit.

Abe was a faithful hiking companion and saw Jen through the terrible break-up of her first marriage. He warmed up quickly to me and I loved him, though I never felt as bonded to him the way I have with all of our other dogs.

Once when Jen and I were still dating I helped her move to a new house. As I loaded furniture and boxes into the back of my pickup, Abe leaped up onto the truck bed and sat stoically, refusing to move. It was as if he was saying, you’re not leaving me behind!

Abe loved Jen and had a determined will to live that shocked us. He lived to the incredible age of 15, long after his body was covered in fatty tumors and allergy sores that stank, and arthritis in his hips so bad he could barely walk.

The truth is, we waited too long to decide to put Abe down. The end for him came on March 29, 2013. It was Good Friday.

Emmie, our Belgian Malinois — or sometimes they’re called Belgian Shepherds because they look like smaller versions of German Shepherds — was the third pet we’ve had to euthanize.

In a previous life, Jen and I both worked as staff writers for the local daily newspaper. One day Jen was doing a story on the local humane society and I tagged along with her. We were dating at this point and we both loved animals, especially dogs.

That’s when we met Emmie. She was part of a litter of pups that needed a forever home.

What can I say? We were young. We were dating. Why not get a dog together?

I remember when we brought Emmie home and introduced her to Abe. He was less than thrilled to have a sister. As a baby pup, she would crawl on him and try to entice him to play. He mostly ignored her.

Emmie had a sweet, if not somewhat neurotic, disposition. She was a bit skittish, and we often wondered if she’d experienced some terrible trauma in her earliest days on this earth before we got her. Nevertheless, Emmie was loyal and loving and spent 13 good years with us. She essentially just got old.

In the spring of 2015, Emmie stopped eating and wouldn’t drink water anymore. She spent all day sleeping. She wasn’t her normal self.

Jen hand-fed her wet food for a few days, but eventually, that didn’t work either. Emmie just refused to eat and drink.

She died on April 28, 2015. Jen and I held her as the vet administered the shot.

This past May we brought home a Newfoundland pup named Newton. He’s nine months old now. Eventually — hopefully not for a long time — we’ll have to decide to put him down too. The life expectancy of Newfies is around 10 years. Jen and I will be mid-50s by then.

“Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?” Jen asked me through tears when we came home after Amos was put to sleep.

I didn’t have a good answer. I still don’t.

I just know we love dogs and it’s a gift and a privilege to have them in our lives.

The hard part about Amos is that he was with us through the last 13 years of our 19-year marriage. He saw us at our best and worst. He was with us through some of the most difficult life transitions and hardest things we’ve experienced.

When Amos died, it’s like a part of us died too. A version of our past selves that, for better or worse, is who were were in the moment, and that shaped us to become who we are now.

The house is quieter without him in it. We miss him. We miss all of our dogs.

Rest in peace, beloved friends.

I hope we see you again on the other side.