Last night I had to put down my dog - Page 2 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

BENZ-LGB · #1 11-08-2002, 12:33 PM

Last night my nine year old akita ("Pepper") had to be put down. Earlier in the day she had tried to jump over a fence in our backyard and her hind legs got stuck on the railing. When I finally found her she must have been dangling for hours.

When I got home with my son I heard our other dog whimpering. So I went to the side yard to see what was wrong. That's when I saw Pepper dangling from the fence from her hip. She was still alive, but she looked so tired and her breathing was shallow and labored. I took her down from the fence. The poor baby was in shock. There is a tree by the same side of the fence where she got stuck and in her panic she chewed the bark off the entire bottom 2 feet of the tree. There was blood and fur all over the place.

With the help of some local firemen I was able to put her on a stretcher and take her toher vet. The back of my daughter's 300TE is usually full of laughter and happines as she carries her friends and their backpacks and sport gear and other girlie stuff. This time, however, the cargo area carried such a sad cargo.

At the vet they estabilized her, gave her painkillers, antibiotics and took a bunch of x-rays. Amazingly, the x-rays showed no damage to legs or hips, but apparantly hanging upside down for so long had caused her stomach to get all twisted and it was now pushing into her chest cavity.

The vet could not do no more for her but she suggested that I take her to an acute care animal hospital, which I did. When I got her there they took more x-rays and for a brief moment it looked like she would make it. But then her heart rhythm became very erratic and the doctor told me that it didn't look good. She also told me that there was nerve damage that the other doctor had not caught.

She told me that my options were few, spend thousands of dollars on emergency surgery, with no guarantee that Pepper would survive the surgery and even if she survived the surgery, there was no guarantee that she would have a meaningful quality of life with a paralyzed back. My other option was to do the humane thing and put her down.

I asked to be left alone with Pepper while I agonized over what to do. My wife had stayed back home, with the kids, so it was just Pepper and me in the tiny, sterile hospital room. I looked at my old friend and I never felt so alone in my entire life. She looked at me with her big, soft, sweet brown eyes and in her eyes I saw the answer. She didn't want me to put her through more procedures. She licked my hand one last time and then turned her face away from me, turning her shoulder to me.

I bawled my eyes out like a kid. I pride myself on being a tough SOB. I am a prosecutor and I have seen so much pain and misery in the cases that I prosecute that nothing ever gets to me anymore, or so I thought. But in those few moments when I was saying good-bye to Pepper I was a little boy again. It was just me and my dog and I am not ashamed to write that I cried and cried.

I said good-bye to Pepper and I walked out of the room. I just could not be in the room when they gave her the shot.

Then I got myself togeher for the drive home. There was a storm blowing through. The pounding rain obscured my visibility to just a few inches in front of the hood's silver star, my tears made it hard to see even as far as the windshield. The howling wind was a fitting final tribute to Pepper, it wasn't that long ago in time when dogs and wolves were indistinguishable. Now it seemed that nature was welcoming Pepper's soul back to the fold. The now-empty cargo area made the drive home seem longer than it really was.

That big dumb, sweet, gentle Pepper was like a big baby. Things easily frightened her, specially the rain. I used to compare her to CP0 from Star Wars, big but easily scared, always trying to get out of dangerous situations. My other dog, an Australian Shepherd (Jasmine) is like R2-D2, small, but very brave, always ready to jump into danger. Now my R2 doesn't have her CPO to hang around with anymore.

Getting home was the hardest part. It was so hard to act strong for my kids, so they could not see my pain and thus not add to their own pain.

The house seems a lot emptier now without her 90 pounds of fur getting on the way. And I will never be able to enjoy rainy days as much as I used to do. Now the rain only reminds me of Pepper and her mortal fear of rain.

I apologize for carrying on like this. Perhaps it is unseeming to get this way over the loss of an animal, especially when there are many other things to worry about in this world. But Pepper was truly, truly a gentle soul. She enriched our lives and gave us so much and asked for so little in return.

Thanks for letting me pour out my feelings.