Hi Toast, I, too, am sorry that you have lost a family member. I have had to take four dogs in for a final vet visit, and sometimes I was not expecting that this was what was going to happen when I drove my furry friend there. When my bigger dog, Meggie, died, it was due to cancer. She had gone to find my father-in-law in his room and was crying and hardly able to walk. He called me at work, and I left to go home to her. When we finally got to the emergency vet hours later, they took one look at her and told us that she was probably bleeding internally (signs and symptoms showed that) and we agreed that they would operate that night. If it was something they could fix, they would do so, but if she had multiple tumors and that was causing the bleeding, they would put her to sleep during the surgery. That turned out to be the case. I arrived back at the vet's about a half-hour after she died. She was still warm. I stayed with her, breathing in her scent and feeling her soft fur, for some time before she started to feel stiff or cold. She was such a good girl. I still miss her, even though we had two other dogs at the time and have had two more in the family since. We have never had the land to bury our pets, so we have used cremation. I don't pay the extra to get their ashes back, either. I still have not sprinkled my mom's ashes, and she died before any of my dogs did! I hope that going to visit your dog's gravesite brings you peace and a feeling of closeness to your friend.

Thanks for your posts, everyone. I didn't word mine very well, and have to explain that Angel was hit on the road 15 years ago. That's how Jill found her. I love that story. Jill was a teenager, and in her friend's father's car when she saw the puppy on the road. They stopped the car and she got out and picked the puppy up. No one had a cell phone (like I said, it was 15 years ago), so they stopped at a house and Jill asked if she could use the phone to ask her mother to come pick up the dog. The woman said, "You can use my phone, but your mother isn't going to want to drive over here to pick up a dog." Jill replied, "You don't know my mother." :-) I thought about having Angel sleep in my room. The reason I haven't done it is that it's relatively easy to clean up messes in the bare hallway, whereas my room has rugs. And rugs seem to trigger her urge to pee, or at least that's what I suspect. Maybe it feels more like the outdoors. No, Wolfy is the one on arthritis meds. Angel doesn't take anything, which I guess is pretty remarkable. No, waitÂshe actually takes a heart pill, but she's taken that every day of her life since puppyhood. She's done amazingly well. Linda, I like the suggestion about the ticking clock, but Angel wouldn't be able to hear it. I might try bringing her into my room at night after first covering the rug next to my bed with a plastic trash bag (cut open) and newspapers. It's worth a try.

Thanks you all. I know I'm a good doggy momma. The rescue group has responded and baring anything unusual, most likely will take her. Lots of details to work out. But, she bonded with dh tonight (she laid on him for an hour snoring), and while we were both too tired to talk, I think we may keep her. The Trifexis- well I wasted $22 on that garbage. I gave 1/3 of the pill as prescribed, and the vet told me she Might throw it up, yada, yada, but yes indeed she did throw it up 3 hours after taking it ( on a rug of course, though we acres of hardwood and tile) And it doesn't kill ticks, which I NOW know, so it's worthless.

I worked at a humane society where we euthanized over 1000 animals a month. Most went peacefully, but there was probably 1 a month where things didn't go as easily. The drug that is used to put our dogs to sleep is a sedative. It is similar to being put to sleep for surgery, only getting a larger dose. The brain is slowed down to a point where it stops telling the lungs and heart to keep working. I don't know why it happens, but I take solace in my own experiences with anesthesia and pain. I had a surgery and was under anesthesia and apparently had difficulty breathing. The surgical team had to put in a breathing tube. I don't have any memory of the breathing tube being put in or the difficulty breathing. I just woke up with a trach tube. I also had an injury that caused enough pain that I became delirious. I was vocal, I was saying nonsense to my husband, and again, I have no memory of that state. My only knowledge of the time from when I became delirious to the time I woke from that surgery was my husbands account of the situation. I really believe that when things go terribly wrong our brains have the ability to shut down and not consciously register any pain or distress even if our bodies are experiencing something that would normally cause us pain and distress. The first time I saw an animal not go down peacefully it was distressing. I had to process the information, think about what happened, question why it happened and I was working with two people who had experienced this before and knew what to expect and understood what was happening (as much as any of us can understand.) For many veterinarians this is something they may only experience once in their career or may never have a euthanasia that doesn't go peacefully. They don't have people with them reassuring them that this sometimes happens. They have to be in control of a situation that they don't fully understand. I am sure they want to be compassionate toward their client, but they are concerned first with their patient and trying desperately to process what just happened. They are not jerks, they are human.