My retired service dog died Tuesday at the age of 13. Her physical and metal health hadn't declined to the point that she wasn't moving on her own or engaging in her favorite activities (read: vacuuming up crumbs and hitting me when I stop petting her). She also passed naturally, unburdening me from heart-wrenching end of life decisions.
Below is my recollection of her final days. I apologize if this is needlessly graphic, but writing it out helps me process things.
spoiler
For the past few months she had been experiencing episodes of vomiting followed by strange behavior: refusal to lie down, excessive drinking, and obsession with the tile in the bathroom, followed by 24 to 48 hours of lethargy. After the first such episode the vet decided it was gastroenteritis and treated it accordingly.
She got better, but that first incident forced me to confront her mortality. She would experience two or three such episodes followed by more-or-less complete rebounds over the following months, with her final decline beginning at the start of this month.
The final decline began on the night of July 1st. As usual it started with vomiting, panting, drinking like a fish, and a reluctance to lie down. She also started coughing and hacking, which she hadn't done before. I took the following day off work to keep an eye on her, as I had done for previous episodes. As a service dog she had interacted with my supervisor and coworkers before her retirement, and my supervisor is a dog person, so my absence was swiftly approved.
As before, she seemed to rebound over the next 24 hours. But that Friday she experienced the most serious episode yet, vomiting and coughing even more. Her normal vet was unavailable, so I took her to a larger animal hospital that accepted walk-ins. As luck would have it, they had ultrasound equipment lacking at my usual vet, and they found a mass on her spleen. They suspected that the mass plus an already documented large lipoma on her abdomen were pressing on her organs and causing her symptoms. We booked a more thorough ultrasound for that Thursday. They sent us home with anti nausea meds and instructions to call them if the vomiting persisted.
Unlike previous episodes she never quite fully rebounded, and I was convinced that the ultrasound would bring bad news. She didn't live to see Thursday.
Tuesday morning she stopped eating. I interpreted a refusal to eat as vomiting-adjacent and booked an emergency appointment with the new vet per their instructions. I knew this was the end. She would either be gone by the evening or we'd have a date set to put her down. I got permission from work to WFH for the rest of the week.
I spent some time that morning curled up next to her on the floor. She had always insisted on sleeping in bed with me, but hadn't had the energy to get up there for the past few weeks. She was still able to climb up and down the stairs, and I was able to get her outside to the bathroom around noon.
She eventually ate the bowl meant for her breakfast, albeit slowly, which for a lab mix means eating at a reasonable pace. The hour before her appointment I was stress eating a bag of chips, and she even snatched the crumbs she found on the floor.
When it came time to go to the vet, she hopped in the van readily, unloaded fine, and even trotted into the waiting room. When we sat down, she sniffed a few times, then collapsed. At first I thought she slipped on the tile floor until I noticed she had voided her bladder and bowels. That's when I knew it was the end. It was, if not painless, at least very swift. I was too distressed to think to call for help, but the receptionist noticed us and paged some techs to come get her. She was clearly gone when they lifted her off the floor.
She was a velcro dog. She had to be with me. I was her everything, as undeserving as I was. If I wasn't there she'd hang out by the door until I came home. She even had to accompany me to the bathroom, and would claw the door if I didn't let her in. I was the last thing she saw, the last thing she felt, the last thing she smelled. That gives me a measure of solace.
Here she is lying next to her successor. She's the lighter-furred one on the right.
