Letting Go of a Pet is A Beast of Burden
Loving them is a gift, releasing them is a heart-wrenching responsibility
Happy was a good dog. He loved to run and swim. He was playful and sweet and he was filled with love for me. We had a special bond and saying goodbye to him may have been the hardest thing I’ve experienced in my life. I wasn’t prepared for how much it would hurt. How lonely it would feel. This is the way it goes when we lose someone we love. We can’t begin to imagine the hole that will be created by their loss. The everyday spaces that seem hollow, the pervasiveness of the awareness that they are not there. The grief is triggered again and again like a pinball, crashing into memory, stirring the awareness of loss and separation. When the ball hits the bottom, it’s because it has arrived at the saddest thought, “He’s gone,” a truth I simply do not think I can bear. But somehow, I do.
Happy was a Rescue. He was actually fine on his own when we met; I was the one that needed love. I was looking for someone to bring home, to bring more joy into my life. I got Happy when I was 25. I had just gone through a really rough breakup. My high school sweetheart had become addicted to opioids and my visions of a prosperous and joyful young adult life were deteriorating into long nights of fear and shame and for the first time in my life, real loneliness.
I knew I wanted a dog. We’d had many animals growing up. Two dogs, hamsters, guinea pigs, a rabbit, even a giant pet cockroach we got from my mom’s work on Take Your Daughter to Work Day. It was logically a bad idea. I was in my twenties and “should” have been leaning into my freedom. I was living in a new city, without any family or established community. The only person I had a strong connection with was my long-time best friend and boyfriend who was turning into a zombie. I was learning about addiction and codependency and what it meant to be an enabler, I was working to untangle myself from the person that had been my twin flame for nearly 8 years. I felt immense sadness to watch my best friend slowly poison himself and a growing sense of self-protection and independence, a knowingness that I did not want to go down with this ship. I couldn’t afford my apartment on my own, but I couldn’t live with an addict any longer. I was trying to sort out how to build a career after a lifetime of the Race to Nowhere, in a stagnant job market and I had no idea what I was doing. I was struggling.
When I accidentally showed up an hour early for a haircut one morning, I spent that unexpected, unallocated time playing with a squirming little red puppy at an animal shelter on the other end of the strip mall. I laid on my back in the freshly cut grass of the courtyard and held him up over my face, cooing his sweet little name “Happy! Happy!” What may have been an accident or coincidence felt like synchronicity. I filled out the paperwork that day and he was dropped off at my apartment that weekend.
Happy was a wild thing. When I would take him on walks in those early days, he would be on the lookout for a moment of my distraction, a moment of weakness and then he would writhe on the leash like Princess Leia working desperately to escape The Hutt. I learned how to be patient with a scared and powerful creature. How to invite him slowly into my trust and love, how to make him feel safe and protected.
Over the thirteen years we were together, Happy and I developed a deep friendship. I would often marvel at the ability to feel so connected to another species. That despite our inability to communicate verbally, we could be so aware of each other and give so freely what we each needed.
On a backpacking trip in western Colorado three years ago, the night got colder than I’d expected. I wrapped him in a down jacket, but he kept shedding the cover and woke up shivering through the night. I would wrap him back up and rub his little body until he got warm again. Each time, he looked at me with gratitude for the love I had for him. He knew how much I loved him and he loved me in equal measure. On our hike out, nearly back to the car, Happy was obviously hurting. He didn’t want to walk anymore. I was tired and weighed down with my pack, but I picked him up and carried him the last mile. I remember being surprised that it wasn’t hard to carry him. I was motivated by the deep wellspring of love I had for him and encouraged by his genuine appreciation and relief. He was my little buddy.
Happy was diagnosed with cancer in February. Nine months ago. He had developed a tumor on his leg that was growing rapidly. The tumor was inoperable and the doctor said it wouldn’t save him even if we could remove it. The cancer was already in his body. At some point it would reach his lymph nodes and then we wouldn’t have much time. He was thirteen and had developed arthritis and was having difficulty seeing and smelling and hearing. He was still full of energy and loved to walk for miles and miles. He was still full of love and sweetness. Things got harder over those next few months. I had an increasing sense that he was in pain. At some point, he started convulsing through the night and he was becoming irritable, not wanting to be touched. When he bit my mom one quiet evening in her home, a beloved person in a familiar place, I knew he must really be hurting.
The problem with having a pet, or maybe with any true connection in a relative universe, is that the bond grows deeper as you work your way through time, the sweetness and richness increase as you move closer to the end. More than likely, your pet will pass before you do. And by that point, all of the kinks are worked out. You have your routine down, the relationship has become simple and easy, and they love you with an intensity and devotion that is impossible to describe. The purity of this affection, the clarity of this familiarity and the depth of this connection make it one of the hardest relationships to let go of.
The absolute hardest, most unbearable and insanely complicated aspect of being a human caregiver of a non-human creature, however, is the responsibility to decide for another when it is time to pass on. To be responsible for determining for a loved one, someone you aren’t sure you can live without, that can’t verbally communicate their inner world with you, that it is time to release them from their suffering.
I believe our pets’ love for us is uncomplicated in part because their role is clear, they see themselves as our protectors. As we grew together over time, I could tell that Happy believed his singular purpose on Earth was to keep me safe. He was not afraid to confront any wild beast: from large, deep-voiced men to roaming cows or even loose soccer balls headed toward us, Happy would throw himself between me and anything that posed a threat. He would run fearlessly, albeit Quixotically, to my defense, to serve and protect me. This was a job Happy was never going to abandon, no matter how much pain he was in. It was going to be up to me to let him off the hook. To allow him to rest. I didn’t want to do it. Selfishly, I didn’t want to let him go. I didn’t want to go to sleep without him nestled into my side. I didn’t want to imagine a life without him, let alone to decide or take action to end his life. But this is the agreement I made, although unwittingly, that day I asked him to come to my home, to trust me and when he agreed to protect me.
After Happy passed, I felt immense pain and guilt. I wanted him back. Desperately. I felt uncontrollable sadness and grief. I felt ashamed and neurotic. I was worried that he was scared, I didn’t know where he had gone and felt the absence of him in a way I couldn’t have understood before. I hated that I had done this. I had ended his life and I struggled to find peace. I felt like I had exercised a power that wasn’t mine. It’s been three months and it’s still hard. Fresh. Lonely and sad.
The soft, emotional part of me just misses him, struggles to know that I will never see him again in that particular incarnation. I don’t want to move on and I don’t want to forget him. I can’t replace him and it still brings me to tears to think about the love and connection that is gone. Spiritually, I like to believe that our souls are entwined, that I will meet him again and again in this lifetime and beyond. The logical part of me has come to accept that I carried out with honor the one, latent burden of being his human; that I made a promise to protect him from pain, too, and that if I didn’t release him, he would suffer in his unwavering devotion to me until he physically could no longer stand the pain. I’ll never really know, but this I must believe. Farewell my dear friend, my sweet Happy Dog.
Thank you to Lap of Love, a network of veterinarians dedicated solely to end of life veterinary care that offers in-home pet euthanasia and has offices throughout the country. Dr. Kim showed respect and empathy for our family and not only supported us in this process but in sharing her wisdom and experience to help us find the confidence we had made the right choice. But further, all of the staff at Lap of Love reflected a patience, compassion, and kindness that opened space for love and connection though an immeasurably difficult experience.
