Since I see we're including talking about the death of pets here, let me give you my story. Hey! Where are you all going? Hell, I'm gonna relate it anyway.
Bruce was the first real experience I had with the death of a pet. Bruce was our big golden retriever/labrador mongrel, and he suffered from epilepsy. We helped him through many a fit, but at one point I got a call in work from my mam, telling me she had had to have Bruce put to sleep. I just dropped the phone and made it to the toilets as the tears came. One of the guys, sent in after me to see what was wrong, asked was I ok and I told him. The audible contempt in his voice when he realised I was crying over a pet really angered me: it was like he was saying “Oh I thought it was something important.” He never had a pet, he could never know what I was feeling.
Next up was Bruce's replacement, Teddy, a big black mastiff/pitbull mongrel with a terrific personality, but eventually he got old and began to lose control of his bodily functions. My brother and I went to do the deed, but I couldn't stay; he did, as the vet eased poor Teddy out of this world.
After this, I had nowhere to run. My mam was dead, brother was married and moved out, and when I got a call in work on Christmas Eve of, I think, 2000, maybe 2001, to say Bonnie, one of our cats, was making an awful noise and seemed in pain I had to ask one of the guys to give me a lift home. He very helpfully stayed, waited while I lifted Bonnie into her cat carrier (she was so limp I basically scooped her in, mewling pathetically – she may as well have been a towel) and brought me down to the vet, where I learned that Bonnie's habit of running away every time I went to dose the three of the cats for fleas had caught up with her: basically, the fleas had sucked her dry of blood. She had to be put down, she was in such pain. We had the worst Christmas ever.
That left two of my original cats. Spooky was next. She was basically my cat, and when we got the three kittens as replacements for Bonnie (only intended to get one originally, that became two and then three in the end) she did not take to them, bullying them and hissing at them and chasing them, and I said to her “When they grow up they're going to remember this.” And they did. She was a delicate cat, and for the last six months of her life lived on her nerves. She used to wait outside my room till I came home from work then claw to get in, to get away from the kittens. We tried keeping her in a special cage, at the vet's suggestion, for a few months but it was clear she had no kind of life. The night I had to take her down to the vet to be put down was one of the hardest of my life, and I don't think I ever cried as much as I dismantled that cage that night on my return from the vet, putting it out in the back garden for disposal as soon as possible.
Debbie was the last, so far. She had gone basically blind. It's a horrible thing, watching their trusting little face looking up at you and hearing their little heart slow, then they go cold and they're gone. I think it's the trust, the “you're not going to hurt me are you? You love me. I'm safe with you, aren't I?” that hits the hardest. You feel like you're betraying them, but when they're in pain what else can you do? You can't force them to remain alive in pain just because you're too much of a wuss to man up and do what needs to be done, end their suffering.
Nobody will understand this unless they have a pet. It's like losing a family member. It really is.
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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018
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