A rough day but still a positive ending

So this entry will be more about Foxy. Foxy is one of our dogs, and we had to put her to sleep yesterday. It was SO sad. Brief background....Foxy has had some health problems. She had to take thyroid medicine for the last couple years, and then for the last 6-8 months or so, we found out that she needed her gallbladder out. Instead of doing that, we put her on another medication to help, and she also started arthritis medication. So it's not like she was a completely healthy dog. 3 different medications a day, and she still needed her gallbladder out. We were told it could rupture at any time.

A couple months ago I thought we were going to have to put her down. She had gotten some stomach virus and wasn't eating or drinking at all. Just laying around. She did that for about 4 days, and then on the day I was going to take her in, she started doing a lot better and was back to normal.

But this week I noticed her limping a little. This is nothing new...we've been told she had bad arthritis in her back legs, but then Friday night she could hardly stand up. By Saturday morning she couldn't stand at all. She was still eating and drinking just fine, but obviously having some major problems.

Jenna and I took her to the vet Saturday morning (Jason was at work.) I really thought they'd xray her legs, find out her arthritis had flared up, give her a steroid shot or pain medication and then she'd be better. But when we got there, they were concerned about neurological problems, because her reflexes were "sluggish." They wanted to do 4 xrays and blood work. Almost $500 worth of testing.

Thank goodness I got ahold of Jason to ask what he thought we should do. He and I both knew Foxy was pretty much living on borrowed time...she had been doing SO much better but still had her problems. If I hadn't talked to him, I would have gone ahead with the testing, even though I had my reservations about it. Because if it was just her arthritis, then we did all that testing for nothing, and chances are it would happen again. And if it was neurological, we wouldn't do anything anyway. But Jason got my message (he can't have his phone on him at work so I got lucky he checked it anyway), we talked and decided to put her down.

I was also very lucky that Jenna is too young to know what was going on. She just thought Foxy was staying at the vet to help the other dogs.

It was very, very sad. We've had Foxy for 8 years and she was a GREAT dog. She could get a little bossy and snippy at times (not literally, but she and Shirro would snarl at each other), but that was just because she wanted attention and didn't want Shirro to have it. :) She was great with Jenna...let Jenna lay all over her and constantly would give Jenna kisses. She would paw us for treats, and if she was really happy (usually about food), she would wag her tail. She wouldn't wag that often but when she did, that tail looked like it was going to fall off, it was wagging so fast.

I had forgotten this, but she loved to chase water. Sprinklers, garden hoses, whatever it was, she would chase it and bark at it. And she had the cutest little howl when she was happy. She couldn't jump up on the furniture, the way Shirro can, so we got her her own bed and she loved it. She also loved to hide her face when she was sleeping.

So what's the point to all this? Well, besides helping me feel better to write about it, the good thing about yesterday is that I didn't turn to food to help me deal. In the past, I would have left that vet office and driven to the nearest fast food place to stuff myself until I didn't feel so bad. But I really didn't even have that desire yesterday. That was a definite plus.

We will miss our sweet Foxy. I know it's part of life, and it was inevitable that our dogs would die someday. But for us, they are true members of the family, so even knowing that it was the right thing to do, it doesn't make it any easier.

But I will hold on to the fact that I dealt with it better. Much better than I have in the past. So when I think about Foxy and how she's not here anymore, I'll miss her terribly, but I'll also be proud of how I handled it.