The Case for Missing Your Pet’s Euthanasia Appointment

Cooper’s last day with us was surprisingly ordinary. I wish I could say the sky poured with tears for him, but instead it was uncomfortably sunny and bright. I felt angry that everyone else should get to enjoy this beautiful June day, when for me, it would be one of the worst of my life. 

I had been dreading the day of Cooper’s euthanasia appointment since he was diagnosed with cancer in the spring of 2015. For over a year he fought to stay with us, but in recent weeks it became clear that he just had no fight left in him. It was time to let him go. I felt certain of that. 

I also felt certain that when the time came, I couldn’t be there. The enormity of his loss would be hard enough to process, without having to know my last memory with him was such a painful one. I knew my parents and siblings wanted to be by his side at the very end, but I needed to have a different kind of goodbye. 

In many ways, I had the luxury of time. I had an entire year after Cooper’s diagnosis to prepare for this day, and think about what was right for me. When you have a puppy, the days ahead feel endless, but I had the true gift of finally being present with my dog, once his looming loss on the horizon forced me to confront the lack of time I had left – and take advantage of it.  

When I got home from my sophomore year of college, Cooper and I made every day count. The rest of my family was at work, and I was still waiting to start my summer internship later in June, so that just left me and Cooper with entire days to spend together. 

By this point he was very weak and tired, but I was determined to get him outside. Each morning, I’d drag his bed to the front steps of our house, and would place him gently inside. We’d sit out there all day together. I’d read my book and he’d watch the world go by, both of us grateful for one another’s company. I like to think he held on just long enough so we could spend those final days together. In the difficult weeks ahead, those moments with him would help carry me through my grief.

____

Cooper’s appointment was scheduled for noon. I thought it was such a strange time of day to choose, but was there such a thing as an ideal one?

I found my mind drifting to the veterinarian that would be performing the euthanasia, thinking of him as an enemy, even though I didn’t know him. I wondered if the vet would be thinking of Cooper in his final moments, or what was waiting for him in the break room fridge. What a funny thing that the worst day of your life can just be another appointment on someone else’s calendar before their lunch break.

My parents told me it was time to start saying goodbye, and I suddenly didn’t know what to do. How do you let your dog know, after 14 years, just how much they meant to you? 

I sat holding him on the kitchen floor, and it occurred to me how small he’d become. I remembered I sat with him in the same spot on the day we brought him home, and at 7 years old, I was too young to be able to lift him off of the ground on my own. He seemed so big back then. 

I wanted to do one last, small kindness for him. It had been days since he’d eaten, so I went over to our fridge and pulled out some salami to offer him. Table food was normally off limits, but I was curious about what would happen. He grabbed it out of my hand and wolfed it down with such spirit, that my entire family burst into happy-tears. After watching him deteriorate for so long, it was like a final glimpse of the dog we really knew, just trapped in this tired body. 

We all understood that moment to be Cooper’s way of telling us it was ok to let go. I placed him in my mom’s arms, scratched him in his favorite spot between the eyes, and took in the full image of him in our home, one last time. 

I couldn’t even watch as my family walked out the door. 

As soon as they were gone, I felt overwhelmingly alone. I started calling a friend, but realized I didn’t actually want to talk to anyone, so I hung up just after the line started ringing. Still I felt the urge to do something, rather than just sit there and wait for my family to come home. 

Without thinking too much about it, I suddenly found myself collecting all of Cooper’s things and placing them into a box. I cleaned out his last bowl of untouched food, took his leash off the entryway hook, and gathered all of his toys strewn throughout the house. Finally I picked up his little bed - the one that he laid on while we spent his last weeks together - and brought it all down to our basement, where I tucked it out of sight. 

I knew we’d find time to deal with it later as a family, but for now, it was the least I could do to help soften the blow of having a dog-less house for the first time in 14 years. If I couldn’t be there in his final moments, I could at least make sure his belongings were treated with care. Eventually these items would find their way to our local shelter, where they’d find a second life with a dog who needed them more. His collar would be one of the only things we held on to. 

Eventually my family arrived home, and the sting of Cooper not being there to greet them at the door, sent everyone to their rooms in silence. I couldn’t even bring myself to ask how the appointment went. The fact that Cooper didn’t return with them told me it went exactly as intended, although a small and irrational part of me believed he’d come back home. “We got it wrong,” the vets would say. “He’s going to live forever!”

____

There’s some bitter irony that losing your pet is one of the most difficult moments of your life, and the only thing you want to be comforted by is the very thing you’ve lost. In the days that followed, I sat in my room wondering if I’d made a mistake not being by Cooper’s side at the appointment, but eventually I realized I’d been a part of a different goodbye – the one he’d given to our home – the place where he was unceremoniously dropped off as a puppy years ago, that eventually became his entire world, along with the five of us. 

It brought me peace to know that I had been the one to be a part of that important goodbye for him. Whether I was or wasn’t at that final appointment in that cramped room didn’t matter. For Cooper, the end result would be the same, but for me, it would have been entirely different. 

Your dog will be at peace, but it’s you who is left behind, that has to make sure you’ll be able to find yours too, whatever that looks like. For some, that’s being by their side right until the very end, and for others it’s letting your last memory together be a happy one – sitting on the kitchen floor to say goodbye, right where everything started.

Ready to share your story? Learn more about how to contribute to pawbond here.