So last week was one of those weeks times two.

I put one of our horses down and then thirty-six hours later my old dog.  I hate those kind of weeks.  I’m still numb from losing both of them, but when you have other horses and dogs you must keep on going.  Cry now and then, and move on.  It still stinks.

So I was just going to call my friend of fifty-five years, to wish her a Happy Easter.  Since her husband died several years ago, she’s been a mess.  We met at the barn when we were teenagers, and have swapped horses stories and problems over the years.  She always broke her own babies and showed them very successfully.  She’s also broken her back several times.  She had this one baby who definitely was a psycho.  He would dump her and then attack her while she was on the ground.  She didn’t keep him.  It was actually odd how she got him.  He kept breaking out of his pen and would keep showing up at her house, so she bought him.

So I called her.  She immediately went into her story about how her one dog was having more seizures and the meds weren’t working, and they were killing the dogs liver.  Crying she said I don’t know what to do.  When she comes out of the seizures she plays with her toys like nothing ever happened.  (She was only five and was a rescue from another state.)  But she bounces off the walls at night and runs over the other dogs.  They tried her on different meds, but they are not working at all.

I explained my last week, having to put down the Clyde and my old dog, and how hard it was. She said it gets harder as you get older.  I told her, no it doesn’t, it was never easy.

Then comes the ultimate question – “what should I do?”  Oh No!!!  I just had a hard enough time answering that question with regards to my animals, don’t ask me to make that decision about yours!  Okay, calm down, I told myself.  I told her how I made my decision.  I asked the vet if there was any chance of healing?  If there was healing, what kind of quality of life will they have?  I looked at their suffering.  I love them so much, do I want to stand there and watch them suffer?  Do I love them enough to release them from their pain?

Now this same friend has an old horse and pony who should have been put down years ago, and hasn’t.  Another friend and I have spoken, very carefully about them with her, and truthfully, many other horses of hers in the past, with no success.  So am I expecting a miracle this time.  No.

What did I tell her?  Well I told her how I made my decision, and told her she knows what she has to do in her heart.  She told me she would think about it.  I told her to let me know what she decides.  Dollars to donuts she won’t do it.  Hum, don’t know where that quote came from, but it’s old.

I usually look in their eyes and they tell me.  You can tell they are tired and have given up.  They always say that the eyes are the window to the soul.  I believe they are.

Do someone a favor, never ask them if it’s time to put your animal down.  That’s a decision that only you can make and live with.  And no, it was hard in the past and it never gets any easier.

***

She spoke to her vet and made the decision to let her go across the Rainbow Bridge.