| I had to put my dog to sleep today.
08/27/10, 16:01 11 Comment
He was fifteen. He was two months shy of sixteen.
He's had pituitary Cushing's for most of the last decade. Cushing's can cause severe itching, among many other things. He got a shot every week to mitigate the effects, but the Cushing's also weakened his immune system and eventually he picked up staph. He had it for almost seven years - it just sort of formed a biofilm on patches of skin, and so long as he got regular baths it wasn't a problem.
But he got to a point where he was so old, and his immune system so ravaged by his age and his Cushing's and the steroids, that it started to get bad. In conjunction with the itching from the Cushing's, he just couldn't stop scratching. He'd chew until he started bleeding - really bleeding, not just little stains, I mean he'd leave streaks of blood on furniture.
He spent most of this month sleeping. When he was awake, he'd scratch or he'd rub at his eyes. Last night he slept at my feet until late at night, then started panting and pacing back and forth, then stood at the bed and whimpered until he got back up.
He was miserable. I know that, intellectually. I know that he was old, and in pain, and that he'd lived a lot longer than anybody thought he would - a decade ago, his vet said he had a few years at best.
Intellectually, I know I did the right thing. He didn't whimper, he didn't bark, he didn't bite anyone. He just fell asleep.
Emotionally, I still feel like I paid someone to murder him.
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