Not What I Had in Mind for International Dog Day

Tweet

I think I've only written about this once, but we have a dog named Parker. A cute little mutt, but a royal pain in the ass. Anyway, it wasn't really our dog, but my daughter and I agreed to "temporarily" take ownership of him. He belonged to my ex-wife, and when she moved to south Florida at the beginning of the year, she couldn't take the dog with her, so my daughter agreed to keep him until my ex-wife could find a place that allowed pets, or bought a new home of her own. Anyway, the dog was a rescue, and had severe anxiety and other neurological issues. Which is why I said above that he was a pain in the ass. He was on all sorts of medications to help him deal with his issues. None of them really worked. My daughter even tried sending him to a behavioral specialist, but that only had limited success. But, long story short, Parker ended up having kidney problems, and unfortunately a little more than a week ago started having kidney failure. The unfortunate result was that we had to euthanize him yesterday, which coincidentally was international dog day. It was the most humane thing we could do to end his suffering, although it wasn't a choice we would have preferred. It's never easy putting down a family pet, and a decision we didn't take lightly. I took the day off work to spend the last few hours with Parker before taking him to the vet for the procedure. My daughter originally was going to do it while I was at work, but I didn't want her to be alone with the dog at the end, and also alone at home afterward. So we did it together. Like I said earlier, I wasn't particularly fond of the dog, but he still was a living, breathing creature, and I was sad to see him go. It hit me a little more emotionally than I thought it would. Have any of you had to put down a pet before?