The impact of losing a beloved pet

When Daisy was put down 3 weeks ago, I thought that I was the only one who grieved losing her loss. I would cry openly and often when watching "Josiah." When we were told that she was dying I just held onto pleading her not to die. Our family would go out to the dog house to check on Daisy.

I wasn't the only one who was grieving Daisy death. L told me that he cried too. Yesterday I was at teacher's conferences and the teacher asked how I was. I told her I was breaking in the new dog and he was pretty impossible and trying yesterday (see blog post). She then told me that they were doing a sled dog unit and for some reason J got up and told the class that his dog was dying. Another classmate said something to him (she didn't tell me who it was) but she talked to that person about the situation because J was terribly sad about losing Daisy. She said he was one not to show too much emotion but when it came to Daisy's death he was sad and was crying about it. I remember telling J that we had to put Daisy down after school. My voice shook as I told him about it. He then said, "Well, she wasn't going to get any better." I agreed. There was nothing else we could do for it except put her out of her pain.

We had Daisy since J was 4 years old. He will be turning 12 this summer. That's quite a chunk of time. He was a pre-schooler and will soon be a middle school student. A lot of life has happened since those days. 8 years didn't seem like a lifetime to us, but for the dog it was.