We’ve made an appointment to have Sandy put to sleep. Its sort of hard to believe I just wrote that. We’ve sort of been dancing around the issue for weeks. I won’t lie, I don’t feel like Im loosing my best friend, but even this weekend I got all teary eyed thinking about what was inevitable. 

Sandy turns 14 this year so none of this is coming as any surprise. Over the last year sometimes we’d notice little things that had changed, but in the last month things have really gone downhill. Her hips have gotten really bad, you can tell just in her walk that they are giving out on her. She struggles to lie down which I imagine is because its painful. The other night she was limping so bad PC had to carry her upstairs for bed. If she slips on the tile (which is not unusual if you know anything about our dog and her penchant for slippery floors) all her limbs go out from under her and she has to be physically picked up in order to stand again. I think this qualifies as suffering doesn’t it? Still, I struggle with, no, HATE having/getting to play God.

In the last month she has vomited bile several times for no apparant reason. This past weekend she just stopped eating. Her thirst is insatiable, she cannot get enough water. She spends all day (literally) upstairs sleeping on her bed, only coming down for food/to be let out. Her fur is falling out in clumps. Something must be going on right?

And the straw that is really, truly breaking the camels back is the peeing and pooping in the house. This has always been an issue with Sandy. Since she’s a do-over (“the great                                   Sand-do-over”)/used/recycled dog (c’mon, we need a little humor here) she comes with a lot of baggage. She scares easily and subsequently pees when she gets excited or scared. I accepted that. This has only gotten worse with time. For the last month it has reached critical mass and since right before Thanksgiving she’s been either peeing, pooping or vomiting in the house every day. Not some days, not most days, all days. And I hope Im not going to hell for this, but I just feel like I have to draw the line somewhere.

Today I think I may have taken on a little too much. I started the day on about 4 hours of mediocre sleep (note to self: if baby just WONT settle down, you might want to revert back to parenting 101 dummy and make sure child has not wet through their outfit.) After dropping off Nathan at school I went to get gas and get the mail for work. When I got to Foster to get gas the gas station was “close 1 hour ok?” I asked the lady if Futenma was open and she assured me it was. It was not. Driving around on fumes and knowing I was going to be cutting it close for my coffee date with friends I drove to Kadena in search of fuel. Then I remembered I hadn’t had breakfast and no wonder I was starving. I went and picked up some snacks for all of us and was only 40 minutes late for coffee. Ugh. 

After coffee I high tailed it to the gift shops to finish up Christmas shopping since the mailing deadline is tomorrow. As I sat to feed Mackenzie in the parking lot I realized somehow I had lost her blanket. I call my friend who found it on the sidewalk outside her apartment. Being the awesome friend she is she came and met me saving me a trip back to her place. It was now close to 1pm and again I was starving (remember- literally eating for two these days). I race home, Kiki screams the ENTIRE way home, I make a sandwich (still screaming), inhale sandwich, feed and change baby, put unhappy child back in carseat and leave to pick up Nathan (and she screamed the entire way). On the car ride home it hit me just how exhausted I was and I bribed Nathan with ice cream from Baskin Robbins if he would agree to lay down with me and watch a movie for an hour. We grab a basket of planes, pacifier, nana and head upstairs. When I got to the doorway of my room and looked in I just started sobbing. Scattered all over the floor were miniscule pieces of poop….that were then peed on. Without getting into too much grotesque detail, as I dog owner I find that dog poop can be a bit…crumbly. Or maybe its just my dog. I don’t know. I don’t care. I just know that today I reached my breaking point. Sobbing, I stared at the 50 little pieces of dog crap scattered all over the carpet, and the large pee stain that had to be cleaned up, knowing full well that damn, we just ran out of the Woolite carpet cleaner about 2 days ago. I pick up the phone and call PC’s work where some poor, innocent, LCpl answers and through tears <sniff sniff inhale> I ask if the Captain is there. He was on a teleconference so I had time to calm down before I did get ahold of him. Nathan, who didn’t deserve any of this after being picked up from school has been an absolute angel and told me “don’t cry mommy, I will give you a hug and a kiss and you will be all better.”

Hate me if you will, I have two little kids to take care of and I just don’t have the time, interest or patience to clean up dog messes daily. Furthermore, my kids play on the floor and no matter how much Woolite I spray its still completely disgusting that my carpet has been peed and pooped on multiple times. So, thats the story of how I decided it was time to kill our dog ( a little funny??…c’mon we cant all sit around crying.)

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