She was a good dog

We had to put down our old dog Strider today. She apparently slipped on the ice from this weather and damaged her spine, maybe slipped a disc, who knows. All we know is that over a period of about 5 days, she went from being able to walk/trot, to barely walking, to unable to stand, to unable to sit up.

Sadly, we made the decision this morning to have her put to sleep. She's a pretty heavy dog and although we could drag her outside to go pee and poop, her clock and ours were out of synch. This led to more pee and poop inside the house than out as those functions continued to work just fine...

We bundled her up and took her to the vet (which was always the only way we could guarantee she would pee!) and they fianlly had a room ready.

It was strange, I'd never seen a dog put down before. We were petting her and calming her and the doctor gave her the injection. Within 3 seconds, she put her head down, coughed once very softly and stopped moving. The Vet pulled out a Stethoscope, listened for her heart and said "her heart has stopped".

From injection to his verdict was no more than 20 seconds.

It is truly amazing how fragile life can be and in witnessing her dying, I gained more appreciation for how much a miracle living actually is.

Thanks sweet Strider for being a great dog and teaching me about living, loyalty and forgiveness. You were great dog.