9 years was not enough

**Kentuck** · 10-21-2010, 08:30 AM

My 9-yr old YLF, Lacey, has been having medical issues for almost a month now. We have been treating her for what was originally diagnosed as an upper respitory infection. She was getting better at all and yesterday she didn't eat and as far as I know she didn't drink any water.
I had made an appt. with a internal specialist yesterday but was really worried about her not drinking last night so I took her in to the ER vet. They took x-rays and she has lung cancer. We will ge putting her down later this morning. Please pray for my 10 yr. old son especially as he loved that dog like crazy as we all did. Today sucks.

**inchr48** · 10-21-2010, 08:56 AM

I feel for you and your family. Give Lacey a big hug goodbye for me too, and try and remember her healthy and happy. Dogs always give us much more than they take.

**jim in illinois** · 10-21-2010, 05:25 PM

Sorry to hear that Kentuck, my thoughts are with you and your family

**Frank X. Morris** · 10-21-2010, 08:48 PM

Howdy Kentuck,
Sorry to hear of your loss. Having lost my Chime last month I can really feel your families pain.

**jackrabbit** · 10-21-2010, 11:59 PM

I'm really sorry to hear the news Kentuck. We've been a dog family all my life. When my son was 10 years old we had a beagle that got very sick and we took him to ER at midnight. My son promised that beagle that he would not die, but he did die. When I got the news the next day I called my wife and told her to take my son out of school and that we all had to go to the vet together and say goodbye to the dog.

My son cried his eyes out when he got to the principal's office and saw my wife crying. My son felt he had failed the dog because he had promised the dog he would live. We had a lot of talks with my son about how he did not have control over life and death when it came to illness. We have had all of our dogs cremated and still have their ashes displayed. We have always gone as a complete family when we were able to choose a date for an end of life situation for an old and sick dog and could plan time off from work -- it was a top priority for us. My son is now 26 years old and doing quite well. As a family, we have had to put down four more dogs since then -- we always have two dogs at a time, usually about the same age because dogs don't live as long as us and they tend to have similar life spans to each other.

Having experienced this type of thing so many times it still does not make the pain any less each time we lose a loved family pet member. We all still cry on that final day.

We do cherish the memory of the years that we were blessed with the love of our dogs. Your son will undergo intense bereavement, but that is the natural order of things. We always got another puppy within days, but it did not replace the emptiness we felt for the old dog, and it did not diminish the grieving, it just gave us another dog to love, and to be loved by it. Only time helps to heal a grieving heart. Then only the happy memories survive.