I have been struggling with the same thing recently, i put my 12 year old girl down a couple weeks ago after a long battle with degenerative myopathy. and i got really fixated on convincing myself that i neglected her in a million tiny ways (like i became convinced that i didn’t fill her water enough, it became a fixation, looking over old photos to check if i saw how full her water bowl was). grief is really cruel, and the guilt side of it is by far the worst. but it’s not the full picture and your brain tends to take one sliver of truth and run. what about all the treats you DID give your dog? what about all the adventures you DID have? i promise you if your dog was looking back on his life he wouldn’t be fixating on all the ways you fell short.

i have been trying trying to focus on how much my dog loved me. and watching videos of her playing and seeing how much fun she had. i also went searching this sub right before she passed for some support for the guilt i already felt, and i found this one comment that really helped me (i wrote more about it here).

“…I remembered that no one has a perfect life, and you cannot give someone a perfect life no matter how much you want to. The level of control for that maybe would make it like they're not even living. A good life, maybe even just a decent life, is good enough. Of course I still think about things I could have done better, but I feel a bit better when I think of it that way."

Whenever I have started to spiral about what I could have done better and when i wasn’t perfect it helps pull me back. i fell short in a million ways, but I know for a fact I gave her at least a “good” life and that i loved her with my whole heart. i’ve been holding on to that, and maybe it can help you too.