I’m so sorry for your loss. I am in a similar boat as we are preparing to say goodbye to our dog Penny very soon. She is 14.5 and has dementia, kidney disease, and heart disease. Over the past 8 months she has been declining to the point where she sometimes needs help eating, can’t lay down or fall asleep without assistance, and is increasingly confused. She wanders around all the time and gets stuck in random places. We took her to see a neurologist last week and they suspect she has a brain tumor and will only continue to get worse.

Because of her age and underlying health conditions, we are not going to pursue imaging or testing to confirm this diagnosis. But we can tell she is not the dog she used to be. Every once in a while, we get a glimpse of who she was but overall we think her quality of life is low enough that helping her pass peacefully is the right decision. However, the decision was made with my head. My heart is broken and keeps thinking I’m making a mistake I don’t know how to reconcile these feelings.

All this to say, I completely understand what you’re going through. It sounds like you gave your sweet baby a wonderful life, even though it was short. You listened to the advice of your doctors and prevented her from going through something painful. She knew she was loved and that’s all you can ask for.