We had planned for Tika to be euthanized at home, I had her 'baby' blanket ready, we were going to do it outside where she loved to lay and watch the world.

Then things went fast forward on us.  Although the vet would have come to our house on Sunday morning, it was a matter of what to do with Tika's body afterwards, the doctor out of the office who was available to do it is about 95 lbs soaking wet, and we would have had to deliver Tika to the office anyway afterwards.

So we decided to take her there. Our vet's office is very homey, they have a special room just for this type of thing that has a bed ready, bright light streaming in and is not near the exam rooms.  Since Tika always loved visiting the vets office we figured this would not stress her out.  So we slowly walked her out to the car, twice in the 20 feet she had to stop and catch her breath.  We picked her up and she got situated in her co-pilots position and we drove to the vet.  Although she got a little adrenaline rush from the car ride, it quickly was spent, we got to the vets and she had a small tail wag for Dr. Gibbs and the tech Lori.  She hardly paid attention to the screaming cat. 

By then, you could see the struggle to breath, she didn't even try to say her hellos.  She got comfortable on the bed, and it was very quick and peaceful. We stayed with her for awhile afterwards and went home.

I know I've already posted the story before, and although it wasn't the way we planned, we really don't have any regrets how it played out, especially where we had (for the most part) the vet's office to ourselves.

Our dog before Tika and Caya was diagnosed with primary lung cancer two weeks before she passed away in her sleep, we had gone out to dinner with a friend from out of town and came back to Justice lying in her favorite place gone. That was very traumatic for us.  But no matter what in Justice's case, we would have definitely had her put to sleep at home, she HATED the vets.

We had to make the same contingency plans for Caya also the week Tika died and we thought we were going to lose her, Caya is not keen on the vet, not as bad as previous dogs I've owned, she'll lay down and be good, but it's not on her Top 5 list.  So if we were told, there's no hope, we would have pulled her from the hospital, kept her on fluids for a while at home until things started to look really bad and then have our vet come and let her go.  Thankfully, although Caya has had more than her share of vet time in the last month, it's all been for good she's getting better slowly, she's actually got used to her new schedule of vet time/home time.  Yes, Tika was 401K dog, Caya is the $6million dollar dog.  Oh well, it's just money....

So I guess the morale of my story here is the pet's temperament and the situation will probably play a big part in the end, no matter how well laid out your plans are.  Tika we were okay with the switch in plans, we wouldn't have done the same with Caya in the same situation.

Jeez, am I even making sense? 

Now I'm all teary-eyed from reading everyone's heartbreak.  So sad.  But at least we have a nice place to talk about it. 

Waldo looks like a baby Peanut snuggled next to Peanut like that. Cute! So you have had to face dog cancer twice. I don't know if I could be that strong, not that we are given a choice. You certainly maintain a great outlook with Peanut.

That picture of Peanut and Waldo is too much! That's about the cutest darn thing I've seen all week.