How I Knew It Was Time to Let My Dog Go

He told me it was time. I listened.

On Thursday morning, my dog stopped at the bathroom door and would not come in.

If you are watching an animal you love disappear in front of you right now, I want to tell you exactly how I knew, what the six months before Thursday actually looked like, and why the relief that arrived afterward was never something I needed to apologize for.

His name was Boo. He was sixteen, he was my first dog, and most likely my last. For the last nine of those years, since my husband Daniel died, he had been the reason my days had a shape.

How I Knew It Was Time: The Six Months Before Thursday

He stopped jumping onto the bed in March, although I did not notice it in March.

Noticing came in April, and it arrived as an absence rather than an event. One afternoon I thought, “Wait, when did he last come up here?” For years he had gone up and down all day. He was on my Zoom calls, in many of my recorded videos, asleep behind me on the bed, and I still have the videos, because watching him do it was one of the small pleasures of my working life.

So I counted backward, landed on roughly a month, and logged it as March. From that point on, I paid a different kind of attention.

That was grief, incidentally. Not the large kind. Just the recognition that something endearing had quietly stopped happening and was not coming back.

Since his cataracts had thickened, I assumed they were the cause. However, once I started watching properly, evidence turned up elsewhere too. Dropped treats used to be gone in a second. By spring he was missing them, then finding them with his nose, which told me plainly what his eyes could no longer do.

At night I adapted instead of mourning. There is an ottoman at the foot of my bed that I bought for him, with storage inside it, and I would pat the top of it and say, okay, Boo, up. He took it as a step. On top of it I kept a blanket coiled into a circle, so that even when he could not see the shape clearly, he could feel the bump and know the spot was his. Then he would climb in and stay there all night, next to me, the way he always had.

Twice in his last month, he made the jump on his own. Both times he lay down for about a minute and then got off again, as though he had gone up to check whether he still could.

Because the bed was no longer available to him during the day, he took up two new positions. One was a small area rug directly behind my desk chair. The other was under the desk itself, against my feet.

And this is the part I keep returning to. Many times I looked down expecting to find him asleep, and instead he was staring at me. Other times he would sit up behind me, and I would feel it before I turned around, and there he was on the rug, staring at the back of my head. (just like in this photo below)

He was telling me he did not feel well and did not know what to do about it. Even then, I am not certain I let myself hear it.

Two Panic Attacks With No Trigger At All

The cough changed on August 18. It went tight, and then it stayed tight.

Ten days later, on the last Friday in August, around seven in the evening, he had what I can only call a panic attack. There was no thunder. No fireworks. No noise of any kind. He trembled and panted and could not settle, and nothing in that room had changed except him.

Because all vets were closed, I found an emergency clinic fifteen minutes north that I had never used before. The vet there listened to Boo’s chest, heard a respiratory problem he could not yet name, and sent us home with a painkiller, an antibiotic, and something to loosen the mucus in his lungs. Give these, he said, and tell me in a few days whether they are working.

By the next morning, I noticed Boo was walking strangely. Since the painkiller was a nerve medication and the instruction was every twelve hours, I stopped the schedule and decided to give it only when he genuinely needed it, because he was not trembling and showed no sign of pain. That evening he had one dose; the tremor settled, his breathing eased, and he slept well.

Saturday he got everything, painkiller included. Then I walked him to our café, which was stupid of me, since he could not make the walk home, and I carried him the last block. (which I realized later was caused by the nerve meds)

At four o’clock that afternoon came the second attack.

Texting the vet produced a small comedy of translation. All I wanted to know was how long the pain medication takes to work. Thirty minutes, the answer eventually came back, and half an hour after the dose, he was calm.

Two attacks in two days frightened me enough that I booked an ultrasound for Monday on the spot.

The Ultrasound: Four Organs

Monday, August 31. A six centimeter mass in his left chest. Lesions scattered through his liver. Changes in his spleen. A lesion on his left kidney.

Four organs.

From that moment, the decision became a matter of days rather than months, even though nothing about him looked like a dog with four diseased organs. He was eating. He was walking. There was less pep than a year before, but the pep was there. He slept through the night, which was more than I was managing.

There is a particular sleeplessness that comes with knowing someone is gravely ill while they lie on your bed looking perfectly ordinary. So I would wake in the small hours with a scan in my head and a normal-looking dog breathing beside me, and try to work out what I was supposed to do with that.

Since the antibiotics quieted the cough, a little time was bought. Therefore, I waited, and I watched, because what I wanted was for him to tell me.

Thursday Morning: He Stopped at the Door

Thursday started exactly like every other morning for the nine years since Daniel’s passing. 

White noise machine off. Light on. Then he came over from his spot beside me, pushed up against my leg as I scratched his head and sides, which was his one window for affection in the entire day. After that I put him down on the floor and went to wash up.

He always followed me in. Always. There is no version of my recent life in which I used a bathroom alone, because he would come straight in, lean against me, and wait to be scratched again.

That morning he did not come in.

Just outside the open door he stopped, head down, and I looked at him and said, ” What’s going on?”

And then he threw up. All liquid, bright yellow, not a trace of food in it, even though he had slept the whole night through.

Never once in sixteen years had he thrown up pure liquid.

He stood there in the doorway with a strange expression on his face, and I said out loud, ” Okay, this is not good.”

From that moment, I was not leaving him alone, which is also why I did not shower that day. I shower pretty much every single day of my life. Ten minutes away from him was more than I could make myself do.

Ten Minutes Later, He Seemed Fine Again

After I cleaned it up, we went out, and he did his business exactly as usual, no drama and no difficulty. Then he came back up and stood waiting to be fed.

Illness hands you evidence and then takes it straight back, which is why so many people wait far longer than they should.

He looked at his bowl, looked up at me, and hesitated.

Since the Friday of the first attack, he had been doing that. Every morning, and only the morning meal, never the afternoon one, and I still have no idea why. His head would drop as though he was about to eat, then lift, and the look he gave me was not refusal.

It was a question. “Why don’t I want this?” “What’s wrong with me?”

Working around it had already become routine. Over that weekend I had switched him to scrambled egg with sardines, and he had been delighted, so from Monday onward that was breakfast, because his usual wet food no longer interested him.

Thursday, he looked at the eggs and said no to those too.

Treats were still going down, so I tried dry kibble ones, just to see what would happen. He looked at them. He smelled them. Then he walked away and lay down.

Pricing a Cremation Before Six in the Morning

After that, I sat down at my desk and started looking up crematoriums.

Nobody is open at that hour, and I knew it. Looking anyway was the only thing available, because sitting still was not.

One of them ran twenty-four hours, so I sent a WhatsApp. Seven kilos, I told them. They came back with a price that was fair, and then mentioned that they also perform euthanasia.

How much, I asked. Twenty-five hundred pesos. My vet charges a thousand.

So there I was, before six in the morning, politely declining a quote. No thank you, I will have that done elsewhere. When they offered to collect him afterward instead, I said that would be fine.

Notice what was happening in that exchange, because I certainly have since. I was negotiating. Comparing prices. Being sensible with money.

Underneath all of it, the decision had already been made, and I had not yet admitted it to myself.

You do not price a cremation for a dog you are planning to keep.

Then I Turned Around

He was sitting under my desk, looking up at me.

That was it. That was the whole thing.

He was telling me he needed to go, and there is a great deal of distance between needing and wanting, which happens to be the exact distance I had spent several sleepless nights confusing.

So I said, “Okay. I hear you.”

People have told me since then what a difficult decision that must have been. Honestly, it was the easiest decision I have ever made, and I want to be precise about why, because the ease had nothing whatsoever to do with courage.

The ultrasound made it easy. Four organs made it easy. He was very sick; I knew he was very sick, and once that was established, the only remaining question was whether I would make him carry it a while longer for my benefit.

Not everyone gets that clarity, though, and I am not prescribing mine. Everyone reads their own animal differently. This was my read, and I have zero regrets about it.

The Two Packets

Then I remembered the two packets of wet food still sitting in the cupboard, the kind he had eaten nearly his whole life, which I had somehow never thrown out.

They keep because they are full of preservatives, and for once in my life I was grateful for preservatives. One packet made a full day for him, split across two meals.

A couple of spoonfuls went into his bowl.

He inhaled it. Gone. Like a dog who had not eaten properly in a week, which he had not, so it made no sense at all.

Standing there watching him, I thought, well, “What exactly am I saving the rest for?”

So he got the whole packet. An hour later, he got the other one too.

Why I Took a Dog at His Word

People assume that because of what I do for a living, I must have gone into his Records.

I did not, and I would not have.

Animals are not part of Soul Realignment®. We do not read pets. Never once in sixteen years did I attempt to read Boo, and it would not have occurred to me, because animals do not live by a Divine Soul Blueprint the way we do, so there is no reason for them to be in the Records at all.

However, feeling into another being is not something I switch off at my own front door. Since 2010, we had been communicating energetically, so I knew his energy the way you know a room you have lived in for years, and that morning the room was different.

There was also precedent, because I had watched him make this exact kind of decision twice before.

In 2010, he was a street dog in Los Cabos, covered in fleas and ticks. I drove to the Humane Society intending to foster him. He walked over, put his head on my leg, and came home with me that day. I was 46; I had wanted a dog my entire life, and so the most stable relationship of my adult life turned out to be one I did not plan and did not choose.

He chose.

He was Daniel’s dog first. Twice a day, Daniel walked him and threw the ball for him on the beach, and he was proud of that dog in a way I am not sure he was proud of anything else he owned.

Then came the ALS diagnosis in 2016. Once we could no longer get Daniel up the stairs, he slept downstairs, and I slept on the couch in the next room to stay close, although some nights exhaustion meant I did not hear him.

So Boo started barking to wake me.

Nobody taught him that. No training, no vest, no command, no certification. He worked out what was happening in that house, took the job, and held it until Daniel died at home on July 21, 2017.

Then he took a second one. For the nine years afterward, he was the reason my days had a shape, because he had to be out five to seven times a day, which meant I stopped working and stood in the sun whether I had planned to or not. Lunch at a fixed hour. Last walk at seven.

That is a dog who makes decisions and announces them. Which is why, when his eyes said, “Mom, I’m ready, I’m done”, treating it as my own projection was never on the table.

Thirty-Two Seconds

The crematorium asked what time, since ten minutes’ notice was all they needed.

“Eleven thirty,” I said.

Then I hung up, and within half an hour I was climbing the walls, because once you have decided, waiting becomes its own particular punishment. Sitting inside the sadness for two more hours was not something I could do. What I wanted was for it to be done.

So I made a video of myself saying goodbye to him. Thirty-two seconds long.

After that I left early. Fifteen minutes north to the emergency vet I had come to trust, rather than two minutes to the one I do not, and we were there by quarter past ten.

At quarter to eleven they gave him a sedative, and he went limp and relaxed in a way I had not seen in weeks. Then came the euthanasia, and it took five or six minutes.

For about forty minutes afterward we stayed, waiting for the crematorium to arrive, and I was glad of every one of them, because I wanted to be completely certain he was gone before anyone took him anywhere.

I had brought a special towel and told them to throw it out afterward, since I did not want it back. Wrapped in it, he was carried out to her car by the young woman from the crematorium. Then, at the other end, I carried him myself from the car to the table.

When the door closed behind him, the sky outside was blue.

Within a minute, there was thunder, torrential rain, and palm trees bent sideways in the street. It ran for just over two hours, which was exactly how long the cremation took, and then it stopped.

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions here. 

Why the Easiest Decision of My Life Still Wrecked Me

I was a hot mess for most of that day.

Clarity and composure are not the same thing, and anyone who tells you otherwise has not done this. Knowing the decision was right did not stop me from crying on and off for hours, because making a final decision and living through the day you carry it out are two entirely different experiences.

Talking to anyone was beyond me, so I left messages instead. There was a post on Facebook. On LinkedIn, I wrote nothing until Friday, since that is my main platform and I wanted a proper newsletter rather than a status update written through tears.

Then, that same evening, something shifted, and it was not sadness.

Since I had to eat, I started chopping up chicken. He was always right behind me in the kitchen, because although the apartment is one room, the kitchen was a separate jurisdiction as far as he was concerned, and food was occurring. For years I told him to get out of it. In his last couple of weeks, I had stopped telling him, which was one of the ways I knew.

Behind me there was nothing.

At seven o’clock my body stood up to take him out, and there was nowhere to go.

That is the texture of it now. Not grief exactly. Strangeness. A room with the wrong shape in it.

Other people are where it gets me. If someone empathizes, I go. If someone cries, I cry, automatically, with no say in the matter. However, that is a mirror rather than my own grief surfacing, and I can tell the difference.

Anticipatory Grief Is Not Borrowing Sadness Early

Anticipatory grief has a bad reputation, and that reputation is a misunderstanding.

People treat it as sitting in sorrow ahead of schedule and spoiling whatever time is left. That is not what it did.

For me it meant knowing in the spring that this was the year, then knowing in September that it was the month, and therefore being far more awake inside ordinary hours than I would otherwise have been. I noticed him. Changes registered, and so did how fast they were arriving. What he had been for us landed in a way it could not have while I was still assuming we had time.

Which is why I could go to the grocery store on Friday, come home to a quiet apartment, and stay standing.

Most of the grieving had already been done, in installments, since March, while I was lifting him onto the ottoman and rotating his food and standing outside in the sun five times a day. He left slowly, over months, so the day his body stopped was the smallest part of it.

If that is where you are right now, you are not failing at grief. You are doing it early, and it will cost you less later.

Relief Is Not the Opposite of Love

There is one more thing I will say plainly, because almost nobody says it out loud.

When someone you love is suffering, and it finally ends, what arrives is relief.

I felt it on Thursday. I felt it in 2017 when Daniel took his last breath while I held his hand, and I have never once apologized for either.

If you are carrying guilt about relief you felt at the end of somebody’s suffering, human or otherwise, put it down. It is not evidence of a defect in how you loved them.

Relief is not the opposite of love. It is what love does when the suffering stops.

I Am Not Refilling the Position

He is all through my business.

He is in my email signature. On my website, he is still written in the present tense, in places I have not yet had the stomach to go and change. For years he was my COO and the sarcastic voice in the PS of my posts, and at some point every bit of that has to be moved into the past tense.

I have not started, and I do not intend to start this week.

Soul First. Strategy Second.

P.S. The PS was always his. He got the last word for years because he was funnier than me, and he knew it.