Hi all
I know it is so difficult to lose a pet...I've lost too many.
The first pet I ever lost was a siamese named Alice Marie...she was my mom's cat and we had to put her to sleep when she was 18 years old b/c of kidney failure...she was such a good cat and it was hard to lose her. I was 13 at the time and I had grown up with this cat.
I lost another pet when he was 1 1/2 years old. Zack was a beautiful, almost white german shephard with blue eyes. He was hit by a car not far from our house. It was so sad and Patches, our other puppy we had at the time was so distraught over Zack's loss.
Sadly I lost Patches about 4 years later when he was almost five years old...he was hit by a car and it was the hardest loss of all for me because Patches was my dog and I had raised him since he was 2 months old. He was my baby and I still miss that happy go lucky puppy that totally took my heart. He was just the happiest little beagle/walker hound mix.
About a year after that, one of my cats, Sweetie, a tri-color tabby, disappeared. Although, we'll likely never know what happened to him, I believe he is with our other pets that have passed on. He was such a sweet cat (hence the name!) and just loved to be held.
And finally, our most recent loss was our lab, Belle. She is in one of the pictures I recently posted. She was such a loving and loyal dog and lived to be almost 11 years old. We had to put her to sleep in March due to hip dysplasia and arthritis. In the end, she couldn't walk anymore and we just couldn't bear to watch her suffer any longer. It was so difficult to have to watch her go through all she did. Nothing is more difficult to me than watching an animal suffer and all you can do is try to keep them as comfortable as possible and love on them.
It saddens me to think about it all of these losses right now and to think about all of yours too, but I feel that animals are brought into our lives for a reason and taken away for a reason. Its difficult when they leave, but I feel like in the end they don't want us to dwell on their loss, they want us to remember the good times and then when we are ready, to give our love to another animal that needs it. If you think about, its like a continuous cycle and its amazing to me how many animals we will give our love to in our lives.
Right now, we have two black cats, Midnight and Precious, a sheltie named Greta, and the two newest additions, Cowboy and Madison, lab and pitbull mixes. They will never replace the pets my family has lost, but they have helped us to move forward and to heal.