My in-laws had to euthanize their sweet yellow lab Sadie yesterday. She had developed, over the course of the last year or so, an intermittent paralysis of her larynx which left her struggling for air too often these last few weeks. And loving her as they did, they let Sadie go.
For 13 years, Sadie was the one who greeted us whenever we visited L. & G., her whole lab body getting the wiggles as she made her way around to each one of us in turn. She had the most expressive dog eyebrows any of us had ever seen, and was as much a part of the family as any of us.
Sadie helped L. make the transition from hard-nosed businessman to retiree, loosening him up and giving him an endlessly accepting reservoir for the affection he found it hard to express during his stressful career. When L. & G. made the move from Roseburg to Vancouver in 2006, Sadie made the new house feel like home from day one. We owe her such a debt of gratitude.
I don’t know how we’ll tell our son L., though his subconscious knew this was coming. Six months ago he awoke crying from a nightmare, hardly able to speak through the pain of witnessing Sadie’s death in his mind’s eye. This news will break a bit of his 9 y.o. heart.
Thank you, Sadie. We will miss you so much.
We lost a cat this week. We found him under a car in a parking lot about 10 years ago. He was a big unruly,longhair thing that I was especially allergic to and he would spray on everything around him. Most would not have kept him for long.
If it were me, he would not have survived at all. But my better half insisted on keeping him and caring for him over my initial objections.
We have lots of animals, so losing one is a fairly frequent occurrence. But that does not make it any easier.
Sorry for your family’s loss.
We have a foster male, yellow lab right now if you are, by chance, looking to adopt a dog. He was neglected and emaciated when we began caring for him. We have nurtured him back to health and he will be going back to HSSW soon for adoption. He is about 1 and 1/2 years old and very good natured. He has one big issue though, extreme separation anxiety when left alone. We have been working on it but are not sure how much it can be improved. He would be best off in a household where someone is around most of the time.
Thanks. I’ll mention the dog to my in-laws – Sadie had the same separation issue, especially given that my in-laws are retired and so one or the other of them is home a lot of the time.
They are in Arizona for the winter and should return mid-March; I’m not sure if they’re going to be looking for another dog right away or taking a break for a bit.
Thanks again.