Been really depressed since losing Ben. It was absolutely awful to have lost all the dogs we lost earlier, but Ben . . . he was getting around so well on the Deramaxx and glucosamine and just seemed to be so happy . . . and it was just so unexpected. And then for me not to have been able to be there with him, well . . . it was just devastating.
Mark came in the house and found him gasping for breath. He and John got him into the car and Mark took him over to our vet. By the time he got there he was worse. They found he had fluid in his chest and congestive heart failure and gave him lasix to try and make him more comfortable, but by that time he was barely able to breathe at all and was in a panic. Their advice was to put him down. Mark called me as I was picking up Joey at LSU and let me talk to the doctor, too. I could hear Ben gasping in the background! We finally decided we had no choice. But I keep asking myself if I should have told Mark to take him to the emergency room at LSU instead of to the regular vet. I know they could have kept him alive with some extreme measures, I just don't know if those procedures would have been justified in the end. I hate to subject an animal to frightening and painful procedures if that's the last thing they will experience in their life. It's too late now to know, of course -- too late to think about that. But I just can't help myself. Three days later and I still can't help crying as I write this. Losing him just makes me so sad.
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