EUTHANIZING YOUR BELOVED PET! HOW DO YOU LIVE WITH IT?
Patricia wrote this comment about our blog concerning Pet Reincarnation:
“You know its funny, when I ask questions like this, I get an answer and the majority of the time I already knew it. But it feels as if I am remembering it rather than knowing. My son seems to be a little bit closer to the spiritual realm than I am.
When I adopted my dogs it was truly not the best plan, both dogs. It was just one of those things where one day I woke up and it was the thing to do. I am not an impulsive person at all, I deliberate decisions to the point where I make myself crazy therefore those moments are rare, sort of felt like someone else was living my life for me in those moments.
I have had a decidedly terrible life. There are many people in other countries who have it worse, surely, but for me it has been an endless spiritual/emotional warfare. On the other side of it, I have been left shattered in every capacity and living in third world poverty as an American Citizen. As it turns out I’m quite good at it really.
However in the midst of all of this I was raped and had a child. That made a giant mess of whatever it was that I had built for myself and wrought a hurricane for me, thereafter. Still, those faithful mutts stood by me. I always joked that the two of them must have been lovers in a past life, as the relationship we had was not typical, even by a dog person’s standard.
So it came to pass a few months ago,that some terrible things happened and I put them (the dogs) down. I sit back and go over and over the scenario in my head, of different outcomes, different things I could have done. The reality is that at a certain point when this decision was about to be made, it seemed like the entire world was screaming at me to put them down.
I think from a legal standpoint, with the trouble the two of them had been in, no one would have argued. In fact, the veterinarian warned me that I could loose everything that I didn’t have, should either of them behave that way again. I tried to listen to everyone. All I could think of, was what we had been through, and how none of this was the dogs’ battle. It was, decidedly, not mine either; but I was stuck in it.
Otherwise, I would have had to put them (the dogs) in a rather uncomfortable position for several weeks. Again, just for my sake. I thought to myself: “When they had given me such a good reason to let them go; why would I torture them this way?”
It has shattered me and my son. It has destroyed nearly every relationship (well those relationships needed to go away anyway)… that I had. . .
But I see the dogs everywhere, out of the corner of my eye. I hear them sigh in the bedroom at night or feel the weight of them on the bed. I get these little messages, here and there, a flooding of memories…
I have to say it has taught me a great deal about the truth of the spiritual realm in connection to this realm. I miss them dearly, but I also recognize how difficult their lives were because of the level of difficulty in my life. That was not my intention, it just happened.
My son told me the other night that he had a secret that he had not wanted to tell me: that he always knew “that the dogs would die and then come back to us and that he knew it would be hard but that it would be ok.”
He is 4! He is 4 years old and plays with legos all day and turns into a tiny Buddha, randomly.
I guess I feel horribly guilty that I put them down. I’d almost been hit by a car several times in the days leading up to it. I was about to loose our home and my job again (due to the individuals contributing to their ‘trouble); the farm dog had been poisoned; I had my tires slashed; my car was dying, my child was out of control; and the people in my life were going out of their way to be unreasonably manipulative. It was like reliving the same circumstance that had put me in this bad position in the first place. . .
I sit here and think to myself, that I do have PTSD, and, essentially, my dogs died because I could not wade my way out of what was real threat and what was not. All I knew, was that I would not tolerate anything else happening to them because of me, or my decisions, or my inability to get out.
One dog was nearly 12. He had arthritis, bilateral knee surgeries, kind of becoming senile, and a little blind. I feel less bad about his death, as dogs like that typically go downhill quickly and I’d rather have him go in peace while he was happy and still able to get around. The other one was just 8 or 9, middle- aged, happy and healthy. If you never saw him take down a deer or livestock all by himself you would think he was a companion animal. But that habit, in the end, wound up costing him his life:
Seven goats, in under 10 minutes, that it took me to brave an electric fence and tackle him as he chomped on a goat’s face.He took out the top seven milkers on our farm in under ten minutes out of a herd of fifty. He ran around the herd, looking for just the right ones. He injured the best milker, the worst, and the others… their injuries were less serious.
Oliver, the older dog, bit someone a week-and-a-half later. The guy deserved it. He got out of his car and started kicking at him. But in these cases, it’s always the dogs fault. Oliver had been fear-biting for his entire life. After the first incident, I avoided that for nearly ten years. He bit someone a year ago, as well, but the individual did not press charges.
Anyway, I’m babbling on because I’m so heartbroken. I wanted them to have a good home. But the one was literally suicidal without me, and the other? Well, it took three years to make him my dog and I do not know many that would put up with what that dog had to dish out!
I loved them endlessly.
I guess, I wish I could communicate clearly; as in, not the mixed-messages, and the images, and the thinking that they are outside, if I just open the door. And they are not.
If I were them, I’d probably not reincarnate. But, I would hope, you know, one day when things are better for my son and I….
I am terrified to be without dog-protection!
I hated, that in the end, their bad habits reflected, so distinctly, what they had survived with me. I’ve been alone most of my life… but not with them. When I look back on the tragedy, I don’t really see it. I see them, and how, if I had not endured all of that, I would have never known them or the love that they had. I am only here today because of them. . . in so many ways.
Thoughts?
Because I am traveling here in Uruguay, I haven’t had much computer time. So, until I could take dictation, I’ve corresponded with Patricia (now, Trish), especially to encourage her to continue writing her experiences, as something struck me that she may have an unusual story to tell. Indeed, she does! Perhaps, we can share that too.
Oh My Holy Spirit! Can You help Trish to deal with the euthanasia that she was forced to do for both of her beloved dogs?
“Oh My Linda Layli! You told her the truth…. that death does not hurt anybody, ever, and you cited your epileptic seizure for proof. And that is just that! She is doing much better now. This was the purpose of the life of those wonderful dogs that she had to put down because they attacked and killed so many goats in the milking herd.
There is a dichotomy in that story, which you discerned while thinking about it. Yes, the goats of that herd weren’t being executed by the dairy farmer because they were necessary to his business….then. But, you can be sure that those same goats would not live benevolently forever. Most farm animals get slaughtered by their own farmer, himself, for table meat. So, it’s only a big show…. and all, economically-based, with the official outrage against the dogs for doing, so rapidly and wastefully, what the goat dairy farmer had in mind for them, all along.
The only difference to the human mind was that The owner/ farmer had the “Moral Right” to slaughter them; and the dogs did not!”
Tell Patricia that her dogs didn’t mind going out in a blaze of glory and now, they can stay, indefinitely, around their little family and help their fortunes to improve.
It is The Power of Story that Trish has to do something about and that’s what you are instinctively encouraging her to do by writing her tale. She must get it out of herself in order to face the future with this precious child, who has been through such traditional fires with her. Many are of her own making, but some of them are through a strange society’s practices. Victimization of a woman, when she gives away her personal power to a man in the role of husband, has been going on for far too long.
The Voiceless will find their voice in this New Millennium and accounts of these crimes against a woman will help to free them, collectively, in the future. Her motive should not be to get Justice; but, simply to open the book on the subject, and join the other brave women with a story to tell. It may be her only way to tell her son about his own roots and remembered terrors. This writing has nothing to do with making her rich, which most books don’t do, anyway. Nor, to get justice for the guilty.
It’s just that she does have a talent to express these things and is being encouraged from The Other Side, by her two Guardian Angel Dogs, to get started rebuilding herself, emotionally, and this can begin with a clear analysis of the circumstances. She must leave off the victimization role. It doesn’t serve her, at all.
These beautiful, beautiful dogs are expressing their heartfelt wishes that she and the boy will find some peace and happiness wherever they are in this life. For these pets, that death was merciful and they thank her for it!”
