My Dog Is Dying & They Want Comfort

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I'm not even sure if this is where this thread should go so I apologize in advance.

My dog is dying. He hadn't been feeling well for a while but we are very poor. Last week he was barely eating, we had to force a little chicken on him. So we pulled our money & took him to the vet. He has renal failure. They had us leave him for a few days & they treated him. When we picked him up the vet said that his levels were awful and that things didn't look good. He said that there was a chance that he may live for a while. That was if we could get him to eat, urinate & defecate over the weekend. He's doing some of the latter but he won't eat. We forced some nutritional gel supplements & some other stuff on him but he doesn't want it. The first day back he vomited repeatedly. He's extremely lethargic & can't even be bothered to bark at other dogs (like he always used to) when I take him out. The vet said that if he was feeling a little better we could come over & get this bag hook up to use on him a couple of times a week. I think it's pretty obvious that if he had any hope he would have sold us those things when we were there.

My mother & sister (on the phone) keep getting all weepy & want to lie to themselves & me. I know that's what they do & how they cope with life. It's a repeat of when family members were dying in the past & we could see they were dying but they didn't want to admit it. Meanwhile my father & I are talking practically like how will we pay to put him down, his burial, etc. We know what's happening & knew this would happen eventually. (he's over 10 years old)

Then the women started talking about how I'm not crying in front of them. (I have expressed that I was upset though). I don't do that (rarely anyway) because I was made fun of all of the time when I was little for crying/getting upset. It's in my nature now to be stoic in front of others & cry alone.

I just hate feeling like they want me to take care of their feelings when I'm losing the one thing in my life. That's all I ever hear from anyone in my family when I'm upset about my lack of a life "at least she/you (etc) has her dog". Now I'll have nothing.

Sorry to hear about your situation LadySera, losing a pet sucks.
I hope you get to spend some time with your dog and say goodbye without your family bothering you.
You will always have your memories.

I would like to warn you first that I'm very averse to dogs, but I understand that losing a pet is very painful because it is akin to losing your most loyal friend. I understand that different people express grief differently, so don't feel ashamed of yourself if you are one of those who prefer to grieve in private.

dear LadySera,

I am so sorry to hear about your dear dog. It is too bad that on top of that grief you also have to be made to feel different about how you approach the grieving process.


It is really hard to lose a dear animal. My therapist has told me that because I am so close to my cat, when something happens to him someday, it would be very important to get another animal that I would be close to again because of aspergers and needing that outlet for bonding and hugging. I totally agree with her about this, and for me cats are the right creature but for you it is your dog.

I hope that your family will realize that they need to support you during this rough time.