Athena: January 31, 2003 - April 7, 2014

We had to put my sweet Thena girl to sleep on Monday. It might possibly be the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

She was diagnosed with hip dysplasia when she was three and had been on pain medication since that time. Over time she had vertebrae fuse and arthritis set in. When we took her to the pain veterinarian in North Carolina last summer, she pointed out that she couldn't move her elbows anymore. Her right knee was so bowed out and thick that the veterinarian in Missouri thought she might have cancer. So she did an x-ray and thankfully it wasn't cancer, but the difference between her good knee, good hip, and bad knee, and bad hip was insane.

It just makes me realize even more what heart she had; to deal with all of that and still be this happy go lucky dog.

Last weekend was finally the point at which I said, 'She's miserable. We're miserable. I think we need to do this soon.' She would start crying because she couldn't get up to get more comfortable and we'd have to pick her up so she could readjust herself. Bad nights were ones where we'd have to get up 5-6+ times. Sometimes she would growl...not sure if that was because she hurt or we weren't doing what she wanted us to do. At any rate, we called the vet on Monday and scheduled the euthanasia for 9:45am. She could still walk and was bright eyed and 'happy' so I had Chris ask if they could exam her first to make sure we were (or weren't) doing the right thing.

When the vet saw her and I saw the look on the vet's face, I knew immediately that we were going to do it. The vet hadn't seen her in over a year and could see how bad she had gotten. She said, 'Nothing lines up with anything. You can tell she's in pain. It's past time.' So yeah, she got a tranquilizer first and then the phenobarbital to put her to sleep. We decided to do an individual cremation with her ashes returned to us. I plan to scatter them at some point, but only when I know without a doubt that I'm ready. Incidentally, the vet's office just called and said her ashes are here. Today has been an emotional day, so I think I'll wait to pick them up.

I can't even begin to describe what Athena meant to me/us. I'm choosing to believe that I'll be reunited with her one day. Thankfully I have lots of photos and many wonderful memories. :)

Here are some videos (I don't know how to edit them, so you get them in all their uncut glory!):

Athena on her 11th birthday this past January. It didn't occur to me that the cake was too far from her...I felt really bad about that when I watched the video back! 



Here she is enjoying the beach. Fun times!