A good dog makes a poor man’s life rich, a widow’s loneliness bearable, an orphan’s fear brief. If you took in a dog to raise with your family, to grow up with you or your children, to share in your food and drink off your bowls and even sleep in your arms, then this furry companion will be like another child to you, or a sibling or your best friend. And then, one day, you will outlive your loyal pet.
What then?
What one thought may absorb you if you’re given the needed time to confront the awful dread of an impending death?
How about this: know what happy things you can do with your dog before it dies.
How To Make Your Dog Happy Before It Dies
There is the life opportunity that with each sign of death’s relentless approach, like a pealing bell, may themselves signal for you a happy thing that you could do with your dog before the final toll rings true and lingers.
Let’s take each one as if from a grandfather clock steadily ringing the last 5 peals before striking midnight.
1) Transfer Energy to One Being Drained of Energy
The most obvious sign of death in a dog dying from old age or disease often is the advent of lethargy. Little by little your dog will become more sluggish and will display less interest in sniffing around, greeting other dogs, walking, or chasing after a ball. Motor skills will begin to atrophy, and body temperature may even begin to wane.
Make the most of these moments for as long as it’s evident your dog may bear the experience. There won’t be any more at some point. Then, return home and cuddle, making the most of every enriching moment of warmth you can bestow your friend.
2) Feed Special Treats While The Appetite Lasts
Among the most rewarding of things to have done with your dog throughout its life no doubt was to watch your pet enjoy a good treat. But relentless thirst, loss of appetite, vomiting and weight loss may limit its diet. Nonetheless, if there is an opportunity to prepare something light and inviting to awaken even one last tasty experience, cherish the effort and the moment of success. You’ll never forget it.
Your dog eventually will refuse to eat. And unless there is some hope for recovery, there will come a time when food will matter for little. Dietary restriction will be meaningless. Switch, then, to some fancy fare and indulge your companion before all that you place on the plate remains there untouched.
Be aware that depending on the type of ailment your dog may be dying of, the olfactory sense could play tricks with the dog’s appreciation of food. Perfectly good food may smell unappealing. If you’ve taught your dog in advance to feed from your hand on impulse, you may be able to trick your dog to have that final treat by skipping the nose altogether.
3) Bring Some Friends By Before Lonesomeness Sets In
There will come a time when your dog will likely seek to distance itself from the familiar. It might enter into some degree of listlessness. Even if challenged with mobility issues, you may notice restlessness or incontinence. A form of anguish will begin to set in. And being unable to recognize what is overtaking the body, your dog will display signs of agony.
Well before this time, it will be good to have brought friends and family to say their good-byes, if they’re not the kind to bear the throes of on-setting death. For those with stronger mettle and a willingness maturely to buttress your resolve, there won’t be a better time to be by your side. Invite them to say their farewells.
Death is sad yet a communal affair. Don’t face it alone even while your dog is laid peacefully to sleep.
4) Prepare a Safe-house For The Inevitable Moment
Over the decades my family and I have seen many of our pets depart in variate ways. As I child I had to say good-bye to Danger, my German Shepherd as it gasped his last having been run over and cast aside by the road. As an adult, my mini dachshund, Sugar, died in my arms right as we rushed through the vet’s emergency door at 1:30 AM, after she had been ceaselessly crying out in our speeding car for 10 minutes down the freeway. These were two extremes.
Most of my other dogs died at home from disease or old age and our vet came to put them down right at home. This has been our preference despite a few occasions when we had to say good-bye at the clinic, when it was evident there would be no return home with our pet alive.
By the time it was appointed for us to say good-bye, our dear friends were already perhaps laboring for breath or in persistent pain, suffering from severe body odor, hair loss, gum discoloration, lackluster eyes and other signs of an impending end approaching.
It was, therefore, important to have prepared a special place that felt safe and sacred for us where to say good-bye. This has made the memory of that last moment the more ennobling, as each of our pets lay claim to a distinct spot in our home where they spent years, some over a decade, being family.
5) Death is What You and Not Your Dog Know is Happening
The struggle for life that a dying body goes through is all consuming. A dog knows not what is going on. It has no existential cognition. It only has an instinct to survive and this could cause it to do erratic things or nothing at all until the end comes. The one creature with full cognition of what is to befall next is you. Therefore, be prepared. Know, if preparation was possible, what steps you are to take to the very end.
Decide in advance, much as you would in preparing your own will, the arrangements for disposal of the body, mementos you wish to keep, steps to follow after the last injection has been delivered. And let yourself grieve. Sorrow is the knowledge that what you once hoped for will no longer be possible to obtain. You’ve lost a dear friend. It will not return to you.
Sorrow is the proper and natural emotion to give yourself into. However, the love you gave your dog returns to you in the comfort and dignity that you know you provided your pet to the very end.
This is why doing these top happy things with your dogs before they die is so important.
Death is the way of all flesh. Dogs and humans, we are mortal, and death awaits us all. Take that final moment when you hold your departed friend for a last time to ponder the significance of the love you shared and how meaningful it was to do all the top happy things that you did for your dog before it died. Let this knowledge be its own reward and comfort for years to come, that you may well cope with your pet loss.