Been reading through this the last week and it has helped me tremendously.

At the same time Gizmo started to not feel well, our Sidney, a chocolate lab of 14 years and 5 months, started to have seizures.

She already stopped eating a few days before and wouldn’t take her pills.

She had an incident in the spring where she woke up crying unable to move her rear legs. After around ten minutes of laying on the floor she was back to normal. Not sure if it was a stroke but it never happened before.

Over Labor Day while we were out she must’ve fallen or slipped and her right hip was just in the wrong place. We brought her to the vet and he said the stress of tests and so on would be a lot for her and that’s when we started the meds to make her more comfortable.

She would hop and was able to go down stairs but not up so we’d help her.

This past Friday I text my wife about coming to some sort of decision about Sidney’s last days. I told my wife I didn’t think she had another week In her. So Friday night I planned a fire outside with Sidney and our family. She loved to sit outside on the lawn and just take it all in. She couldn’t see well but would still look around and sniff the air.

But that never happened. She had a horrible seizure in front of all of us. It seemed to last forever. My younger daughter was afraid and backed off but my older daughter totally broke down. She ran off crying and terrified.

It took Sidney around 15 minutes to come out of it after the grand mal was over. We all slept with her that night in the family room. The next morning she had a less severe seizure as my wife was on the phone with the vet. We knew it was time.

The kids said their goodbyes and my wife decided she wanted to be with Sidney when she would pass. Sidney ran up to my wife first as a puppy 14+ years ago when we went up to Vermont to get her from river meadow labs.

So we agreed she would hold Sidney and look into her eyes at the end.

We are getting better day by day but it’s been tough. I try to remember the fun and good times and erase those seizures, the limping, not eating or drinking, from my mind. But i know I’ll never forget.

I think we take the loss of a pet harder because we feel a responsibility towards them. I often thought that the only thing worse would be losing a child. So I pray for the OP, anyone else that has lost a beloved pet, and any parent that lost a child. Stay strong and cherish every moment when they are with you and remember the good times when the can’t be with you anymore.

Here are some pictures of our Sidney girl.

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