by Margaret Shauers

Created on: June 18, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Sometimes Euthanasia equals LOVE

Almost exactly a year after my husband died our dearly loved, old Labrador retriever began growing more and more feeble. She had the traditional "lab lumps" which hurt when touched. The vet said removal would probably kill her a lot sooner than the lumps would.

Bonnie Sue also became very arthritic...another aging Lab tendency. This was just before shots and other arthritis medication became used for dogs. I would have spent the money, and it is expensive, to have made her days more comfortable.

Only Bonnie became truly erratic. Always afraid of thunderstorms, she grew wild that last springtime and early summer. After dancing, jittering and crying, she would run upstairs and hide under what was once my husband's side of the bed. He had protected her-and yeah, she did love him best, but she loved me, too.

Only he wasn't there, and even when the thunderstorms and early tornado scares ended, Bonnie Sue just wasn't the same. It had been a few years since she'd had muscle strength enough to jump up and into the stock tank where she used to love cooling down. This summer she needed help getting into the kiddy wading pool I bought for her.

She began to forget things...like where her food and water dish were. I took her to the vet, of course, several times. He finally said, "I hate to tell you this, but she really has what I would call Doggy Alzheimer's."

They could try to treat it, and I bought the meds. They didn't help much. Soon Bonnie began wandering and could not find her way home. Especially near evening (when many elderly humans suffer from something called "Sundowners" and lose grip on reality along with the waning of the sun), Bonnie became so erratic that she had to be closely guarded. Neighbor children often felt sorry for her whining at the back gate to get out...and let her out. This began several months of my children, myself and my friends frequently went on "Bonnie" hunts, sometimes finding her in unsafe situations. Bonnie Sue no longer watched for cars.

One thing Bonnie remembered was the comfort of hiding beneath that bed upstairs where my late-husband had protected her. Only...even after I moved the bed downstairs and there was no bed there at all, Bonnie continued to climb those stairs and try to find it. Then her arthritic legs gave out and she began falling down the few stairs she could manage. I had to block out her last "haven" so that I could protect her.

Friends kept telling me, "It's time to put her to sleep." But

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