Sorry about your loss David, I can speak from experience of losing a family pet. We have always had dogs and cats while I was growing up and until September 2008 we had two dogs (a cocker spaniel and a whippet) and a cat, sadly the cocker spaniel had to be put down as she had got cancer and was developing breathing problems, it was quite near her 11th birthday.We did have a little reprieve though, as she was going to be put down on the Wednesday of the week we had her put down, but she seemed a little better, so we decided to give her until the Saturday so we could say goodbye properly (and would give us a little bit of time to mourn before going back to work on the Monday). I didn't want to go to the vet with her that Saturday, but was able to say goodbye before she was taken. I was quite distraught on the Wednesday as I thought she was going to go then and my boss kindly gave me the day off work, I took the opportunity to go for one last walk with her, and sadly, the Saturday soon came. It was the first death of a pet I had really experienced as although we had had pets die in my lifetime before, I was probably a little too young to understand. At the moment we just have the whippet and the cat, we've thought about replacing the cocker spaniel since she died but have not done so as yet (mum says she doesn't miss the large balls of hair that accumulated around the house!) We do still think about her occasionally. She was such an intelligent and good natured little thing and is still missed. I had wanted to replace her with either a border collie or a black lab as I love these sort of dogs, and we got the chance to have a black lab for a day as our next door neighbours got one a few months ago and asked us to look after him for a day recently, he's a lovely boy, but I think our house is probably a little small for a lab or collie! Our whippet is fairly well known around Acton - in fact, as I found out recently, if you go to The Rocket, there is a photograph of a made up football team in there, and our whippet stars as one of the coaching staff! (Apologies if some of this post seems a bit morbid in places, but just wanted to share my experiences).
James Vertigan ● 6001d