A few weeks ago we said goodbye to our 15 year and 3 months old cocker spaniel, Nelson. He'd been my dog since I was 15 years old, I had him before meeting my now husband or any of our children arriving on the scene. Despite always knowing that it's part of the deal of having a pet it was a sad moment.
We lived in Belgium when we got him as a puppy from an animal shelter (he already had the name Nelson and although we'd picked a new one for him, Nelson just seemed right on him). Nelson was a wonderful companion to me in my teenage years as my mother worked a lot and my parents were splitting up; my father was preparing to move back to Sweden. Nelson moved to Jordan and spent a few years there with my mother and sister as I was between flats and couldn't have him with me. A year after meeting my other half we found a beautiful house with a big garden in the Belgian countryside, in a village called Ottenburg, and Nelson was able to join us.
Around the time of his return to Belgium I fell pregnant with our eldest. Despite being nearly 9 by the time she arrived he was always a loyal companion to her. Over the years he saw a further two more babies join the family. Before the kids arrived he'd already lost all interest in playing catch so he was never much of a play companion for them. And the older he got the weaker his back legs got and the less time he wanted to spend with the rest of the family. He'd come out for a nosey and quick cuddle. He'd definitely come out of bed for ANY type of food (let's not discuss the things I've had to remove from his mouth on walks - frogs, birds, rabbits and more) - if you dropped anything edible it was gone before it hit the floor. But he felt happiest either in his bed or chasing rabbits and pheasants.
He also lived with various other animals during his life, at one point I had hamsters, there were birds (zebra finches I believe, I think the budgies were all before his time) and finally for his last year with us he had a dog companion in my late mother in law's Labrador, Belle. After our stay in Belgium he moved with us to Switzerland and then to Scotland (where he lived in 4 different houses and areas). As you can see he definitely lived a full and eventful life, he even made it to Sweden several times.
Already at the beginning of summer I had said to my husband that I didn't think Nelson would see the end of it, he certainly wouldn't make it to the end of the year. I even wrote to my mother and sister to give them a heads up that I would be making the call to put him to sleep soon. We've thought he'd go lots of times but this was different, his hips weren't showing signs of improvement. The days before I called the vet he worsened drastically and was falling on his way in and out of the house. He stopped chasing things in the garden (something he'd done even when he had a limo before) and would only go out to do his toilet needs - although a lot of pees were also ending up in his bed. The last day he couldn't stand when eating. I had messaged a friend who's a vet and shown her a video and she agreed that it seemed like it was time to not leave him suffering much longer.
Unfortunately our local vet's weren't doing home visits due to covid-19. I'd have preferred not to make him go for a car journey as he hadn't enjoyed them at all towards the end, we presumed it was due to his sore hips. Thankfully they were however able to come out to the car and give him the injections there so he didn't have to suffer being carried about. It also made it less clinical for us to say goodbye.
I had considered asking my eldest, who's 6, if she wanted to come along but before I had the chance she asked herself. The other two I felt were too young and I'd have spent my time dealing with them instead of giving Nelson a peaceful end. But my eldest was the one who was most upset by my decision, even if she understood why it was necessary, and so I felt she deserved the right to chose for herself. I explained everything that would happen, and always reminded her she could change her mind, even once there I told her she could go sit in the front of the car if it became too much for her.
It was a lot for a 6 year old to take in but I'm glad she got such a valuable life experience and got to see such a peaceful death. She was so sweet and sat with him, giving him big cuddles the whole time. Occasionally overcome with emotion and tears other times remaining composed, the whole time she was calm and reassuring for him (and me). I hadn't expected it to feel so nice to have her there with me, but it was nice to not be alone. I thanked her afterwards for coming with me and she said "I didn't come for you, I just wanted to be with Nelson as long as I could." And I told her that was ok because she'd done something very nice for him.
He was so tired and ready for it all to end. It felt like he knew those last 24hrs at home. He got lots of love and cuddles from everyone the last day and he definitely got a loving goodbye which I think is all any of us can ask for.
My eldest really wanted us to bring him home to bury in the garden. We don't own our house though, if we were in our forever home I'd have granted her wish. While both my husband I want to be cremated I just didn't feel that keeping Nelson's ashes in an urn was the personal keepsake I wanted. And then I thought of resin art, you often see locks of hair kept inside them and I thought that was something perfect and tangible for us all, and it meant that we could make individual ones for all the kids. I cut locks from his lovely cocker spaniel ears and kept them in a box. I'd never done anything with resin before but I figured Google would help and that it surely couldn't be THAT difficult. I've dedicated a separate blog post for our resin keepsakes.
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