So sorry to hear about Miss Maggie. She sounds like a wonderful dog. 
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So very sorry Steve. It’s a terrible hurt.
Sending positive thoughts for your family - especially your children - definitely hurts them just a little bit deeper.
Indeed.
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This seems to be the week for pet stories. My neighbor has one of her own that just happened. I have to share it.
About a year ago, one of her two cats disappeared. He was an indoor/outdoor cat who had always returned home. But this time he didn’t. She did all the usual things that you do when a cat is missing: check with the neighbors and check the animal shelter. No one had seen him. The cat was microchipped so she was hoping to hear something but she never did. As time went on, she accepted that he was probably gone for good.
Late yesterday she had some good news. She received a call from the microchip registry letting her know that her missing cat was at the local animal shelter. The shelter was closed so she had to wait until this morning to pick him up. It turns out the cat was living in an apartment about a half-mile away. The apartment renters were recently evicted and when they left, they abandoned her cat and another one. Fortunately her cat was microchipped.
They picked up the cat at the shelter this morning and he is now back where he belongs once again living the good life.
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Kara and Charlie are back together again in Kitty Heaven. We put her down. She had a level 5 of 6 heart murmur and something going on with her liver and brain.
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Heart breaking indeed. Much love, hope your son and all of you get through okay.
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So sorry for you and your family.
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Thanks @booknut7 and @Racing_Stripes and anyone else who may comment. Appreciate you all.
It was an easy decision. The 5% chance of a better outcome option would have been to send her to a 24/7 animal hospital and have a feeding tube and IV put in. Wasn’t going to do that to her. She would have been terrified probably to death.
It was quick and painless. If she somehow made it through some kind of treatment, medications would have been necessary forever and we couldn’t even pick her up when she was healthy, let alone give her multiple medications a few times a day. She never would have trusted us again. She got close to us and slept in our bed with us every night but that was on her terms.
We went that route with Charlie, spent almost $4000 and he ended up being put down 7 days later. Not about the money, it’s about the suffering. We weren’t going to be selfish.
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I’m so sorry for Miss Maggie and Kara, @JustForFunStuff and @ASV_Vites
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@JustForFunStuff, I am sorry for the loss of Miss Maggie. I hope that your “extra” time with her was a joy and will be some comfort to you. Prayers of peace and comfort for you and all who loved Miss Maggie, and her tenacity and devotion. 
@ASV_Vites, I am sorry that Kara became so suddenly ill and especially on the too-recent heels of Charlie’s passing–and with no small mention of your father-in-law, too. Lots of changes in the Vites household in just a couple of years. I am very grateful that Kara was able to hold on until your wife got back home to say goodbye; it is devastating to return home but not the same home because a family member has gone for good. Prayers of peace and comfort for you and all who loved Kara, but especially for your son, that he may come to find conforting memories and her kindred spirit in unexpected places and when most needed.
A rough day for pet lovers, but I am also thankful for @Racing_Stripes neighbor being reunited with their kitty. What an unexpected joy!
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@Racing_Stripes, a few weeks ago my sister’s neighbours adopted a beautiful grey cat/kitten of ~ 6 months old from a shelter. She told me that this kitten was found in an apartment building with another cat. The owners abandoned them and the cats survived alone for about a week. Can this other cat be your neighbour’s cat? My sister lives in Kensington, MD.
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I am so sorry for her and you and your family. Tearing up with memories of pets past. It is hard, they are family.
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@DDS I don’t think it’s the same cat. My neighbor and I live in Kansas, a long way from Maryland.
I live in an area where there are many transients (college students & military) who live here for a short term then move on. Many of these transients adopt pets while they’re here and sadly do not take the pets with them when they leave. Many of the pets end up in the shelter, are abandoned or simply turned out to fend for themselves. The fortunate ones find new homes. I have adopted at least two of these pets myself.
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Thanks to all for the kind messages regarding Maggie, I appreciate your love and kindness.
It’s never easy to lose a pet no matter how much time they’ve spent loving us.
I have a house full of these little dustmops, we have lost 8 in the past 5 years.
Steve I agree with you about these poor babies suffering. My Lady Lola had kidney disease and I was sure she would beat it. I had her hospitalized for 4 days with fluids and IV meds. Brought her home, she still was not well. I was doing IV’s and administering everything I could from home. $10,000 and 5 days later she passed away in my arms.
I often regret having her away from me those last days before she passed but know I would have looked back and thought … “but what if”. “What if” I gave her treatment, “what if” I gave her different meds. In the end, I did all I could. At 9 young years it was her time.
I applaud your decision to save your beloved Kara from painful intervention.
May she fly high in Kitty Heaven and your family’s hearts heal soon.
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I got some good news tonight from my regular vet this evening at a family function (my nieces BD party). My vet is my sister in laws sister. She wasn’t working yesterday and I didn’t want to bother her so I went to her practice and saw another vet with Kara.
I’ll try and compress this story in that my wife went on Dr. Google after we got home from putting our baby girl down. She found some stuff that indicated that she may have been suffering from hyperthyroidism which would have been very treatable if we tried to wrangle her sooner into the vet. I was devastated ever since because of course we love and miss her but more so that my son was so attached to her for all of his life. They were a bonded pair and he is not handling this well, even at 15.
We talked to her about what was going on and what the vet found yesterday and she said no way to the thyroid issue. She firmly believes it was lymphoma just like her brother Charlie. She said the thyroid could not cause everything that was going on with her.
The vet we saw yesterday is new to the practice and essentially will refuse to put down an animal that could be saved so she knew that was that.
Now I just need to figure out how to get this idiot 
attached to my son to make this better. Nothing will replace Kara Cakes (as we called her), but it would be nice to get the 2 of them bonded to make it easier. This picture of Oliver was taken today.
My MIL has gotten attached to him so he’s going to split his time with us and her (upstairs / downstairs) until she heads up to her summer home in the mountains from May - Oct. At that point, he’s moving in full time and forever.
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9 years, I’m sorry you lost her so young! Kidney failure is hard, I lost a cat to that.
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Dewey likes his toys on a string, he has a few. Small stuffed animals (the large grey mouse is favorite) tied with a string to a 4 ft, 1/2 “ diameter dowel that’s a pole for swinging the toy or pulling it around corners or down stair steps. Similar interactive play might foster some bonding with your son.
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Thank you for the kind words Papy. It’s been such a hard 16 months here.
1-23-23 - Charlie goes to the vet at 9am for a battery of tests. We pick him up 10 hours later and arrive home at 7:00PM.
1-23-23 - My FIL has a heart attack at 7:25PM and is rushed to the ER via Ambulance.
1-24-23 - We get the news that Charlie has Lymphoma but could be treated with a 70% success rate. Chemo medication is ordered for us.
1-24 - 1-27 - waiting for the meds… On backorder due to supply chain issues 
1-28 - 1-29 - Charlie is in rough shape. Every time he eats / drinks he vomits, tinted with blood while my FIL is still hospitalized with internal bleeding caused by unnecessary blood thinners for a blood clot in his ankle that really didn’t need to be treated at 96.
Early morning hours of 1-30 - Charlie is getting weak and clearly suffering with no sight of the meds he so desperately needs because of supply chain BS. I make the very hard decision to get him put down ASAP because it could be another 2 weeks before we could get the chemo he needs.
1-30 - I call the instant my vet opens to make the appointment to put Charlie down and he’s gone by 11AM.
2-1 - Now bedbound, hospital released my FIL to at home hospice and gives him 7-10 days to live. I won’t get into all that went on there but the senior care ambulance guys were going to throw my FIL on their backs and carry him up the 26 stairs to his home. Thank God we bought an electric wheelchair that climbs stairs months before because he was 96 and having issues climbing 26 stairs. We lifted him out of the ambulance (the ambulance guys, me, and my BIL) and got him in the chair and into his hospital bed. Fast forward 84 days!
4-26-23 - (well beyond the 7-10 days to live), he has 4 more heart attacks but survives during the 84 days. He’s taken out of the house and into a waiting private ambulance and moved 97 miles to their summer home and survives the trip and thrives for a few months there.
7-2-23 - He has another heart attack after a home hospice aid was a little rough with him while cleaning him up / PT.
7-22-23 - He passes away in his sleep. Up until this day he had his wits about him 100% and was still day trading the stock market on his laptop in his hospital bed.
4-6-24 - We lose Kara after trying so hard to keep her going and eating for really months. I’ve lost count, but she ate probably 25 different foods during that time. We have a lot left that’s unopened that we probably wouldn’t give to Ollie so we are donating it.
It’s enough loss already. Craving stability and happiness.
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Ollie is a certified A-hole in all 50 states and a few continents. He thinks I am his mommy because I took care of him and spent the most time with him. He’s awesome with me but not so much with everyone else. We are certainly going to try though…
He knows he’s cute:
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Dewey is a one man cat too, but he will allow me to entertain him with the rat toy. He does get more animated when his favored person is holding the stick (my son is his momma figure).
Here he is with his favorites, he also likes tissue paper, and a big sheet of crumpled packing paper is fun too.
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Don’t beat yourself up. I absolutely believe Kara had a lot more going on than hypothyroidism. Kidney disease in elder pets is very common and often times not diagnosed until its late stage, often too late to treat. Happened with 3 of my dogs - the first one I caught quickly, did daily IV fluids, meds and a meticulous diet. Kept her alive for 26 months after diagnosis, she passed at 14.5 years. The second one we missed, he passed within days. Lola - I tried everything I could (sigh). And who else knows what else Kara had going on. If they could only tell us when they’re feeling unwell.
Just a thought - does your (big hearted) family have room for a kitty your son could choose and call his own? (lots of past experience with this stuff). You can never ever replace Kara and she will always be lovingly remembered but sometimes a band aid and a little love can make this very big heart break heal a little faster.
Thinking of you, today theres lots of hurt in our home too.
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