Last year, a palliative care vet entered our home at our request to put our sweet, kind, 13-year-old rescue dog Pip to sleep. It was a hideous decision, one that still keeps me awake at night. Making this choice is appalling and gut-wrenching, but ultimately it’s the last act of love we can offer the dogs we’ve shared our entire lives with.
Pip was a smooth coated collie, a breed on the vulnerable list because you rarely see them anymore. People would stop us in the street to ask what he was – they’d never seen one like him before. The breed was popular in the 1970s, but has fallen out of fashion since, though I’m not sure why. They're wonderful dogs, even used as assistance animals in some countries. Pip was so special, though I know every dog owner feels exactly the same way about their own dog. That’s because our dogs share our lives, our homes, our daily experiences. Losing them can feel incomprehensible; learning to live without them can seem impossible.
