RIP Tara Adams 10 Feb 1995 - 25 June 2009

This evening our beloved golden retriever, Tara was put down.

Tara was a magnificent dog, so loving, so special, really one of a kind... and really a full blown "human" member of the family. Hell, she even got taken to the KFC or McDonalds drive-thru every year on her birthday for her own special birthday burger. The fact that she breezed past 14 (in human years), when the average life expectancy of a golden retriever is 10 or so is testament to her specialness.

I blogged a little while ago about her recent brush with death. At the time my grief was made worse by a deep sense of guilt. I hadn't stroked her; told her that I loved her before she was hauled off to the vet for an emergency blood transfusion. I hadn't even registered that she was sick the last time I saw her.

Strong physically and mentally, Tara fought off a horrible infection and pulled through the transfusion (a risky procedure for such an old dog). We knew she was on the road to recovery when the only thing she would accept from the vet to eat was cake!

A month or so later, and Tara's health went downhill again. On Saturday she just stopped eating. Ever the stoic, she just lay quietly on the floor. When she started throwing up, another visit to the vet (maybe the fifth in her entire life) was inevitable. This morning I told her everything that I should have said back in May. Just in case. But I was hopeful she just had a bad chill or something relatively simple to sort out.

I was wrong.

As I was starting my drive home from work, I received a call from my mother. It was Time.

Tara's blood pressure was devastatingly low to the point where it was difficult to get a catheter into a vein, and get it functioning. She was highly anemic. The vet could give her another risky transfusion but that would only pep her up for another few weeks before all her red blood cells vaporised again. We were delaying the inevitable.

Funny thing was I always expected Tara's final visit to the vet would be because her increasingly spindly, bowed back legs had given out on her. Yet there she was gingerly being led - not carried - around the vet's office.

Anyway, this time I did get to tell Tara what she meant to me, kneeling on the vet's floor, stroking her fur, kissing her face for the last time. I found myself unconsciously using the words I say/said to her every morning when I leave for work. "See you, my angel. I love you, old lady." No real finality there.

As I got up to walk out of the room, she struggled to sit up as if she too wanted to leave. That's what devastated me the most. She wasn't exactly a sick, passive lump in agony like the last few dogs we lost. She was still... her. A bit more subdued than normal perhaps, but there was no sense of relief for us that she was escaping unbearable pain and/or dementia. But then again I suppose that is what we were doing - saving her from such an undignified, painful departure in the end. Letting her go before it got too bad.

We always try to justify I suppose... especially in situations where the decisions are in our hands.

My grief comes and goes in tsunamis. I think I should be grateful that this is the biggest loss I've experienced in my life up to this point, but it doesn't make the hurt any less.

We'll miss you Tara. See you, my angel.