What Happened When We Lost Our Farm Dog

Devastated. The only word I could come up with to describe what it feels like to be blind sighted by the loss of your best friend. On March 24th she would have been 8. Almost eight years isn’t long enough.

Last week, our black German shepherd, Luna, started having poop on her backside. Thinking little of it, I cleaned her up and thought, hmm maybe she has a tummy bug. The next day, she did it again, and again I cleaned her thinking, hmm, I’m going to see how she is in the morning.

The following morning she had accidents all over our mat in front of our door. I knew something was wrong and took her into the vet. Maybe they could give her some meds and she’d be back to her usual self! After all, she was eating, drinking and in bright spirits.

When the vet walked back into our room, I lifted her tail and said, “See, she’s filthy and I think something’s wrong.” He immediately said, “can you put her tail down, please.” Confused, I did as he asked.

Once her tail was down he said, “her tail is paralyzed.”

What? HOW? He showed me how her tail only moved with momentum and let me know that paralysis of the tail often was associated with paralysis of other things. He took a pair of scissors, grabbed her tail with them and lifted it up…she didn’t even flinch. She truly felt nothing.

He asked that I leave her overnight for further testing, and we could make a call the next day. We had discussed our options and possible outcomes: amputation of tail, possible treatment if not too far gone, or getting put down due to quality of life issues. Based on what I knew, putting her down was more likely than not.

The next day my thoughts were confirmed when we looked at the xrays and saw the deterioration of her spine.  It looked like that of a 13 year old dog with serious issues. She had been silently suffering from a condition called spondylosis and it had progressed so far that it was impacting her ability to control her bowels and bladder and caused paralysis.

I knew what the right thing to do was. As hard as it was, I had to say goodbye.

I called our local vet and asked if he would put her down for me. He’s a large animal vet primarily - but he’s good people. He said he could be at the house by 5pm, otherwise he could come the next morning… it was 4:30pm. My heart dropped.

Less than 30 minutes to say goodbye to a dog that I’ve loved for the last 8 years and she was still so heavily sedated from her X-ray.

I had another difficult choice to make: say goodbye to her while she’s out of it, or let her come to, stay with us one more night and have her fully alert when we said our goodbyes.

I was a wreck. Selfishly, I wanted to wait. I wasn’t ready. But I knew that if we waited for her to come to, she would feel pain again… and that wasn’t fair to her. So, we took the 5pm slot.

I sat in the back of my car bawling my eyes out and holding my once fearless protector letting her know it would be okay.  She blinked a few times and tried to be present, but the drugs were heavy.

My heart was breaking as if she somehow wouldn’t know I loved her enough or was there with her as she crossed over that rainbow bridge.

The kids came outside and said their goodbyes. This one wrecked them. They’ve known Luna their whole life. We all shared our favorite moments and shared how unfair this all is, but agreed that it was what was best for Luna, and that was more important than our brokenness.

The vet arrived. Luna was still out. Blinking here and there, but not coming out of sedation. We spoke for a minute, I signed the papers that I legally needed to to help Luna rest forever, and then suggested that I drive to the animal cemetery so that the guys wouldn’t have to carry Luna very far to her forever resting place. They agreed it was a good idea and I drove over.

When I opened the trunk to snuggle her on more time, her eyes were wide open and she lifted her head. She was fighting to come back to me and break out of sedation.  The vet gave us a sweet moment prior to administering the meds and I’m so grateful for that.

She got loopy again, relaxed, and then went to be with Jesus.

Samson didn’t take Luna going lightly. He looked up to her in their pack and felt so incredibly sad when she left us.

If you didn’t see the Instagram video where I shared that, you can check it out here.

Our family is grieving the loss of our best friend and greatest protector and this past weekend we allowed ourselves the space to feel all of the feels. Sadness, happiness, anger - you name it.

We are so grateful to our community for helping lift us up and cover us in prayer. It’s incredible how God’s children can lift up a family that they’ve never met in real life and provide comfort that only God can through prayer. Thankful is an understatement.

This weekend we were loved on so hard by our family and friends. We had delicious meals made for us, dishes washed and kitchen cleanings, listening ears to hear out thoughts and shoulders to cry on. So much more than I could have even asked for.

Our family will have a huge hole in it forever, but we know that happier days are around the corner, mixed in with waves of grief.

How blessed are we to hurt this deeply… pain like this only comes from a reciprocal amount of love.  And my goodness, were we blessed in the love department with our sweet Luna girl!