I thought it was Kate , but didn't want to get her name wrong. Interesting on your cremation on how they do it. My cat Minnie, (daughter about 15, can we get two kittens please? I'll look after them) named them mickey and Minnie. Mickey moved in with a neighbour up the road, minnie stayed. She followed me everywhere. I would get home from work, she was always at the front door. Then with me until bed time. No time for my wife or anyone else but me. It was so hard to have her out down but blindness and no control of herself forced my hand. Ashes if I havnt mentioned before are in the garden outside where she used to sleep in the sun.
I recently saw a motorbike here with a side chair type of arrangement where the guy transport bikies coffins to cemeteries etc or wherever? It's a business, carrying coffins. I thought to myself, what's next? But hey he must have clientele? I'd like to hear more about your experience if it's not too painful?
Russ
Nope, no problem at all. This may get lengthy:
Ok, Kate was 18-19 years old and was just on a general decline. She had good days and bad days, but more good than bad, but we knew it was coming sooner rather than later.
We started researching more on the 'net and talking with our vet, and found that the biggest concern for older dogs, as far as their psyche goes, is anxiety - it's not so much physical pain, or the inability to run fast or whatever, it's the anxiety that those things cause, because they feel like they can't protect themselves and they don't feel secure.
That was causing a lot of anxiety with Kate, especially at night, and with going outside in general. She was restless and panting a lot and generally very nervous. Humans tend to focus more on physical pain, and kind of dismiss the mental side, dogs are the other way round.
So we made the decision and talked it over with our vet.
The reason we had this vet was that they'd come out to the house when the time came. It was very important to us from the start that, should it come to it, Kate would pass at home, where she felt the most comfortable. She *hated* going to the vet, it always really freaked her out, and we were adamant that her last conscious minutes of life would not be spent shaking, drooling, and panicking at the vet's.
Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the vet had suspended house calls, but they did pass on to us the name of a service, called Lap Of Love, that does home euthanasia. We called them on Saturday afternoon and set up the appointment for Monday morning.
That was the saddest Sunday of our lives, I'll tell you that.
Lap Of Love were great, but for anyone in the US who thinks about using them, they're not cheap. I'll get to that.
The LoL vet (Dr. Beth) was right on time, and she was wonderful. She explained everything in detail, saying that when we were ready, Kate would get a sedative that would all but knock her out, then after about 10 minutes, she'd take a paw print and cut off some hair if we wanted it, and then at about 15 minutes, she'd give Kate the killing shot, which she said would be completely painless and would take just a few seconds to work.
Kate was good as gold. We were a little worried that she'd be under a bed when the vet got here, but she came out from the back right when the vet was getting here, went out to pee, then came in and climbed in her favorite chair.
When Dr. Beth came in, Kate looked and gave her a single bark, a good one, and settled right back down and let Dr. Beth pet on her for a bit.
When we were ready, we gave Kate a small plate of whipped cream as a final treat, and she got the sedative while she was eating that, didn't even notice it.
She went right to sleep almost instantly, and Dr. Beth did her thing with the paw print and the hair clipping, and at about 15 minutes, she said that Kate was ready, and she gave her the final shot, listened with her stethoscope, and in less than 10 seconds, said "Kate is at peace," and that was that.
She told us to take all the time we needed to say goodbye and she stepped outside. After a few minutes, I went out and got her, and she backed her car up to the garage, brought in a stretcher, and we carried her out.
I was very touched that when we put Kate on the stretcher, Dr. Beth took great care in wrapping Kate in a blanket and gently placing a pillow under her head. At that point, it would have been easy to be somewhat clinical, but she was respectful right through to the end.
LoL also handled the cremation, through a separate crematory called Faithful Companion. We had her remains back the following day, delivered to our house, and a very nice engraved wooden urn was included in the price.
About the price: had we taken Kate in to our local vet, that would have been the cheapest, $125 for the procedure. LoL charged $410 to do it at home (that included an additional fee because of where we live). Whether I'd used our vet or LoL, the add-on of the cremation would have cost the same, $300. So, had we done it all through our vet, $425 versus $710 through LoL. There was, of course, the option to handle Kate's body ourselves, and the option to have her cremated in a group and ashes scattered in a field behind the facility, but we both wanted her back home.
Regardless of the expense, it was more than worth it. I can't stress how calm and comfortable Kate was the whole time, just sacked out in her favorite chair, eating whipped cream, getting pets from us, as she quietly slipped into oblivion. We'd pay that 10 times over to give her such a peaceful passing. The regular vet would have been much more clinical and terrifying for Kate.
