How do I tell my kids that our dog is dead?

[TinyEvel]

It's been a rough 12 hours.

last night our dog Josie (small Shepard mix who's been in the family 11 years) was all of a sudden extremely catatonic and panting on her side. Her head was twitching and eyes shut. We took her to the animal emergency room around midnight and admitted her. Diagnosis was that she was bleeding in her eyes and gums and her blood had only 1 percent the platelets it should have.

Without the ability to clot, she had developed internal bleeding. There was blood filling her head and causing neurological damage form pressure on her brain. Today it got worse and we made a tough, difficult decision to euthanize her.

24 hours ago she was 100 percent normal.
This has come so sudden and so difficultly. Our kids are 8 and 9 and we haven't told them. They don't even know we took her to the hospital yet, but they saw her sick last night.

I'm sure some of you have gone through pet loss with kids. Just looking for some tips. We're supposed to go get a Christmas tree tonight after school. Do I tell them first? afterward? I cannot believe we'll be able to do it without us crying. my wife for sure.

[Pioli Zombie]

Has it been ruled out the possibilty that Jews did this?
Posted via Mobile Device

[Easy 6]

Originally Posted by Oxford

Sounds like your kids need to go to the shelter and experience being adopted by a dog.

Thats a perfect way to phrase it, you can see a dogs personality instantly at the pound, its almost like the smart ones know whats at stake...

[Red Beans]

First pour them a large glass of kool-aid....

[Redrum_69]

if i were you I'd put that antifreeze out of reach....

[88TG88]

That sucks bro, I would go for the new Christmas puppy route. Then you have an excuse to name him Santa's Little Helper.

[88TG88]

Originally Posted by SensibleChiefsfan

Okay, so my father died, and my mom went off the deep end. I took her car to go see a girl (I was 14, but I had been driving since I was 12)

She took me to the hospital to have a drug test. When that came back negative, she had me held over for a psych evaluation. After the doctor met with her and I, he refused to let me go home with her until she started seeing a therapist. So, they put me in the psych ward at Shawnee Mission, and she was supposed to come and do counseling with me. Well, she didn't like coming to counseling because the doctor would often 'attack' her. (Her words).

So, I was in there six weeks, through the winter. My mother, who has always been kind of a partier and gambler, left my dog outside and it froze to death.

She told me over the phone as she was telling me that she wasn't going to continue her counseling. So, I spent another two months in there before they had to let me go because the insurance ran out.

That 'might' be worse than learning that your dog died at disneyland.

JFC dude thats the saddest story I ever heard.

[chasedude]

Originally Posted by SensibleChiefsfan

Okay, so my father died, and my mom went off the deep end. I took her car to go see a girl (I was 14, but I had been driving since I was 12)

She took me to the hospital to have a drug test. When that came back negative, she had me held over for a psych evaluation. After the doctor met with her and I, he refused to let me go home with her until she started seeing a therapist. So, they put me in the psych ward at Shawnee Mission, and she was supposed to come and do counseling with me. Well, she didn't like coming to counseling because the doctor would often 'attack' her. (Her words).

So, I was in there six weeks, through the winter. My mother, who has always been kind of a partier and gambler, left my dog outside and it froze to death.

She told me over the phone as she was telling me that she wasn't going to continue her counseling. So, I spent another two months in there before they had to let me go because the insurance ran out.

That 'might' be worse than learning that your dog died at disneyland.

That is a horrible story! I think I would have disowned my mother after that.

[chasedude]

Originally Posted by Pioli Zombie

I would have blamed it on Obama
Posted via Mobile Device

I don't think I've ever given out neg rep before. Congrats on being the first.

[chasedude]

Sorry to hear about the loss of a part of your family Tiny.

[crazycoffey]

sup chase?

hard to do tiney, try to be truthful is my best advice. Let them cry, and try to get an understanding about life and death, it happens to us all someday. how indepth you go would of course depend on their ages.

Remindes me of a saying I like;
Life is a sexually transmitted desease with a 100% mortality rate....
I wouldn't say it that way to your kids though, LOL

[memyselfI]

Honesty is the best way to go. They will cry but it's ok for them to do. It's ok for them to see you cry as well. It's a sad event but one they will experience over the course of their lifetimes.

Your beloved dog will provide the gift of being the first time they encounter death and grief. How you handle this news will set the tone for how they see death and grief in their lives. Your dog, in it's death, gave you an opportunity to have her legacy touch their lives for the rest of their lives. It's devastatingly hard and sad but it need not be hidden.

Let them be part of the process.

If you saw Marley and Me then you saw their family have a small ceremony and the kids drew pictures and wrote letters to their dog and then they buried the ashes. We did this with our cat and it really helped everyone deal with the death part. The missing them part is what has been hard.

[joesomebody]

Very sorry for your loss. I would suggest being completely open and honest. It's not good to go with the whole, we took her to a farm to be happy line.

It will be tough, but honesty is the best policy. Have a memorial so you and your kids can say good bye.

Also, try rescuing a pup from the pound for Christmas. You can't replace your last friend, but it helps the healing process a lot to have a new dog to take care of and love.

[bevischief]

Originally Posted by Pioli Zombie

I would have blamed it on Obama
Posted via Mobile Device

d#$% gov't healthcare...

[bevischief]

Originally Posted by SensibleChiefsfan

Okay, so my father died, and my mom went off the deep end. I took her car to go see a girl (I was 14, but I had been driving since I was 12)

She took me to the hospital to have a drug test. When that came back negative, she had me held over for a psych evaluation. After the doctor met with her and I, he refused to let me go home with her until she started seeing a therapist. So, they put me in the psych ward at Shawnee Mission, and she was supposed to come and do counseling with me. Well, she didn't like coming to counseling because the doctor would often 'attack' her. (Her words).

So, I was in there six weeks, through the winter. My mother, who has always been kind of a partier and gambler, left my dog outside and it froze to death.

She told me over the phone as she was telling me that she wasn't going to continue her counseling. So, I spent another two months in there before they had to let me go because the insurance ran out.

That 'might' be worse than learning that your dog died at disneyland.

That's messed up, sorry to hear.

[bevischief]

Originally Posted by TinyEvel

Well, I did it.

We took them to yogurt after school and I told them. I said I had some bad news to tell them. I told them about what happened. I didn't tell them we euthanized her, just said she fell asleep at the hospital and succumbed to her illness and died. My 9 year-old cried pretty severely, which is OK.

Honesty is the best policy, as long as you don't go into too much detail. I think the worst part of this, for all of us, has been how quickly it happened. less than 24 hours from completely normal to gone.

I told the kids the story of how we got Josie. I was volunteering at a no-kill shelter, installing some cabinets in a room of surplus cat pens. There was a small Shephard mix up in one of the cat pens, quietly and attentively watching me work. We had never talked about getting a pet, but I went home and told my wife we should adopt this one. Somehow she touched my heart.

Her name was "Benny" because when the person brought her in as a stray the shelter was going to turn her away because every dog pen was full. Well, one of their biggest benefactors happened to be in the lobby. He said, "You're going to take her, no matter where she has to stay, and he wrote them a big donation check.
That man was Ben Stein.

We renamed her Josie because we already had two cats. Josie and the Pussycats.

Maybe I'll name our next dog Buehler.

Thanks for listening guys.

TE

I had to put my 11 year old yellow lab down here about a year and half ago, (we have no kids) to cancer he lasted about a week after they figured out what was going on, 2 choices spend thousands of dollars to and he might live another month or we can make him comfortable he might last a couple weeks. After about a week he was so weak miserable he made the call to put him down. A few weeks later I started placing my name on adoption lists at several shelters around town for when I ready I wouldn't have to wait long for the back ground checks. Long story short we ended up with our 2nd Basset and about 6 months latter we got a 3rd one.