My dog Mickey has been suffering for the last several weeks. He would hardly eat, drink or move. Today my mom found him in the back yard hedge, barely breathing. We carried him inside, washed off all the dirt and held him for a while. Then I and my dad took him to the vet to put him to sleep. I held him when the vet gave him the shot. It only took 2 seconds, then it was over.

I’ve dealt with death and grief before, but I’ve never seen a person/bigger animal die right before my eyes. It is ghostly, almost surreal. One moment he’s breathing, the next he is gone. His body is just a shell, like a stuffed animal.

Even if he was a pain in the neck sometimes, he was my dog and he was my friend. That’s all I can say. I love my Mickey!