a boy and his dog

It's never easy saying farewell to the family pet. Never. I think it may even be more complex when it's your child's pet.

As their caretakers, the burden is ours to decide when a pet's right to a peaceful and painless end is more important than our grief and guilt over saying goodbye. Sometimes, we must do this on our children's behalf as well, which adds to the grief and guilt we must weigh.

And so we do what we can, in those final days, to make sure that we have given our beloved pet an extra heavy dose of love so that when they do cross the rainbow bridge, it is with the knowledge that everything we did for them was with our hearts full of love.

If this beloved pup could have talked, I have no doubt she would have let her people know, "I ruff you, too."