#pet skeleton

So my dad finally decided to bring up the question of when/whether we should put down one of our dogs.

She was hit by a car when she was about 6 months old and almost didn't survive.  I was told that the last vertebre in her back had broken and they put a steel rod through it and her pelvis to keep it in place and for it to heal.  Now that I think about it, I think it was possibly her sacrum that had broken- I'm not sure if we have any x-rays on file for me to double check this.

In any case, she's 13 now and as she aged the nerve damage became more apparent and for the last year she hasn't been able to get up on her own so we have to pick up her back end every time she wants to eat or go outside.  She's also become rather obese from this and from her obsessively eating for years.  She should be around 45-50 pounds but I think she's somewhere between 60-80 pounds (I'm not entirely sure and not the best at guessing weight).  She also has had a wound on her upper thigh that hasn't healed at all since we noticed it also about a year ago.

She's to the point now where it's starting to remain infected and she can hardly stand or walk and most of the family think it's really getting to the point where we have to seriously consider putting her down.  My mother is the only one who opposes this but she is also the one home the least.

Now the question is if we are indeed going to have her put down (at the risk of my mother getting spiteful about it) and I guess the final point of this whole story is that the bone collector inside me REALLY wants to keep her skeleton and now I feel like my parents/family will think I'm going off the deep-end with this unfortunate bone collecting "habit" of mine.  I already really want to exume the pets we have buried before my parents move out of this house so the next owners don't dig them up and freak out later and just to keep.  I would like to be able to articulate them all and label them (I know who's buried where so I would be able to name each of them) and again, my parents think I'm whacked out to think this.