#pets death

I haven't slept in at least twelve hours, people, so I better take the chance to keep this rush going until I inevitably crash all the way down. I just want to talk about today. Warning because it gets gross and graphic because fuck me, I guess. I had to live this, I get to tell it.

So the day started as normal. I went downstairs with Oscar so we could both get some breakfast. We had agreed to see the vet at 12 and it was way before that, so I thought eating something would give me a push of energy to keep awake. I haven't stopped petting him all night, only when he himself wanted to play a little or drink water. After that I kept him with me as long I could.

I go downstairs and I see Oscar trying to take a shit. This is important because it has been four days already since he wasn't abled to and the vet told us that his tumor had gotten so big that was obstructing anything from coming out, which was very bad because it could become toxic inside his body and then, boy, that is going to be some painful ass death and we don't want that.

I look at him for a bit, but soon I start to get panicked because not only nothing is coming out, he is still pressing so fucking hard. Little drops of shit go down and he is still trying, dragging his body across the floor, until I see something just about to come out. I can't see it clealy but it looks red so I, ever the optimistic, immediately think that those are his intestines and he is actually hurting himself, if I somehow don't manage to get him to stop he is going to fucking die from blood loss after shitting his organs out. When I try to clean his assholes with the paper towells I just can feel something hard and I have no fucking clue of how intestines being shit out have to feel, so that doesn't help me at all.

You see, this was around 8 in the morning. I was the only one awake in the house. The vet appointment wasn't until four hours later. I call mom to please contact the vet, please get him here so he can give him something for the pain, something, anything, and while she is dressing herself up… he manages to shit a enormous shit that looked hard as a rock. After doing that I still had to clean his asshole with my hand. After a little freak out to my mom because I honestly thought he was going to fucking bleed to death in my arms, I manage to calm down and get Oscar back into my arms. Obviously with some old raggedy ass sheet we were never going to use again anyway because the diarrhea could get on my legs.

Now, it has been weeks since his last bath so he wasn't smelling like fresh puppy already, but now there was that to account. Trying to avoid the stains on his fur I still hold him and pet him, telling him over and over again that I loved him and kissing his head. His fur, the parts that weren't stained, was still so soft and white.

When it's time to go, the entire way I am thinking of somehow running away, to delay it a week more, a day more, but I know that would have only made it worse for the both of us. We get inside the vet's place and let me tell you, on my insides I am still mad at this man because he didn't prepared me for absolute shit.

He first put a tranquilizer on Oscar, but didn't tell me that it would take ten whole fucking ass minutes into doing anything to him. So when I saw him moving his head still and looking around, imagine my fucking surprise when the vet is back after preparing the rest of the stuff and he is still moving, more than willing to bite him for doing more shit he doesn't like.

He also didn't tell me that the effect of the lethal injection would be near instant. Like actually so. One second I can feel his breathing and the next he is gone. And like, that is stupid. It's stupid to feel upset about that. Because if anything that should be a good thing, right? It was all so quick he didn't suffer at all. Like just turning a switch off. But Jesus fuck, would have killed this man to tell me ANYTHING before doing it, TO GIVE ME A WARNING? So I could give him the last belly rub, because I was concentrating on holding his head instead. I wanted to give him a belly rub. He deserved that belly rub.

So he is gone and I have a small little breakdown right there, as you fucking do, and they put him on a cardboard box. Oh, also I put a lock of my hair with his body. Last night I cut as much hair I could off him to fill a little crochet heart I made, so in my head that makes sense. I have a little something of you, you have a little something of me.

I am not religious, superstitious or anything like that. But it means something to me that a part of me remains with his body.

We drove to a place my aunt own where she had told the gardener to make a hole for us. Call me a privilege asshole, because I really must be to think that the gardener himself would be there to wait for us to put the box down and then he would bury him. You know, like in normal funerals for people. The entire way there I can't help to feel that suddenly my arms are too light. My arms that carried Oscar up and down the stairs the last weeks, that carried him to the vet all those times since his diagnosis, that hold him the entire night, were too light and that felt so alien, so wrong to me.

But he wasn't a person, he was a dog. And the gardener probably had better things to do than stay there and pay respects for a dog he never even met. So the hole was there, the pile of dirt was there and against a tree there was what I can only describe as the absolute shittiest shovel that has ever existed on earth. That thing offended me the very moment I laid eyes on it.

Like, most shovels have a proper handle at the end and curve into a triangle on the side that actually goes into the dirt. But this bullshit, this shitty ass thing, was nothing but a metal squared tube ending on a small metallic plate that was only slighty curved. If the gardener actually used that to make the hole, that was rather well made and sufficiently deep, I am going to be fucking impressed.

There wasn't anything else to use, though, so I shoveled that dirt myself until my hands were red, my arms hurt and even my legs were pained. I am an artist, and also a lazy fuck, so you can only imagine my noodle ass arm not being used at all to that physical labor. Mom kept offering for us to do it together, but no fucking way, man. Oscar deserved this, Oscar was in so much pain and suffered so much for so long, so the least I could do is to suffer a little more for him. He was mine. I owe it to him. It was only fair.

That burial was a labor of love. I am proud of doing that for him. I still hope the gardener has his own shovel that is better than that bullshit. But I am glad I did it.

Once I have a proper nap and my brain is back again to it's usual speed I will have a bad time and start missing him and think all sorts of awful things because he isn't here anymore. I will miss him. I miss him now. I don't regret one second I spend with that dog.

On the way back home the soreness in my arms was all I could ask for. Oscar wasn't there anymore, but I said goodbye the best way I could and he is not in pain anymore.

This house feels so fundamentally different without them.

I would like to write something about my dog Oscar. About how I avoid looking at his toys whenever I can because it breaks my heart. About how I still curl in bed as if he were to sleep close to me. About how much I regret moving him from right under my leg when he cuddled next to me because he was dirty and away from the blanket designated for him. About how I still sleep in a ball as if giving an space for him to come in. About how I tried to watch movies with dogs and happy endings for all his last night with me, and soon I passed to Winnie Pooh and Breaking Bad because I couldn't stay in silence while I pet him the entire time.

The loss of a beloved pet.

Gio: *Barely crying holding himself together like an adult after finding out his dog needs to be put down*

Gio: I am sorry, you shouldn't have to deal with me like this.

Me: It's fine really you're allowed to be sad.

Gio: But I feel like I am over-reacting.

Me: *Flash back to a year ago when my mom was about to put my cat down*

Me: *sobbing uncontrollably getting into my car*

Gio: Nicole, please!

Me: NO! THAT'S MY KITTY AND I'M GOING TO TAKE HER AWAY FROM MY MOM AND I'LL LIVE IN MY CAR UNTIL SHE GETS BETTER AND WE'LL NEVER BE APART!!

Me: *present rubbing Gio's back*

Gio: I am being such a burd-