I posted the other day about losing my 5 year old dog, Cooper, due to a vet mistake. It's been a little over two weeks now since we lost him. It is slowly getting easier. I can make it through the work day without major breakdowns. I get pretty sad when I get home and he's not here. He always got so excited when I came home. He'd run upstairs as fast as he could and we'd sit on the bedroom floor and play ball every day. It was his favorite game. So the evenings are pretty hard just being here without him. I had a little setback over the weekend but am feeling better again the past couple days. Right now, the hardest thing is that I seem to focus on that day all the time. I picture myself taking him to the vet, leaving him there while I knew he didn't want to stay, crying as I left him, and then getting that awful phone call from the vet saying there had been a horrible mistake with Cooper. I just keep thinking about how that was the very last time I held my boy and kissed him and told him I loved him, thinking at the time that I'd see him that evening. It feels so surreal. I think the best way to describe the feeling is like I took my perfectly healthy, wonderful little dog to the vet and had him put to sleep for no reason. I just can't imagine what he was thinking. I know he's a dog and he doesn't think like we do but I'm so afraid he was scared and lonely, thinking his mommy left him there and then he died. I just can't seem to move past that day.

Dear MyheartCooper

Your darling Cooper knows how much he's loved and cared for. Bless his sweet soul, he wouldn't have known what was happening to him as he was sedated, also he wouldn't have felt any pain. That is some consolation to you, but I know you must be heartbroken over his tragic passing. You did what any one of us would have done and that is 'do what we think is best for our fur babies'. You were looking after him by having a routine teeth cleaning.Something that most of us do for our fur babies. It is so unbearably sad and such a tragedy that this had to happen , but it was completely out of your control. I do hope that you can soon start focusing on the 'happy' times and not keep going back to that dreadful day. I do the same though, I know it's so hard , I too keep seeing my Noushka being led away from me into the nursing kennel that last night, I hugged her, told her I loved her, and thought I would see her in the morning.Sadly, it wasn't to be.But the last thing she would remember of me , would be that hug and kiss and those words of love. The same can be said for you and your dear Cooper.
Jan and My Angels and Pixie xx

I'm guess I'm so afraid that if there is a heaven, Coop is looking down at me, thinking why did you let them do this to me? Why did you take me there? You were supposed to protect me. It's just so unreal that he could be there one minute, running around the vet office being silly and gone the next. I just can't seem to wrap my mind around it yet. Hopefully I can one day soon.

My heart cooper,

It is normal to think these things, and to blame yourself, but you really need to put those thoughts out of your head (easier said than done, I know). Think of the way Cooper was with you. Think of the look in his eyes when he looked at you. He knew you loved him. You know he knew. He knew you would have never done anything to hurt him. He knew you did what you thought was best. Sadly these things happen. But it was not your fault.

"Remember not my fight for breath
Remember not my strife
Please do not dwell upon my death
But celebrate my life"

So sorry for your loss. Cheryl xx

I am so sorry to hear about Cooper. What an awful thing to happen. It's so scary to think a vet would make an error like that.

I think it's really normal for us to feel guilty when our babies die but honestly, good pet moms take their babies to the vet, right? And you had no way to know the vet would be careless. This is totally the vet's fault, not yours.

Your baby would have been sedated and he would not have been scared or felt any pain. And if he's up there in heaven looking down, then he knows how much you love him and miss him. He's not up there being angry or wondering why you took him to the vet in the first place. He's just up there knowing how loved he is.

Magdalene