Your Pet Loss Stories

by Nicole
(Staten Island, NY)

When I was 4, we went to a shelter to look for a puppy. We looked around, and then came across this little puppy, who was much different from every other dog. She was a mixed Shepard Chow puppy. She was the cutest thing I have ever seen, I remember saying “this is the one I want” before I had even seen any more. She was perfect, she had a little pig tail and for a small puppy she looked like a giant ball of fur. My parents agreed because she was in fact, my puppy, my responsibility.

We brought her home, and fell in love with her instantly. That dog was always there for me, protecting me if anyone came within feet of me, she’d bark and growl. As I got older, till now, I knew one day she would be gone, but I didn’t want to accept it. I mean, she was my puppy even though she was 16 years old. When the time came, we knew she was getting sick, and we knew the last thing we wanted for her was her to be in pain.

One night before I went to bed, I left my favorite stuffed penguin to sleep with her, so she wasn’t lonely and she had a part of me with her. The next morning before I left for school, I told her I loved her and I would see her when I got home later. When I got home she was gone, my dad had taken her to the vet to get her checked out. I decided, he’d be back, he wouldn’t dare do anything without me. Boy was I wrong. When I heard the door open, something inside me just knew, and I waited for him to come up the stairs and confirm what I had thought. I knew I had let her down, I broke my promise to her, and I never got the chance to say goodbye.

I literally feel heartbroken, even almost 2 months later, as I wrote this story, I'm sobbing. I just hope she knows how much we truly loved her. And that I will NEVER forget her.