franklanguage | I put my dog down last Saturday

Corky was found to have disk disease when I took him to the Animal Medical Center a couple of weeks ago; clearly this had started some time ago but no vet had diagnosed it—during the time he'd had Cushing's disease, that was his primary problem—and I wasn't aware enough of the symptoms to know what was going on.

I was ordered to crate him in order to rest him, but this made him so crazy he began to self-mutilate. He was also crying out in the night from the pain.

Saturday I took him to a vet downtown to address the situation, including the stress of being crated. By this point, Corky wasn't able to walk easily, and I had to carry him up and down five flights of stairs. True, he was a 14-pound terrier, but it was still difficult.

Dr. DeLorenzo was patient and asked me a couple of times if I was sure I wanted to do this; I had to admit it was the best thing to do, since there wasn't even a pain reliever I could give him. Baby aspirin didn't help.

She started him with a drip of Valium, then gave him sodium pentobarbital. I know it was the right thing to do, but it's less than a week and the house feels empty. I'm so sad that he's gone, and even though I have photos of him, this is the third death I've had to deal with in less than a year. The effect is cumulative; it's just not fair.