The Sad and Untimely Passing of Mabel the Beagle

Below is the email I sent to my blogfriend, Neva. Neva and I have never met in person but her care and support has been unconditional. Here are the emails we exchanged, I put them in the order from first to last:

Our dear Mabel was put to sleep an hour ago; less than 6 hours after this ordeal began and yesteday she apperaed to be fine.C.H. and I took her to the emrgency vet clinic immediately. At first she thought it was pancreatitis, and we left Mabel there to be x-rayed and for them to do blood work. The doctor did not know what was wrong with her at first but after x-rays suspected a tumor on her spleen. She wanted to do surgery to find out if the tumor was benign or malignant. In the meantime we would have to bring her home and wait a week for the results and chances that it was malignant were very high. None of the options were good for Mabel. We called back and forth trying to decide what to do. The doctor was very honest in her statistics and all was very bad. I said I would make the decision to put her to sleep. The surgery would just put her in more pain. When I called the doctor back the first thing she said was, "You've made the right decision." When C.H. and I went back to be with her, her condition had worsened. She was hemorrhaging badly, which meant that surgery would NOT have been the answer. The doctor said that probably what happened this morning was that she started to hemorrhage, then that initial hemorrhaging relieved her some what, then when it started again it became apparent that she would not make it. It is unbelievable that all this started at 6:15 this morning. I said dear, perfect Mabel deserved dignity.

Only another dog lover would undertsand.

From Neva:

OH Liz.....I am sooo so sorry.....it sounds like the right thing to do for Mabel....but how hard was that?? It is so hard to make a decision when you value your pet and I know when Mason died ( in our kitchen I might add) it was not a pretty picture and lacking in dignity as well...not to mention how ill he must have felt......If you need to talk ...I am here......hugs your way....Love neva

To Neva:

Thank you so much for the comforting words. The doctor had said of one of the possible (bad, and they were all bad) outcomes was that she might have another 4 - 6 weeks. Another dog to die around Christmas? No.


The unbelievable thing was that it all happened so fast. When we got to the vet's offcie to put Mabel to sleep she was dying at that point. Neither C.H. or Gary wanted to say "put her to sleep" and I knew somebody had to say it. Here is another thing, it truly wasn't the money either. I thought if money were absolutely no object what would I do, and yes, it was a good chunk, but we dog lovers know that we will do whatever needs to be done for our pets. That's part of having a pet. It's the bargain we strike with out pets, even though they never actually signed on. It is the unwavering trust they put in us. The bottom line was that no one wanted Mabel to suffer needlessly and putting a sick dog through surgery wouldn't have been for her, it would have only been to relieve our own guilt.