Goodbye, Brady

by Sheri Turner

“The righteous care for the needs of their animals,” (Proverbs 12:10, NIV)

I was thinking about kindness and what it means in the context of our pets. There are many kinds of animals that can be considered pets, but when I think about pets, I mostly think about dogs and cats. I have written in a previous newsletter that I love dogs. I grew up with dogs and currently I have three of them. They each have their own personalities and needs, but at a certain point in their lives they all need end-of-life care. Providing compassionate and thorough end-of-life care is one of the kindest gifts you can bestow on your furry family members when their time comes.

In 2019, I was preparing to wrap presents with my husband Steve on Christmas Eve. He and I both tend to procrastinate and we end up wrapping everything we bought for everyone on Christmas Eve. When I say “we,” I mean that my husband wraps the majority of the gifts while I cook whatever cookies, fudge, pies and breakfast foods I am cooking for Christmas. We usually wind up being awake until 4:00 a.m. or so. This has gone on for years, mostly because we aren’t great planners. Thank goodness my children were 20, 16 and 14 on this particular year, so they were old enough to grasp what happened and why we wound up not wrapping their gifts that year.

This was the year we were forced to say goodbye to Brady, our thirteen year-old Golden Retriever. While I had been talking with my husband Steve I noticed that Brady seemed to be panting. He hadn’t been running around or wrestling and something just didn’t seem right. Brady had been outside about a half an hour before to potty and he had come back inside and plopped on the tile in front of the door in the living room. I went over and stroked his head and said, “Are you ok Brady?” His beautiful brown eyes looked up at me sadly. I became worried. I listened to him pant and decided to check his gums for color. I had been told that if a dog’s gums are pale or white, that is concerning. I checked his gums and yup, they were indeed pale. I became concerned. I second-guessed myself, trying to assure myself that it was nothing. I went back and forth in my head and finally decided to say something to Steve.

“If you’re worried, call the vet,” he said. “Otherwise it will bother you all night and you won’t be able to enjoy yourself.” So I called the vet. I described what was happening and they asked me to count how many breaths he breathed in a minute. When I told the vet she recommended that I immediately bring Brady to the emergency vet to be evaluated.

I did as recommended, and the news did not come back positive. The vet on call found that Brady had a tumor. She said that surgery was not going to be able to help because of how it was wrapped around the bladder and that Brady was probably suffering. She recommended euthanasia.

Tears filled my eyes as I thought about how Brady must feel and how I was going to have to tell my children that on Christmas Eve we were going to have to say goodbye to a beloved family member. I called Steve and explained the situation.

Brady had been with us since we first bought the house in Bridgewater in 2007. After we had closed on the house I had looked at my husband and told him, “I am not someone who needs expensive vacations, I don’t buy lots of clothes or wear costly jewelry, but I want a dog.” Steve agreed we could get a dog and we had hunted and found Brady. When I had arrived to pick Allison up from kindergarten with Brady beside me she had been thrilled.

“Mom, are you dog-sitting?” she had asked.
“Nope. This one is ours,” I had said and watched a big smile cross her lips as she wrapped her arms around Brady in a bear hug. Brady wiggled in excitement, enjoying Allison’s affection for him.

As our family grew Brady was a big part of our lives. He went to the drive-in movies with us (where he got lots of attention from moviegoers, which he loved). He didn’t particularly like fetch even though he WAS a retriever. He liked getting the stick, he just didn’t want to give it back. He was the only dog my mother-in-law liked (she was afraid of most dogs). She grew to love Brady when she and my father-in-law took care of our home and family while I was hospitalized in 2008. Brady took part in 4H dog shows with Allison – he often would drag her out of the show ring to say hello to some friendly stranger, smiling. “That dog is smiing!” We often heard people say this while Brady was at 4H shows with Allison. If they had created a category for happiest dog, Brady would have won, no contest. We have a copy of a picture of Brady from one of the local newspapers when Daniel was small – he and Brady watched the Fourth of July parade while Daniel lounged on Brady on the ground. There was also the summer that Christopher used Brady’s fur as a napkin to wipe juice from a popsicle that was dripping off his chin.

When I finally sat my children down to tell them we had to say goodbye to Brady, we offered them the option to be present when they euthanized him. I wanted them to be able to say goodbye and to see that the vet wasn’t doing anything to hurt our dog if they wanted to be with him. I realized however, that sometimes children are just too upset by this to do it, so Steve and I told them that it was okay if they didn’t want to be there. Regardless of their decision, I wanted to be with Brady to say goodbye.

Being with Brady was important for another reason too. I had read an article one time about how one of the hardest things vets encounter in their practice is when a dog owner decides not to be present when their dog is euthanized. From the dog’s perspective they have grown with this family they love in an environment that they love for many years. When they are sick enough to need to be euthanized, the last thing they experience is being in a strange room with people they do not know. They feel scared, confused, uncomfortable and want to know where their owners are. Many dogs will cry. I just could not let that be Brady’s last experience here on earth. Steve offered to sit in the waiting room with any of our children who did not want to stay with Brady while he was euthanized. There was a little reluctance at first on the part of some of our children, but ultimately our kids all decided that they wanted to be with Brady while he was put down. So Brady was surrounded by those who loved him most, on a comfortable blanket of his we brought from home, being hugged and loved until his eyes slowly closed and he drifted away. We shed our tears and hugged him one last time and gave him his last pets on the head.

And that was another way we taught our children about showing kindness.