Hi all,
Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers. Unfortunately, Brutus was just too sick and his little body couldn't take it anymore. He left us this afternoon at about 12:30. He was so sick and was just getting worse literally by the hour. I went to see him at noon and he had already gotten worse than when the doctor called me at 9 this morning.
We had already discussed it and we had decided that if he was worse, just to let him go. He was so sick when I saw him. He couldn't even stand up, but I did get a couple nub wags out of him when he saw me.
I spent about a half hour with him, petting him, holding his head, and especially kissing the spot between his eyes that I kissed all the time. I told him that we loved him and that we would miss him, but I understood that he would be better off. I could tell by looking in his eyes that he wanted to go too.
The Doctor came in and we sat on the floor with him, and stroked him and I told her how wonderful a friend he had been. She told me that he was one of the sweetest dogs she has known and that it just wasn't fair that this should happen. She also made me feel good about making this decision. His cardiovascular system had already started to shut down and he probably wouldn't have made it through the night.
She gave him the first injection to sedate him and we sat with him while he fell asleep. I stroked his little head and held on to his paw. Then she gave him the second injection to send him on his way. It didn't take long at all and our little buddy left us.
It was a short 2 1/2 years but it was the right decision to make. I'll still stick around on the board here. I'm sure we'll have a new boxer baby at some point. I'm not going to chage our screen name though since we'll always be Brutus' Dads.
