I don’t talk about my pets much. As a matter fact, even though I’m a blogger, there are a lot of things I don’t talk about because so many are such a judgmental jerks a lot of the time, and my pets are very dear to me.

Today has been a soul crushing day.

At around 5:00 PM I said goodbye to a beloved dog. I know I haven’t cried all of the tears that will come in the middle of the night, and I just literally have a heartache.

She came into our lives 10 years ago this coming October. She had been a puppy mill pull from Ohio. She landed at ArF in the Hamptons.

One fall day, after my sister had picked her up in the Hamptons, we drove to New York City to pick her up.

She was a tiny little miniature dachshund, and so scared when we first got her. She had lived in a cage the first two years of her life. She was little and fluffy, and had a very funny personality. Her entire life she spent between 8 and 8 1/2 pounds, so she was tiny.

When she would see you enter a room she would bounce. Or she did that for me, she would literally bounce up and down. And she was so fluffy. She had little Clydesdale feet. If I watched TV in bed, she would sit on my shoulder like a little furry parakeet.

She was a happy little thing with really bad eyesight, who would do zoomies throughout the house until you were exhausted watching her and your sides ached from laughing. She also was a big begger. And the last few years of her life, I think she had 11 teeth, and she still could beg with the best of them.

This past December, she went for her regular vet check up and everything was fine, but Dr Hahn told me she needed a dental. But then in January all of a sudden there was this little bump on the side of her face. I thought it was an abscess.

But when we took her in to see Dr Hahn eight weeks ago, the look on his face told me everything. It was a tumor. It wasn’t an abscess because it was on the side of her mouth in the rear where she had had teeth removed a few years ago.

When you have a veterinarian who cares about his humans as much as their animals, it really helps. And the look on his face was so stricken because it was the kind of tumor you couldn’t do anything about and was already growing so fast. It has been a long day and I can’t remember if it was a squamous cell or a melanoma but it was one or the other.

So we had eight extra weeks with her. And I made her a promise the day of her diagnosis that I wouldn’t keep her alive for me.

I remember when we first got the diagnosis people kept asking me what can’t you just operate on her? I know we couldn’t. She was a 12-year-old dog with a giant tumor. If people want a tip going forward, don’t question someone’s decision if they’ve already worked out a plan with their veterinarian. It is already hard enough when you get this news.

For the past eight weeks I have loved every extra minute. I’ve had to soften her food so she could eat, but even today she ate a full meal just really really slowly because by the time she woke up this morning she couldn’t really open her mouth because of the tumor.

It’s always so hard trying to figure out when the right moment is to say goodbye to our pets. They give us unconditional love that we truly don’t have in this world.  I had decided this weekend along with my husband that I was calling the vet on Monday because I could see the stage she was getting to. She kept trying for me, but I knew I had to be the grown-up here.

So we set the appointment for this afternoon. This morning when I got up, she gave me the “look.” She was tired and she was ready. So we had one last day together.

Then, in a matter of minutes, she was just gone. But like my other dogs before her, she will live in my heart and memories forever.

Goodnight little Georgie, I love you.

Please support the animal rescue of your choice in honor of my little girl.