When our fur baby started pushing his bowl of food to the side for a few days, we teased him and said “you’re getting spoiled boy, you won’t even eat your food; no more human scraps for you!” But, when he started whimpering and couldn’t walk, we knew something was wrong.
After rushing him to our vet, we found out he wasn’t acting spoiled. We thought he was snubbing his dog food, but actually he had a tumor in his tummy and fluid in his lungs. The vet said there was nothing that could be done. The cancer inside our baby was too far gone. We said our goodbyes and had our last hugs, and returned home devastated, and wondering if we had missed any early signs. If we had noticed anything, could we have saved our fur boy? And what is going to be the best way to talk the kids through this?
We’ve gotten a lot of good advice from family and friends, but the kids have been the ones leading the conversation, asking the questions they want to ask, crying when they need to cry, and sharing their favorite moments with our boy as the memories pop up. I’ve learned how resilient kids really are. When your family goes through a difficulty, don’t shy away from inviting your kids into the discussions. These should be age appropriate discussions of course, but your kids might just surprise you with what they can handle.