REBECCA BAIRD: What are you supposed to do the day before your dog dies?

Today is the last day I’ll have a dog.

It’s Friday afternoon. And I’m writing this because frankly I can’t think about anything else. If you’ve been here, you’ll know what I mean.

For the last two weeks I’ve had the same looming deadline in my brain. Saturday June 3, 11am. And I’ve done everything in my power to distract myself from it.

But now it’s less that 24 hours away and I’m buckling under the weight of the oncoming grief.

My dog Floyd is going to die tomorrow. What else am I supposed to do but sit here and think about it?

I’ve said my goodbyes, I’ve had my last walk under the moon.

I’ve hugged and cried and played and snapped hundreds of photos. I’ve done all the grieving I can do without him being gone yet. I’ve sworn to enjoy this time.

That is obviously impossible.

Impossible to prepare for death of a pet

It’s not that I’ve never felt this type of grief; the pre-emptive kind that makes a home under your skin for months before the event itself, feeding off the knowledge of the inevitable rather than the events of the present day.

Like so many of us, I’ve lived in the purgatory of a loved one’s terminal illness. The constant counting of last things, or possible last things.

Views of the sky become numbered. Parting words become carefully chosen last words, for days and weeks on a loop.

I know well the relief that the inevitable end can bring.

Suddenly the thing you’ve been fighting so hard against has happened, and you have no control over it.

You’re free to break down, rage, and – the thing no one dares say – think of other things again.

But right now, I don’t want to think of other things.

Because my best buddy of 13 years, a pillar of my entire adolescent and adult life, isn’t just dying.

He’s dying tomorrow. At 11am. Because we, his family, said so.

Scheduling death of a pet is a unique torture

And I know that ethically, that’s the right call.

I can tell – as can the vet – that my big old bear has seen his last autumn leaf, has torn open his last Christmas treat. I can see it in his big brown eyes.

I know the warm summer months are brutal on his black, shaggy coat. And I know that one day soon, his weakening legs will bring him down and he won’t be able to get back up.

I know that if that happened on a walk, the distress would be too much for his already-ailing heart.

And I know that the things he loves most – chasing his ball, long runs, swimming – are now only ever going to be memories.

Still, it is a unique kind of torture. To not only know someone you love is dying, but also to have to schedule it.

To assign a date and time for the death of your pet, your pal, is the most unnatural kindness.

But I know that I will do it, because he needs me to.

Me and my shadow

The worst part, or maybe the greatest blessing, is that of course he doesn’t know.

Good boys should never have to feel this bad and he has been the best boy.  So I’m glad he gets to drift off unknowingly, without fear or pain.

Its a privilege to carry that for him. But I do wish I could thank him.

Because no matter how grim my school days got, or which weekend Romeo had broken my heart, or how wretched and snotty I was on a sick day, for the last 13 years, I was never alone.

There was always a giant, hairy, stinky, velvet-eared, snuffling, huffy, waggy shadow, plodding along beside me. Keeping me going.

So thank you, Floyd.

And reader, thank your dogs today for all the tomorrows you still have left.