My Roxie PTS

[marya]

To Sams Mom and everyone else.
Thank you for taking the time to write and comment. I am working on another poem about Roxie, about her sweetness, her athleticism and love of catching frisbees, balls and jumping in the ocean to catch just one more ball thrown in! There were some good times, for sure. I will never forget her and also the kindness of all the Rottweiler.com members after she was PTS. Your notes really do help a lot.

marya

[Clafca]

We know that this was not easy, but i think that you have made the best choice for her.

I dont want to think about what could happens if one of those days she had biten a kid on the face like we see too much often on the TV news.

That was not easy for you and you have some sorrow, but i am sure that you did the best you can do for her.

An agressive behavior can be very dangerous, it seem that this was escalating and she was putting on you a great responsability.

We are really sorry that you did'nt have any other alternative.

Please Accept our condoleance for your loss. We hope that the other side of the bridge she had regain her serenity for eternity.

Claude & Nicole

PS: Sorry for my english , i'm french canadian.

[Sam's Mom]

I am glad knowing that you are not alone in feeling your sorrow helps. Too many of us have been there and honestly understand. Time WILL help...Peace to you.

[marya]

It has been a month since Roxie was PTS and although I am still grieving and will always miss her, we have a new 11 month dog. Willy will never replace Roxie, but he has the sweetest temperment. Last night I had a dream that Willy and Roxie were running around in the backyard together. I was crying and I woke up crying. I cried all morning. Its hard having another dog, but my husband was ready, and I missed the doggy stuff we did. I am working on a Roxie photo album that I can play on the TV. This was such a hard time for me, but I wouldn't trade in the memories of owning a dog.
Time helps things feel better, but memories will always be there.

[Donaldson]

I was going to ask if Roxie had "come " to you in a dream - + she has! Feeling emotional after this is normal, but I believe that Roxie is showing you that she approves of Willy, and in playing with him she is letting you see that she is now happy + free. Your selfless act is being acknowledged and repaid. Roxie remains alive in your heart and your memories of the good times.
RIP dear Roxie

[marya]

Thanks Donald. Yes, Roxie will always remain in my heart and memories. Its just so hard with her not being here in flesh and fur. I have her ashes but they make me sad as ashes are so final, and I miss her in my "sight". I have her in my mind but thats not quite the same. Sometimes life is such a sad sad "game".

[marya]

I was doing fine on the death of Roxie when I read in Whole Dog Journal about thyroid problems sometimes causing aggression in dogs. After that article, I cried my heart out. Why didn't my vet ever bring up testing for thyroid. To those out there with a dog that has become aggressive, please check the thyroid levels. I didn't, and now I will never know if Roxie could have been fixed with some medication. She had become more aggressive the past year, and this could have been the explanation. I still have such guilt over putting her to sleep at 3 and one half years old.

[royalarrival]

My Mother-n-Law has a lab with thyroid problems. He is currently on meds to control it. He did become dog aggressive as he got older (and leading up to diagnosis of thyroid disease). We couldn't take our Daisy over to their house. To this day the lab is still dog aggressive (even on meds.). He went through puppy class and all, but still aggressive.

I don't know if meds would make a difference.

[marya]

Dear Royalarrival,
Thank you for your input. I guess I just feel so guilty about putting Roxie, my very first dog, to sleep, that I am grasping for should haves and could haves and a thyroid problem might have explained some of her aggressiveness towards my husband especially. Roxie would give me a hard stare, and I would know enough that she had enough and back off. I would always be right, because she would "mince" her way to our bedroom and "bam", go under the bed. I would look under there during the day. Sometimes she was lying on her side resting, but sometimes she was just sitting there (hardly any headroom for her because she was so big). Sometimes she would have her head and paws sticking out. I do know that she was always a little different than other dogs (we dog owners compare notes) as she never really enjoyed body handling and would usually pull away. I don't recall her being like this as a puppy, as I remember petting her and her licking back and enjoying being close to us. She was problematic at 9 months having really displayed food bowl aggression, (her bowl was in the kitchen and she barred her teeth and growled one day out of the blue) and she couldn't be given rawhide because she guarded them and did not eat them. The trainer attributed some of this to her being the runt of the litter and being left on the side of the road in a box too early (8 weeks) (she and her 4 sisters). Sadly, I think of Roxie often, despite just having gotten a new dog who is the exact opposite of her -- real affectionate, no food aggression, and who just wants to be lying near us. Roxie only wanted to go under our bed and would spend hours under there. It was like life was too much for her. I know I have to let go and move on, but it is so hard when a dog makes such an impression on your heart, and it was such a challenge to try and help her. It feels like I used the death penalty by putting her to sleep, but my choices were limited -- who would take a biting dog with food aggression, issues with neighborhood dogs -- totally unpredictible behavior escalating. My friend says I should write a book, and it might help me work through my guilt. I have kept a journal of my thoughts from her adoption 3 1/2 years ago, and I just might do that. I enjoyed reading Marley and Me. Marley was a problem dog, but he did not have any aggression issues just phobias. Roxie would still be with us if she had phobias and had not bitten my husband that one last time when things seemed to be getting better between them. When under pressure, she bit (puncture wounds on the hand only) and than ran under the bed, instead of just getting up and going under the bed with no biting. I guess when a dog bites once, it is more apt to bite again since it worked to stop whatever the human was doing it didn't like then.

Thanks to all who have shared their thoughts with me and listened to me. My mother died in November but I am more grief stricken over my dog and her loss and my being inadequate to dealing with fixing the behavior. I think I read over 20 books and had a trainer and behaviorist, and she still couldn't be fixed or helped. The books made it seem that with just a little more management, a little more conditioning, the problelm might be able to be fixed. Sadly, it was not to be for me.

[marya]

Today it is about a month since Roxie was PTS on November 17th. We have a new dog, and I new really realize with this new 11 month old dog that Roxie really had some serious issues. This new dog does not have any aggression towards anyone -- dogs or people. He has no food bowl or rawhide aggression. He is almost too easy, his temperment is so mellow. He also just wants to be where we are. He needs a lot of obedience training, I have taught him to "sit" and walk better on the leash, but I prefer group obedience training as the socialization was great for dog and owner alike. Willy doesn't even bark at anything when he is in the car. He is just so happy to be going somewhere with me or my husband. So far he is a joy. All this makes Roxie's death bittersweet. I still miss her and all her strange quirks. Her quirks gave her a lot of personality and provided me with a challenge. However, I now have a challenge for obedience training as I want to bring Willy to nursing homes for pet therapy through our humane society. Thanks to everyone on this forum who helped me get through my grief and sorrow. I am still in the grieving stage but without the tears, the lack of eating and sleeping. I am sad but resigned to the fact that this was the only course we had. Hopefully, I can make a difference in another dog and help someone else out there who is grieving over their loss.

[lilybug]

I am sorry for your loss.. It is never an easy decision to put your dog to sleep. Something that has not been mentioned and I could be reaching, but maybe she had a health problem...My Rottie Diesel was 3 yrs old when I had to put him to sleep, he also was a mix, Rottie & Boxer.. we called him a Roxer..lol...He got sick from his spine collapsing into itself. The only reason I knew something major was wrong was he got "snappy" with our Boston Terrier sometimes. He also started to withdraw...I made the decision to put him to sleep because I did not want him to suffer and I knew that if he ever bit anyone on accident he would feel awful, as would I.. Know that Roxie is now in no pain and is happy...Sometimes the best decision is the hardest..My heart goes out to you...

[marya]

Dear Lillbug,
Thank you for your interest and the thoughts. The more I compare Roxie with our new dog, the more I am convinced that something was very very wrong with her, and more than just behavioral. She was very antisocial the last year or so, and this started when she was around a year and half. During this period she preferred to be under the bed instead of being near to me or my husband. She only came out from under the bed for ball and frisbee in the backyard or to go potty. I still think that life was too stressful for her. It had to be something chemical because she was so socialized as a pup and different in her personality. However, she did have food bowl aggression and aggression while eating rawhide (we never gave her any after our bad experience).

I brought her with me for canine education in the schools through our local humane society, and she was not reactive then, although she always backed away somewhat. As I am recalling back, she was fine around the school children, although I noticed that she backed away from being petted. She did not really like body handling. I did massage her almost every day and she liked that until last year when she seemed to not like it that much as she started lifting her head up and looking at me.

She had to be sedated (put out) to have her nails cut. She did have one real bad experience when she was about 8 months old where a (bad) trainer cut her nails, and they all bled. The trainer picked her up by the collar and slammed her down, and I was absolutely shocked by the trainer's method. Roxie was the first dog getting her nails clipped, and the trainer was making an example out of her, almost like breaking a horse. However, the vet and I felt that this made Roxie really fear nail clipping even more. Hence when the vet tried to cut her nails, she was so extreme about not having her nails cut, she let her anal glands go. She did not try to bite any of the three (the vet, me and 2 techs) of us trying to get her in position for the vet to try, but you couldn't even cut a nail because she screamed before the clippers did anything.

We even pondered getting her a dog friend, but she was terrible with the new dog. We put them together on neutral territory, and it was sort of okay. As soon as Rita, the new dog, came in our house, Rita could not go anywhere without Roxie lunging and snapping at her. Finally, Roxie went under the bed, and Rita stayed by our side. However, we had brought this dog home to be company to Roxie, not to us, so we brought her back the next day to the humane society. Rita had a tremendous temperment and was adopted out almost immediately. My husband had said jokenly that we should have kept Rita and gave them Roxie back.

When I think about my 3 and one half years with Roxie I get so sad and well up with tears. We did the right thing to PTS but it was definitely the harder route to take -- it would have been so much easier to have brought her to the humane society, BUT, with what I knew about her in my heart of hearts, she would eventually react unpredictibly, and I could not live with that either. She was only a dog, but she was so much more to me -- my first dog, my first puppy, and the achievement I felt over her positive obedience -- coming when called, etc., but I just could not extinguish her need to bite
instead of choosing flight or not biting.

Thanks lilybug for your input and so sorry you had to go through it also. I am in this forum because I can't talk with my husband as his point of view is so different since he was the one on the receiving end due to his not leaving her alone when she had that look.

[marya]

Its been 6 weeks and I still feel so sad about my dog Roxie. I will never forget her.

[missingmarley]

OH MARYA ...
It's not going to ever get better, but it will fade. I'm re-reading this post and it's freshly painful, bringing up my own, somewhat similar experience, over two years ago. I still start to cry more often than I can control.
So many people here have gone through this, and it does help to know you're not alone (you're not!) and there are people here who truly, fully, completely understand. That's pretty rare.
I'd like to tell you to move on, but you will when you're ready. Take care of Willy - tell him stories about Roxie, and I agree with Donaldson, who mentioned that Roxie's appearance in your dream is a huge, gigantic sign that she's looking down and smiling.
Second-guessing is destructive. We all learn from our "mistakes." You'd better believe I'm going to be a better owner next time.
- Laura