A Loss.

Our dog, Stout, whose story is below, died last night. We went to bat for him, giving him a chance to thrive on three legs, and through no fault of our own, our decision was made on faulty information. Last night, only a couple of hours after hearing that he was doing wonderfully, were told he was being kept alive by a ventilator. I was able to be with him in his last moment and bury him on family property today.

The last two days have been difficult. We made the decision that I would travel 2 hours from our northern home to where Stout was, and to leave Mark behind while he finished the work week. Our expectation was that I would be caring for our dog post-op until Mark was able to join us. We weren't anticipating that it would be me who was left so say our final goodbyes and to bury our dog. For this reason I feel drained in many ways, trying to care for the boys while dealing with my own shock of watching my dog die, and being pregnant and trying to take care of myself properly when so much of attention was focused on dealing with the situation.

We are sad and confused over the events that took place on Monday. Our dog suffered for too long before we knew the extent of his injuries, and that is what crushes us more than anything else. Unfortunately a mistake was made in our dog's care. Because of this, the bill for his surgery and all 36 hours of emergency care has been written off. It doesn't bring our dog back, but it's of some consolation that we have don't have our dead dog's medical bills to deal with right before Christmas, not to mention the void of our missing dog.

We will be glad to put this situation behind us. It was far harder than it needed to be. We have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, and so we will focus on that. We have been very blessed by family and friends, and will be happy to be surrounded by them in the coming days.

Happy Thanksgiving,
Mallory

Edit: And I want to appreciate thanks. Because, while I was with Mark, I had many, many family members who saw what we were going through and helped in small and big ways that made a huge difference. Parents, brothers, sisters, in-laws, and more helped with the kids, helped make decisions and sort out our choices, helped say goodbye, pick up Stout and bury him. I couldn't have gone through any of this without them. Thank you :-) .