For Shay: Saying Goodbye to a Therapy Dog and the Not Knowing

The day we said goodbye.

“You’ll just know.”

“Your dog will tell you.”

Maybe I’m in the minority here, but when I was recently faced with making the call to end Shay’s life, those well-intentioned platitudes were the least helpful.

It’s been more than a month since Shay went over the Rainbow Bridge. For those of you who have been faced with saying goodbye to a therapy dog, you know that your working dog is so much more than a beloved pet. They’re your trusted teammate and ever-present sidekick. You share a level of trust that forms an iron bond. So to say the decision was hard is an understatement. It’s like trying to decide whether to rip your heart out now or rip it out later — but make no mistake, it’s going to be ripped out.

So you turn to friends, experts, or the internet. They ask, “Does she still have a good quality of life?”I don’t know, Chad; I’m not qualified to answer that question. Only Shay could answer that — and she doesn’t talk. She’s also a Lab, a breed known for an extremely high pain threshold. Next.

Then they say, “She’ll tell you when she’s ready.” Again, Shay was a talented dog, but she never learned to speak human. And I don’t speak dog. It’s romantic to think we could gaze into each other’s eyes and have a conversation. But as strong as our bond was, I wasn’t about to base a life-or-death decision on my arrogant belief that I could read her mind.

The most helpful advice came from our ace veterinarian, Dr. Sharon Golden. She said — and I quote — “She’s not planning her next birthday party.” Then she went on to tell me, as a hip-replacement patient, how painful bone-on-bone is. She couldn’t imagine living with that pain one more day. She also gave me a game plan: “Give her the best summer. Let her swim in the lake. Take her to Dairy Queen. And in the Fall, see how you feel.”

Summer was full of lake trips and pup cups, but it also brought days when she stumbled, fell, had potty accidents, and got confused by things that never confused her before. And even then — I didn’t know. She still smiled. She wagged her tail.

In the end, I guessed. Was it too early? Was it too late? I’ll never know. And I think that’s okay. It’s hard to trust your heart when it’s being ripped out. The one thing that eases the pain is knowing the decision was ultimately made by the one person she trusted the most — me. And I was there with her, holding her paw and whispering in her ear as she crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

Goodbye, my sweet Lollipop Shay. You did so good.

Author's note: I still look for Shay in the car, by the door, in the places she used to nap. But I also see her in every therapy dog team I meet. Calm & Blue exists because of Shay, and because of the joy we found together in therapy work. To all the teams who share that same bond, I know how hard it is to face the question no one wants to ask.

If you’re standing where I stood, please know this: you might never “just know,” and that doesn’t mean you’ve failed them. It means you loved them deeply enough to question everything.