<p>my heart goes out to you and your family!!..i am an ardent dog lover - they make me so happy. anyway, i think you should tell him. i have an ailing 12-year-old black lab mix, and if my mother withheld the information that he died, i would feel really betrayed.</p>
<p>I would be really upset if I wasn’t told right away if my family’s dog died. I was upset enough when they didn’t tell me that one of her legs had to be amputated until a week after it happened.</p>
<p>tough call…at first i thought your ds might be an only child–and then i might wait. since there are siblings and other family members, it’s probably best if you just tell him now. he might see something on a family member’s facebook or myspace page and he would feel like he had either been left out or “babied” by his parents a bit too much.</p>
<p>how far away is your son? i missed that somewhere along the line…</p>
<p>While this is a bit different, I had a couple of experiences when I was a child that shook me up. </p>
<p>I remember one day when my mom picked me up from school (around age 10 or 11), I got in the car and for some reason asked my mom if the dog was OK (a question I never asked usually). She insisted yes; I pressed her a couple of more times, and she denied it. When we got home she told me that he’d been laying in the driveway and she accidentally ‘clipped’ one of his legs when she was backing out in the car earlier that day. She’d taken him to the vet, and although he was sore, nothing was broken. I’ll never forget that sense of foreboding I had before she told me the truth; then I was angry that she’d lied to me.</p>
<p>A year or two later, I began to ‘sense’ that something was wrong with our dog. I kept telling my mom that he needed to be checked out by the vet. Can’t place my finger on it, but I kept telling her this over a period of a few weeks. When she finally took him in, he had some illness (heart worm maybe?) that was too late to treat. So they put him down. I was devastated to say the least that she hadn’t heeded my warning.</p>
<p>These are different circumstances in many ways, but my parents continued to hold off bad news to me as an adult too, like not telling me my mom almost died in a hospital while waiting to get a pacemaker until two days later. And not telling me how close my dad was to dying from sepsis due to diverticulosis until months later. To me, it was like saying we don’t think you have the emotional maturity to handle this, so we’re going to protect you. I really, really resented it, and have chosen to handle similar issues with my own daughters in a very different manner, and have always been honest with them.</p>
<p>With my job, I’ve seen both sides of how people choose to tell someone about a death. I’d say that 95% of the time, families choose to tell people right away, and not hold back, no matter what else they have going on in their lives. People deserved the chance to learn and grow from situations when life happens. There are a few extreme situations where families have held back the news of someone’s death (for instance, if the family member is going through their own serious, immediate health crisis). Before I get hammered for comparing the death of a pet to the death of a family member, let me say I truly believe grief is grief, no matter who or what is gone. </p>
<p>Just my two cents worth.</p>
<p>DS is seven hours away–so face-to-face wasn’t possible. I’ll call him this afternoon when he’s done for the week and hope he doesn’t resent my waiting a few days.</p>
<p>Thanks for the inquiries about how our older dog is doing. Besides walking around the house a little strangely and going in and out for no apparent reason (we keep wondering if he’s looking for his little buddy), he’s okay. I honestly think it would have been harder on the Corgi to lose his big brother. He was always the one who was running in big circles and then “attacking” the lab, licking his ears, play-biting him in the face and on the legs, making a delightful little pest out of himself. The lab of course had infinite patience for these shenanigans. I have a wonderful very clear memory of the lab walking by the kitchen one day with the Corgi (puppy at the time) hanging off his cheek.</p>
<p>good luck MyLB… let us know how it goes. My heart goes out to you and your son.</p>
<p>It was a very short phone call. I think it’s fortunate that I sort of caught him headed out the door to work out and he really didn’t have time to focus. Not exactly the reaction I was expecting, but also no guilt about waiting a while to tell him.</p>
<p>(FWIW–almost through his first ever college semester he seems to be in a good place. Very happy with his choice of schools and making good friends. I know he’s taking steps back from the family and I’m thinking maybe that includes taking steps back from the family pets. When I think about it, except for Thanksgiving break, none of us has been part of his daily routine since late August.) (Do I really have to send him back in January??)</p>
<p>A short phone call probably would have been my experience also.</p>
<p>When we had to put our dog down, it was a family decision… so no issues about when to inform anyone. But when our second kitty had to go down, I did have to tell DS. Although it was face-to-face, still… he took the news and then just wanted to be by himself. He doesn’t “process” things by talking them out like I (or many other females, and I’m sure some males, too) would.</p>
<p>And, yes, you’ll have to send him back in January ;). But you might be more than ready when that day comes ;).</p>
<p>glad it went well. so sorry to hear about your dog.</p>
<p>Glad it went well too -</p>
<p>Oh I’m so sorry about your dog. I’m glad the conversation went OK. You mentioned you had another dog. How’s that dog doing?</p>
<p>One of my cats died two weeks before D’s departure to college. The cat was old and had a chronic condition, so we knew she lived on borrowed time. D kissed the other kitty goodbye and said something along the lines, “Don’t you dare croaking while I’m in college, my sweety-kitty!” Well, the cat got extremely depressed the day we flew to the East Coast, refused food and starved herself to the point that her immune system could not fight off some vius (that’s what the vet suspected) despite our attempts to treat her. She used to sleep on D’s pillow, followed D around the house like a dog, kept D company by the fireplace while D worked on her homework and college applications… The two were so attached that I was afraid to call D when the kitty died in my arms! H dialed D’s number and the three of us cried together. I poposed to D that she could pick a cat for us on Petfinder, and she did. Unfortunately, H was allergic to the cat, and we were about to give up our search for a feline friend when a tiny calico kitten stuck her paw out of her cage and gently tapped my H’s shoulder. The rest of the story is in the “Cat vent” thread 
D was very pleased to meet her new buddy when she came back for Thanksgiving break.</p>
<p>I’m so sorry for the loss of your dog, MyLB. You asked about getting new dogs, the same breed or not. We have a Schnauzer (my third one that I have owned) and a German shepherd (our second). The Schnauzer-shepherd duo works for us (lap dog and guard dog), so we chose to replace each one as they passed on. I think it’s a comfort of sorts, because you already know the breed, so each puppy is a little easier to raise. </p>
<p>I do think that college students can step up to the plate and act in an adult manner about difficult situations such as this. Many have to deal with the death of grandparents too. My D had to help with the loss of our first German shepherd, who died at home when my husband was away. She also looked in the paper for ads for a new Schnauzer for me just before she went back to college one fall. And we took the puppy with us on the three-day drive to get her car to her college! </p>
<p>I hope you’ll have one or two puppies in your future that will ease your hearts.</p>
<p>Thanks to all of you. Our older dog is barking a little funny when he’s out–not looking to come in, just lying on his bed, and we are wondering if he’s calling to his little buddy. (They sleep on the same bed when they’re outside together during the day.) I could very easily see another Corgi in the house, but I guess we’ll figure that out when the time’s right. (To bookiemom–my mother had a schnauzer as an adult. Smartest dog I’ve <em>ever</em> heard of.) </p>
<p>Oh goodness–change all that first parenthesis to past tense. Still doesn’t feel right without the lil guy around.</p>