cw: pet death
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Elinor (Ellie) Whyte, 2005 – 2023. We adopted her when she was about a year old — these pics are from that day. We named her Elinor, from Sense & Sensibility, because I’m Mary Anne.
Ellie left us today, at about eighteen years old, which is a very long life for a dog. That helps a little.
We’ve known this was coming, but it’s still hard. We’ve known her longer than we’ve known our kids. Ellie was the gentlest of dogs, and at least three people I know of got over their fear of dogs after spending time with her. She would let babies tug on her tail and her ears and just look long-suffering.
Ellie’s back legs gave out a few days ago, so we suspected we were close to the end. We’ve spent the last few days carrying her around to various pet beds wherever we were; she always wanted to be with her people. Ellie also stopped eating much. By the weekend, we weren’t able to coax her into licking peanut butter off a spoon anymore, or even tasting the cat treats that she adored.
Kevin’s been giving her eyedroppers of water for the past two days, and we’d hoped that she might pass quietly in her sleep, but then last night, she had a rough night, yipping often. We brought Ellie to snuggle between us in bed, and soothed her as we could, but we knew we didn’t want her to be in pain any longer than necessary.
It took a while to find someone who could take care of her today — after the weekend, and with the holiday tomorrow, I think a lot of vets are slammed. But her regular doctor had a cancellation and was able to fit us in, so a few hours ago, we took her into the animal hospital, said goodbye, and they euthanized her. Ellie was barely responding to anything by the time we took her in, so I suspect it wouldn’t have been much longer for her to pass on her own, but we didn’t want to risk her having a bad night.
She was a little more Kevin’s dog than mine, but we’re both somewhat shattered; the kids and Arya will miss her too. It was surprisingly hard to walk away from her once she’d passed, even though we knew she was gone.
I suspect you’ll see more Ellie pics in the next few days, so y’know, brace yourself.
She was the best dog.
