I didn’t expect it to happen like this.
A week earlier, on Sunday, we were in Chester. She struggled on a set of steps on the city walls. I noticed it, but in the way you do with a dog who’s getting older. You clock it, you adjust, you carry on. It didn’t feel like the start of anything serious. Just a moment.
In the weeks before, her walking had been its usual epic proportions. 12.5 miles up to Blackstone Edge. 13.5 miles from home to West Kirby and New Brighton on the Wirral.
Over the next few days, something shifted.
Cassie slowed down. Walks became shorter. Then slower. Then almost non-existent. By Friday night, I had to carry her from the living room of my Liverpool apartment to my bedroom. She couldn’t make it on her own.
Her breathing was fast. Too fast. I remember counting it. Sixty-five a minute. I didn’t know exactly what that meant at the time, just that it wasn’t right.
You tell yourself you’ll see how she is in the morning.
Saturday morning came and she couldn’t walk to the car. I carried her again. This time to the vets.
That’s when the reality started to change.
I moved from “she’s not quite herself” to “this is serious” in a matter of hours. Tests. Fluids. Waiting. Watching for any sign of improvement. Holding onto small things. A look. A movement. Anything that suggested she might turn a corner.
For a while, I thought maybe she would.
Then the call came. Earlier, I’d been told she would be fine.
12:30 am, Sunday morning.
I already knew what it was about before I answered.
I drove to Alder. The vet met me, and she was there – quiet, calm. We spoke about her spleen, her temperature, her condition. I made the decision to euthanise.
I drove back home at 2 am through empty streets, shaking and aching with grief.
That’s the part no one prepares you for. Not really. You’re asked to weigh up time, money, risk, and suffering in a moment where none of those things feel clear. You’re told there are options, but none of them feel like a way out.
The week replays in my head. Chester. The steps. The slow walks. Carrying her. The breathing. I look for the moment where I should have known more, done more, acted sooner.
But the truth is, it didn’t unfold in a way that gave me that clarity. It moved quietly, then all at once.
Now there’s just the absence.
The silence where she used to be. The routines that don’t make sense anymore. The walks that feel different, or don’t happen at all.
I’m in London as I write this, partly to put some distance between me and it. Not to forget, just to soften the edges a bit. At home, everything is a reminder. Here, it comes in waves instead.
People have suggested getting another dog.
I won’t.
Not because I didn’t love her, but because I did. Enough to know I don’t want to go through that again. There’s also something else I didn’t expect to feel. A kind of freedom. Less responsibility. More space. It sits alongside the grief in a way that’s hard to explain, but it’s there all the same.
This isn’t a neat story. There’s no lesson tied up at the end of it.
Just a week where everything changed, and a dog who was a huge part of my life for years, gone in a matter of days.
What I do know is this.
I gave Cassie, my Border Collie, a full and active life. Long, stimulating walks. Consistent attention. She gave even more back. Through relocation, through separation, through some difficult periods, she was there.
Now there’s an aching void. A loss of focus in my work. A sense of being weaker and less anchored than I’m used to.
That’s grief, I suppose. But I’ve never felt sadness and loss like it in my 61 years.
If you’ve been through something similar, you’ll understand the weight of it.
If you haven’t, I hope you never have to.
