Hasn't been a merry anything for me this holiday, I had to put my mom's dog to sleep yesterday.   The dog was so sick with cancer she couldn't walk anymore.  Her heart murmur so bad you could feel the rumble right through her thin chest.  Her abdomen was filled with fluid.  The dog had lost muscle mass everywhere, she was a walking skeleton.  Her face so thin, she had no discernible tissue left and her skull structure showed through.  Yes, it was the end of her life, her time drawing to a close, but she fought to stay alive, she didn't want to go. My mom called the vet and asked to bring her in.  We took little Snoopy in, I had to carry her.  My mom and sister were so messed up.  We took her into the back room and laid her on the table.  My mom and sister said their goodbyes.  The vet put the needle in, I held Snoopy's thin little face in my hands and talked to her.  She jerked when the drug started in, she turned her head and looked to us, she didn't want to go. I continued to hold her little head, I talked her into death.  I could feel her die, I tried to release her into death.  But though her body was dead, she did not want to go.  She was still there, and I was so upset.  I still am, I cry even as I write this.  She wouldn't leave.  She was dead but wouldn't go.  I have never experienced that.  Everything that I have experienced so far has been death with transition.  I have not felt something that simply wouldn't transition.  Her eyes were open.  She died with her eyes open.  I know that she will figure it out, decide to move on to heaven or go back to my mom's house.  I wouldn't be surprised to find her there, though truthfully I feel she will simply move on. 
I have been so upset by this, that I had to help an animal die again.  It is so much easier when a person dies, at least you can talk to them and they understand.  An animal... well, it's harder to get them to understand.  Tina, my cat, had understood and been ready to die when I had to take her.  Though I was a total mess, I could still feel her and knew that she was ready, even if I wasn't.  She passed right through me when she died, it was the strangest feeling.  And then later that day, she returned to my apartment.  But this little dog, my god how guilty I feel right now for doing what I know had to be done.  I hate it, I hate how I feel, I hate that I had to do it, and I feel like shit for doing it.  I feel so very, very guilty and sad.  Her face is ever before me now.  I cried most of last night.  Sleep can be a blessing though, for when I woke up, her face and that memory of holding her little head between my hands is foremost in my thoughts.  My brain feels like a cracked record, it repeats it and repeats it, over and over again.  She was so sick, yet still fought for life right through the end.  She loved and trusted us, and we brought her death.  I don't care that it had to be done, you and I can sit and reason and rationalize this till hell freezes over.  She didn't understand.  That's the point.  And now I hurt.  I think I hurt worse than my mom and sister.  My mom, I told her that Snoopy was alright.  But I hurt because I held her when my mother and sister couldn't bear it.  I hurt because I tried to give transition to a dog who would not go, and it scared me terribly to think that maybe I did something wrong, that I failed, or that god forbid she was somehow trapped inside her body.  I know that isn't true, that you don't get trapped inside your body when you die, but she wouldn't leave, she was still there, and inside I was freaking out even if outside I was being stoic.  I hope she finds peace, I know she probably already has.  I hope she understands and forgives me.  I hope I can move past this quickly, I can't stand feeling like this.  I know what had to be, but what my cognitive side says and what my heart says do not always agree.