Gallows Walk

My entire day, the other day, was a gallows walk.
It was a whole week really, but it was that last day that was the worst. That day at 2:30 in the afternoon, my dog was scheduled to die.
It was time, and I knew it. She had made it a good fifteen and a half years, remarkable for a dog who tipped the scales like clockwork at 55 pounds, every year at her checkup. She had survived abdominal surgery at the age of thirteen, acute gastritis at fourteen. But the combination of all the skeletal ills inherited from the German shepherd part of her and a suddenly unmanageable immuno-skin disease took any real choice I had away. So I called my vet and scheduled it for as soon as possible for me and the vet; the middle of the following week.
So began the walk. I spoiled her rotten that last week, Science Diet may have got her to fifteen and a half years, but it's not much of a last meal. So she finally got scraps from the dinner table, other things, even some chocolate (what could it hurt?) But I couldn't touch her. I couldn't run my fingers through her fur because she didn't like it anymore; it was a combination of discomfort and the recent memories of my trying to treat the sores she was starting to get. So I felt cut off from her that week. The gallows walk that we walked together, still seemed like I walked it alone. I took extra pills every day that week.
I worked that morning. I didn't think it would do me or her any good if I stayed home all day, watching her morosely and listening to the booming tick of the clock. Everything had that curious time-altered feel to it; the morning seemed to drag miserably, until it was time to leave and it felt that it had rushed by. I got home early in the afternoon and cleaned up, put her bed in the back of the van and rode in the back with her over to the vet's. We took her right in and put her on a rug on the floor. We said some long goodbyes, she was sedated, and then she was given the shot to end it. Her heart was so strong it took two doses to put her to rest. The gallows walk was over.

Later we buried her ashes in a place she loved; a place where she used to gallop wildly and grin derisively at the thought of being tired. I hope she's happy, I hope she's out of pain, I hope she's running there again. These are the things people are telling me. Mostly I just wish I could have done better by her when she was around.