Things to do before putting your dog down

Let most of it be ordinary

The instinct is to make every remaining hour count, and that pressure can turn a quiet week into a stressful one - for you and for them. Dogs don't know the date. What they know is you, the couch, the same walk, the sound of their bowl.

So plan one or two things, and let the rest be normal. Sit on the floor with them. Let them sleep against you. The ordinary time is usually what people remember most clearly later, not the outing.

The things people say they were glad they did

A favourite meal, given without guilt - a burger, a scoop of ice cream, whatever they were never allowed. Vets generally suggest saving the richest treats for the day itself, so an upset stomach doesn't shorten a good week.

A last slow walk somewhere they loved, or being carried there if walking is hard. Sun on them, a window open in the car, grass under their feet.

Letting the people who loved them come and say goodbye - and letting children be part of it if they want to be. Being excluded is usually harder on a child than being present.

A paw print in clay. Most in-home euthanasia vets and clinics will do one, and it costs little or nothing. Ask before the day, not on it.

Take far more photos than feels natural

This is the one thing almost everyone says they wish they'd done more of, and it's the easiest to forget in a week where taking photos can feel morbid.

It isn't. Take the close ones: their paws, the grey around their muzzle, the notch in their ear, the way they lie with one leg stuck out. Take video with sound - a sigh, the tags on their collar, their name being called and their head coming up. A person's memory of a voice fades faster than their memory of a face, and that's the recording nobody thinks to make.

You don't have to look at any of it yet. Most people can't for a while. Just have it.

Write things down while you still remember them clearly

The specifics go first. Not the big things - those stay - but the small ones: the noise they made getting up, the thing they did every single time you picked up your keys, the nickname that made no sense and stuck for eleven years.

A few sentences in your phone is enough. You will be glad of it, and it turns out to be the hardest thing to reconstruct later.

What to do with what you gathered

Afterwards, most of it sits untouched. The photos stay in the camera roll, scattered across years, and opening the folder is hard enough that months pass. That's normal, and there's no schedule you're supposed to keep.

When you're ready - and it might be weeks - one thing that helps is giving all of it a single place to live instead of a folder you avoid. That's what we make: you send the photos and a few honest sentences about who they were, and it comes back as a short narrated tribute in a real voice, using your own material and your own words. Nothing invented, nothing generated. Plenty of people do something else entirely - a printed book, a framed print, a tree. The point is having somewhere to put it.

If the guilt has already started

Wondering whether it's too soon is close to universal, and it doesn't mean you're getting it wrong. Vets will tell you that a week early is kinder than a day late, and that the question itself is a sign of how carefully you're deciding.

If it helps, write down what the last few weeks have actually looked like - not the last day. People reach for that list often afterwards.

Common questions

Can I put this together before, or is that morbid?

Plenty of people do it in the waiting week, and they say it helped to have something to do with their hands. Others can't face it for months. Both are completely normal - there's no right time and nothing expires.

How many photos do I need?

Ten to fifteen is the sweet spot, but people have made lovely ones with six. Old blurry phone photos are fine - often better, because they're the real ones.