I am so sorry for your loss. I can relate to the pain you feel. I had to put my last dog down 10+ years ago, or rather my family did. I didn't go to the vet that day, and in the fear I'm sure she felt, she never got held by me one last time, never had one last kiss. I never even hugged her before she left the house. I felt like a shitty person and companion to the best friend I had for 15 years, and I still consider it the greatest mistake of my life. I am actually tearing up right now (both from typing my story and reading yours) and it's been THAT long since it happened. Fortunately, my girlfriend has 4 dogs who I love dearly and I see this as my chance to right those past wrongs. I will never leave their side when it's time, I will take the day off from work if I have to.
If this had been a matter of me seeing her suffering, I would have been there. I would have made the decision to spare her.
Up until the surgeon called, everyone was positive that this would end with a grumpy dog staying a couple days at the vet while she healed but coming home tumor-free.
The decision was made 5 minutes into a surgery to remove a growth on the inside of her leg. Everyone involved (my wife and I to the radiologist, her primary vet, the surgeon, everyone) agreed that the surgery would be be her best chance at a healthy life, that everything looked good, and she had an excellent prognosis. However, as soon as the surgeon got her opened up, she called me with her voice breaking because things didn't look as good as the CT scan indicated; every major vessel and nerve in the leg went straight through the center of the mass. Everything important but the bone.
We talked over the quiet beep of the monitors as she explained what she saw. Those machines sounded so loud and ominous over the phone. Even if she removed the mass, the fact that it was growing on the nerve, on the artery, meant that amputation was the only logical option to safely remove the mass. Leaving even the tiniest bit would just have Tali back for another operation in a couple months. We could amputate the leg, as we had originally thought we might have to do, before the heartening results of the scan. However, if we amputated, there was a very good chance that, since it was on the artery and the nerve, so close to the pelvis, that it would spread into her body cavity, to her organs, and she would be fighting off an aggressive cancer while attempting to learn how to walk with only three legs and half a pelvis. We briefly weighed the options and the surgeon offered to perform the amputation at the cost of a de-bulking, but we both agreed that it was only buying a couple weeks before Tali would be under the knife again.
I couldn't do that to Tali.
I could not do that to any living being, let alone the purest source of love and affection that I had ever encountered, the closet thing to a child that my wife and I would have.
I asked if they were going to sew her up. There was a pause. The surgeon asked if I wanted to say goodbye. I told her that I did, but I didn't want Tali to wake up afraid and surrounded by strangers in a scary place, cut open, drugged, and in pain for nothing... just so that I could selfishly be there as they stuck her with yet another needle in order to let her go. Just so that I could say goodbye and ease my heart. I would rather that she pass peacefully in her sleep, not feeling pain or fear, her last waking thoughts being hopeful that she'd see me again.
I'd rather that she not suffer, not be afraid, not feel betrayed just so that I could unburden my own aching heart.
She spent her final hours snuggled with one of my work shirts, cuddling one of her blankets, knowing that she was loved and simply waiting to see me again. She knew that she was loved, that she would see me again, as she had before, when they took the last mass from her hip. She knew that she just had to wait, but that she was loved.
I would gladly inflict this unintentional betrayal with a merciful end a thousand times, rather than force her to suffer just so that I could see her one last time. She died with hope and love in her heart, rather than fear and pain. It's how I would have wanted to go.
The memories are coming back hard and fast, now. As I said above, I am not as well as I thought I was. Grief is a process, and I am still working my way through it. The support of this community, my friends, and my family have helped, but only time will heal the gaping rift in my heart. Even then, the scars will remain. It's simply the nature of such a loss.
If this was something where we knew that she would not be coming out of that building under her own power -knew that there was no saving her- I would never have left her side. I would never have allowed her to be alone. I would have said goodbye. I would have been there for her to the very end and carried her home in my arms across the whole town if I had to, just so that she could lay on her couch one last time.
Instead, all that I could offer was was this small, merciful betrayal.
Hold on to the precious memories and know that it is in a dog's very nature to forgive and to love unconditionally, to live in the moment with no regard for the future and no thought to the past. Cherish the love and companionship, but be sure to forgive yourself; it's what your dog would do.
Be the person that your dog believed you to be.