AWB at Summit City Odds and Ends has a sad post about the death of Buddy, the family dog:
He decided on the terms of departing. He was so gracious he didn't even want me to bear watching him go. He waited until I left and while I know it had to hurt, he made it downstairs and from what I can tell he quietly laid his head down and went to sleep at the back door. He had never laid there before, not ever. He could have picked one of his favorite spots around the house, but instead I believe he wanted to make it easy for me to find him. Maybe even easier for me to take his body out of the house. Upstairs would have been hard.
All of us who've ever become attached to animals -- even those of us who are "cat people" -- know what he's going through. It's not that we treat our pets like little people, bt they become full-fledged members of the family, with all the rights and benefits that involves. When my first cat, Pierre, was young and frisky, someone asked me why I didn't try to find a way to keep him from scratching up the couch. "Well, it's just furniture," I said. "Besides, it's his couch, too."
