{"id":2334,"date":"2024-01-19T20:17:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T20:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/?p=2334"},"modified":"2026-04-10T17:09:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T17:09:57","slug":"letter-to-a-veterinarian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/?p=2334","title":{"rendered":"A Letter to My Veterinarian"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Dear Doctor,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve been thinking about you even though you might not remember who I am. I can only imagine how many pets, and the people who love them, are entrusted to your care. Maybe you remember a certain corgi coming to your office? Maybe you don&#8217;t. They all look the same. But, not really, and certainly not if you loved one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m writing this because I remember you. I remember all of our visits to your office, even though they were far and few between. I guess I&#8217;m lucky that my Lulu only needed a few appointments during her ten years with your practice. After all, she was a healthy dog, until the day she wasn&#8217;t. Of course, there was that time she ate a bowl of M&amp;Ms and you had to induce vomiting, with Lulu complying like a champ. There was that other time when she emitted a strange odor and you had to remove an unsightly lump from her cute derriere. But these incidents were far and few between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m sure when you attended vet school, they taught putting down animals is part of the job. It&#8217;s too bad pet owners don&#8217;t get this same schooling. We all have to deal with end-of-life stuff in our clumsy way. Like asking you when it&#8217;s the right time, even though we already know the answer. I suppose we need to hear that it&#8217;s best for them, when really it might be best for us. As if putting an end to suffering can also help cure heartache along with the pain. I&#8217;m sorry for that. And I&#8217;m also sorry for not thanking you for your ability to treat a sick cat, a pet rabbit, and a dying dog all in a day&#8217;s work.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I went to your office today, and my Lulu went to Heaven. All dogs go there, so they say. I pray they are right. I pray I get to see her there someday. I pray my baby remembers she was a good girl. And I pray for you tonight too, dear doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Godspeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Doctor, I&#8217;ve been thinking about you even though you might not remember who I am. I can only imagine how many pets, and the people who love them, are entrusted to your care. Maybe you remember a certain corgi coming to your office? Maybe you don&#8217;t. They all look the same. But, not really, &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2334"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3042,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334\/revisions\/3042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingtowardartistry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}