This is the thing I’ve never said out loud, so I guess I’m saying it here to strangers.

I think I kept Duke alive for me. Not for him.

He was 14. Arthritis, mostly deaf, started having accidents in the house which he was so ashamed of, he’d hide in the laundry room after. And every time I thought “it might be time” my brain would immediately go — but he still eats! He still wags! And I’d buy another two months. Then another.

The vet never told me I was wrong. But at the last appointment she said, real gently, “we can’t let him have another night like last night,” and the way she said it, I understood she’d been waiting for me to be ready for a while.

Everyone in the grief groups says “you gave him the gift of a peaceful ending, don’t do the math on the timing.” I do the math every night. Was it two weeks too long? Two months? He would have forgiven me instantly, that’s the worst part. Dogs don’t keep the ledger. Only we do.