I am so sorry for your loss.It is never an easy decision, no matter what the circumstances. But I feel like it is even harder when there isn't an imminently fatal physical condition that brings you to make that choice. Even I, who have had a hand in helping many pets cross through my work in a veterinary clinic, felt that twinge of guilt when I had to euthanize my beloved dog Aina this past winter. And in her case it was a much simpler decision, her spleen had ruptured and she was bleeding to death slowly. My vet offered us the option of giving her a sedative to make her more comfortable and help her sleep so that we could have more time to make the decision, but it would just be delaying the inevitable and prolonging her suffering. Even knowing that full well, I still felt as if I was somehow betraying her while I held her as the vet gave the injection. So your feelings of guilt are a normal part of the grieving process. Anyone who has ever had to make that painful decision has had those same feelings.
The loss of a pet is inevitably harder on the parents than on children as young as yours. My son was just barely two when Aina passed. He was asleep already when my vet came to my house for the euthanasia, so he did not experience that part at all. We opted to keep her body in the house overnight, both to help our other dog come to terms with her passing and so that our son could see her one more time. The next morning, we explained to him that Aina was broken (I still do not think he understands the concept of death, but he does understand when things are broken and for months would tell us things like the bug was "broke" when he squished a bug and it stopped moving) and that we could not fix her. I did not want to tell him that she had been sick or that she had a boo-boo, because I didn't want him to be scared the next time he was sick or hurt or if one of us got sick since he is so good at generalizing concepts (when his toys stop working, they are broken...so when a bug or other animal stops moving they must also be broken). When the man from the cremation service came by to pick up her body, we told him that Aina had to go away and that she wasn't coming back. He asked about her several times that day, and a time or two every day for about a week or so. Every time, we told him that she had to go away, and he would then tell us that it was because she was broken and we couldn't fix her. Then he sort of stopped asking about her for a while. We left her crate and food bowls in place for about a month after her passing, and even though he was no longer asking about her when we put them up he still got a little upset when we moved them. We explained that it was ok, she didn't need them anymore (to which he responded that it was because she was had to go away because she was broke and she wasn't coming back) and he quickly got over it. It was a long time before he talked about her again, but about 5 months later he started talking about her. This time it wasn't asking about where she had gone or the fact that she was "broke" (at least not most of the time), but it was more like she became his imaginary friend. In his mind, she is still very much his dog even though he knows that she isn't coming back.
A lovely story - and what a great way to deal with a loss so that a child can understand. Children sometimes have more insight than they are given credit for. I still remember pets that simply disappeared without explanation when I was young and I think the lack of sensitivity for my attachment to them was wrong.
