MY thoughts this week are difficult to explain.

Experienced though I am, I feel I might struggle to put them adequately into words.

It seems hard to properly do them justice; to actually articulate how I feel and why. But here goes.

It all began with an elderly patient who had become weary, too weary. She wasn't so much unwell, ill, or sick, rather just run down by the stress and strains of life. All those Munros she had bagged, all the walks to and from school, the cumulative effect of runs on the beach, the mad morning dashes up the stairs to greet sleepy children, as they stumbled from their beds, had slowly but inexorably taken their toll on her. She just wasn't the dog she used to be.

Her old joints were stiff, sore and fibrosed. Her hips creaked, and her knees groaned, and she sighed when she tried to get up. Her elbows, constantly pounded by a lifetime of Labrador running, were crumbling.

Painkillers, administered daily, had helped for a long time but they had become ineffective. There isn't really a technical veterinary term for all this. She was just done. She had lived her life to the full quite magnificently but now her body was broken beyond repair.

Putting her to sleep, wrapped in the warmth and tears of her human family, was heart breaking but also a relief. She won't ever be forgotten.

Reeling from the awful emotion of it all, I stumbled to the next consulting room, finding, with some relief, that my next patient was a three week, old, cute, cuddly puppy. As I picked her up, she reflexly snuggled in, safe and secure in my arms. But it was not good. Her owner had noticed she frequently regurgitated her food and was starting to lag behind her litter mates. Now she was coughing and her respiratory rate was increased.

The wee soul lay flat and still on the table for the second it requires to take an X-Ray and this confirmed she had a condition called megaoesophagus. Essentially the tube that runs from the mouth to the stomach is dilated, ballooned and ineffective. Food fails to reach the stomach and is then brought back up. Eventually, inevitably, she had inhaled some, causing pneumonia. Some dogs, if held upright for minutes after they have been fed, can cope with the condition if it is mild but this little one had it bad and life was not tenable.

And so, before her life had ever really begun, she was put to sleep to avoid any further suffering. And I was left wondering what it was all about.

Grieving on one hand for a life lost but well lived. For a dog who will stay in the hearts of her family forever. Forlorn on the other because of thoughts of what might have been. Of the dog the puppy might have turned out to be. And the family she never had. The life she never got. She will not be forgotten either.