Lady Forge,
I feel for you. I had to put my dog down in June. It was a very hard time. He was with us for 12 years. He was doing great up until March. He started limping and we thought he just hurt himself outside. We took him to the vet and the vet said he had cancer. From then on he just got worse. It finally came to the point that I got tired of seeing him suffer and told my family that it was for the best. It took some talking to get my youngest son to agree with us. Shortly after we put him down we left for vacation to try and clear our minds. I didn't work, when we got back we got a new boxer pup. Not to replace him, but to fill that one thing missing.