Vets use different methods to help you say goodbye to your pet

PALM BEACH, Fla. - Eight-year-old Roxy and two-year-old Zoey look are quite the pair.  They are inseparable, but at one time there was another dog in this family.

"He was the cutest thing ever. He had a blue eye and a brown eye and he was spotted gray and white,"  said Joyce McLeary, the owner of the pets.

Boomer was a 75 pound Welsh cardigan corgi.
                
"Boomer had been sick for about, a little over a year."

He became a member of the McLeary family more than 13 years ago, but right before this past Christmas his sickness took over. "In about the last month, he could barely get up to go outside."

So the family made the tough decision to put him down.
                
"We were all here, we gathered around, we said a prayer, we made him as comfortable as we could,” she said. “We gave him his favorite treats."

Joyce and her family didn't take Boomer to the vet when it was time. They did what many families are doing these days, they had the vet come to their home.

"I think a lot of people associate the vet hospital with bad stuff, like we're always doing bad stuff, so at the end they don't want to bring them here because they want them to be as comfortable and happy as can be," said Dr. Mary Ellen Scully, of Island Animal Hospital.

She says more families are asking to put their pets to sleep outside of the traditional vet's office.

She says she'll go almost anywhere to make a pet feel calm and comfortable in its last moments; she's gone to the beach, the park, anywhere less intimidating than a vet’s office.
 
"Wherever people feel like that's going to give them that closure with that pet,” said Scully.

Closure is exactly what the McLeary family got, while Boomer stayed close to his best friends.

"It was just very peaceful, wasn't hurried, it was very relaxed, the dogs were right there, they were laying on the bed together," said Joyce McLeary.