When we lost Patch in April last yr,it was middle of the night and he was fine except normally he'd have wanted to go out for five mins and he snuggled on the floor near where i slept,myself and Ross were awoken shortly after by an awful sounding cry from him and we knew something was badly wrong,he tried to stand and his back legs went. We stroked him and talked to him but we both knew he wouldn't be coming back from this as we suspected he'd had a stroke,Patch was one of our first lads and Noodles best mate and sounds daft but he was a lot like Ross but in fur,our whole family were devastated,it was the end of an era that none of us expected,holding him whilst he took his last breath was one of the hardest things to do but was one of the last show of love we could do for him,you never get over any loss of this nature but you do with time learn to live with them because you have to and for me all our furbabies are only ever borrowed to us be it for a short time or for yrs to come and always to remind us of the goodness in the bigger picture if that makes sense