I have two little dogs in my backyard pet cemetery. The first was Drake, a jaunty little Schipperke that my daughter took from his owner back in 2011; an absolute nightmare of a dog until she patiently trained him to the point where he was a delight to have around. Alas, being a Schipperke, he got distracted one day and went out into the street without looking. My daughter had become very attached to him, and since she was renting at the time we offered to bury his remains in our back yard.
The second was my little Boo-Boo, a half-sheltie, half golden lab mix, with the best qualities of the Sheltie breed and none of the questionable ones. Gentle as a kitten and smarter than a whip; the only dog I've ever seen who could get himself unwound from a pole by going repeatedly in the opposite direction. Late in 2011 we discovered he had a tumor on his spleen, and thought we would have to put him to sleep, but my wife would have none of it, and nursed him back to health. He lived another year in very good spirits and good condition. When the end came he laid down and wouldn't get up; I carried him to his favorite place in the bedroom and he died an hour later.
I'm not overly sentimental about animals, but I can tell you that we had real funerals for those dogs; we all chipped in to dig the little graves, and words were spoken through real tears and genuine sobs. Yes, they're only animals, but they do us so much good by softening the worst parts of our nature. In a sense they are to us what we are to Almighty God.
Such a difficult thing to do and it never gets easier. 