So sorry to hear of the loss of 4 legged furbabies. I too have been down that road-we lost 2 Beagles last year. Last July I lost my good ol' bud Sir George, it was getting hard for him to go up and down the stairs and he would whimper in pain while he slept. Ma Dutch and meownself decided to have George put to sleep, while she was making the call to the Vet I sat on the floor with George's big ol' head in my lap scratching his neck under the collar which is always enjoyed. George's lifelong companion Lady Roxie was laying right next to him. About a half hour after Ma finished talking to the Vet, George lifted up his head, let out a couple barks and layed his head back in my lap and was gone. Two months later we lost Lady Roxie; we had taken her to the Vets a week before and he had given her a clean bill of health and was surprised that she was 14 years old. Roxie passed in her sleep, it must of been quiet cuz Ma didn't hear a sound out of her. Ma woke me when she got up to go to work to let me know that Roxie was gone.
We still have our other Beagle Kobie, he's a Rescue pup and was about 2 when we adopted him. He's about 9 now. We have a Welsh Pembroke Corgi Mollie that turned 4 in May. She had a bad habit of chasing her former owner's chickens to the point that they would drop from exhaustion. Mollie couldn't learn the difference between "herding" and "chasing".