Why am I so drained carrying the animals AND the owners' grief?

You built this practice. You are good at it. And still, most days, you leave hollowed out — not from the surgery, not from the diagnosis, but from standing in the room while someone cries over an animal you tried to save. Look closer. You have quietly taken on a second job no one assigned you: feeling the owner's grief for them, as if your exhaustion proves your care. It does not. It only proves you have stopped telling the difference between two different things. One is yours: your hands, your judgment, the honesty you give the owner. The other is not yours: their sorrow, their decision, whether they can bear it. You were never asked to carry both. You started doing it anyway, and now you call the weight normal.