Hey all! This may be kind of a dumb post as I know I need to make this decision myself, but I‘d sure love some advice. My oldest dog is 11, going on 12. The poor girl is diabetic, blind, has fatty lipomas, and mobility issues due to diabetes, breed, and age. This morning, we are fairly sure she had a stroke of some sort (the vet agrees with this diagnosis so far, blood work and an X-ray are incoming). She eats but doesn’t really want to get up much, and is generally just resting most of the day. She still has a bit of sparkle in her eyes but she doesn’t really seem to have much energy left. The vet hasn’t mentioned it, but I‘m pretty sure it’s about time to say goodbye. The most important thing to my partner and I is that once she’s suffering, it’s time to let go. She just ate a nice full dinner but still doesn’t want to get up and do much. How long would you give her? Till she’s not eating? The vet hasn’t brought it up yet, so maybe I should be patient, but she’s been such a good friend, I don’t want her to suffer. I’m just at a loss, and this is the first time I‘ve had to do this horrible calculus.
You might want to ask your vet for advice rather than waiting for them to bring it up.
They’ll have a lot of experience and might be better able to contextualize her subjective experience of the symptoms.
This is 100% the right way to go about it. If you tell them you want to let her go at the right time, but want to give her the best, most comfortable life possible while you can, they’ll be able to help you plan for what you can do to make her happy.
The only advice I can give is that if you do need to put her down sometime, make sure you’re in the room, and comforting them until the end.
Yes to being in the room!!! The stories of the pets looking around for their best friend in their last moments breaks by heart.
Also, for those that don’t know, there’s in-home services for this so it doesn’t need to be in a strange place for them.
(And how fucked up that in most places we have that for our pets but not our sick loved ones.)