How/when/why Did You Make The Decision?

[KitKat]

Just asking to satisfy my own curiosity...

When people have had to make the desicion...how did they do it?

[MolassesLass]

Other - Yet to be faced with the decision yet.

[katetk]

I am yet to be faced with the decision.

However, i am trying to explain to my mother that our lab, who is OLD like 14-15, needs to be put to sleep. She wont have a bar of it, says he is fine etc he is happy etc etc. When i go over there and see this dog can barely walk, doesn't know where he is, not sure if he can see properly anymore - how can he be happy?!

[persephone]

;) being on a property..with quite a few dogs at any time ..we have this decision every so often.

I have also had to PTS two of my own dogs in the last 7 yrs. The decision, for me ,is always when the dog can't comfortably do what it needs to.

Some of our oldies are both blind and deaf..but manage fine Others have had strokes or other "catasrophes" which drastically reduce ability. These are PTS fairly promptly.

Currently we have one oldie with large inoperable tumours. At 14, she's still active,eating & happy..she'll tell us "when" ;)

It is never an easy decision..........even when I worked at a Vets'..there was always a horrible atmosphere when we had to send a dog over the bridge..even if they were ready to go.

[McGuinessMagee]

We had struggled with China's behavioural probs for nearly her whole life, having a behaviouralist working with her, training her in some way every day, spending time with her and rather than get better she actually became worse, eventually biting my father with no forewarning and drawing blood.

We decided at that point (when she wouldn't even give a warning) that we couldn't afford to chance her doing that to a child, and so we had her put down.

She was 4.5years old and the first dog I'd ever had to have put down. ;)

Kylie

[persephone]

;) Kylie...

that particular scenario is very traumatic..I feel for you.

Putting dogs down because of temperamental problems is a hard hard thing, and I know how you felt about your gorgeous girl

[cowanbree]

I have just had to make the decision for my 17 year old best friend Brody last week and he asked to go, the spark that was him wasn't there anymore and quite simply he didn't want to be here. Everyone has always said you will know by the look in their eyes and I now firmly believe that.

[McGuinessMagee]

Persephone, it was probably up there with one of the hardest decisions ever, made so much harder because she was so happy around us (even going to be PTS), and extremely healthy. ;)

It took me a good six months before I was even ready to think about another pup, and then Patrick has just fit in so well, and is so good with strangers and other dogs that it almost makes me cry thinking on how different they are.

Kylie

[LouiseBrooks]

I do not wait till they are in agony.

I do what I hope will be done for me, still feel quite good but the quality is going and there is no hope.

It is hard but it is done with love and much tears.

I give them a special day with their favourite treats my vet will come over and they get kissed and cuddled till it is done. ;)

Hope I do not have to do this again for a long time .

[Melisski]

Rocky had become so sick that he stopped eating (this was a GR/Lab cross - and they NEVER stop eating). The cancer had spread to his stomach and formed tumours that were inoperable across many of his internal organs, and it was either have him PTS or watch him starve to death infront of me.

I made the decision based on what I would want someone to do for me if I was in the same situation. But that doesn't make it any easier when I think of how he looked at me as I went in to hold him and the vet gave him the needle...

;)

[chicko]

;) Gee these posts really pull at your heart strings.

My 17 year old cavalier king charles had been deteriating (sp) over the last year..he become very badly blind and his eyes got worse with dry eye..he became deaf and his heart murmor became even worse. He was finding it very difficult in the cold weather and the warm..it was so hard to watch him go down hill..you couldnt love him anymore because he got so frightened when ever you touched him..he sort of freaked out when u did.

It was the hardest thing to let my mum take him to the vet but i know in my heart it had to be done.

[BittyMooPeeb]

Oh no. It was such a shock to have to do this the first time (PTS). I thought my lovely Jazz would slip away quietly but was naive - so I made the decision later than I should have. Then with his brother Jonesy, I didnt want to repeat my past mistake so maybe made the decision a few days too early Both had cancer. Jazz's cancer left him paralyzed and his tumour was huge, but I took a couple of weeks off work to care for him and hope for a miracle before I could come to terms with the fact that he was going to go, no matter what. I still get a feeling like being punched in the stomach when I think about making those decisions. And wet eyes too ;)

[KitKat]

I'm looking down the barrel of this decision...as in the next 2-3 years at least i should hope but...the thought started and now every so often i wonder when and how i'd be able or willing to make the decision and let go

[Shaela]

I thought that I would be faced with that decision after Ramie's cancer had spread. My intent was to have him PTS when his quality of life was no longer what it should be, and I dreaded that day. In the end he spared me that though - happy and spunky till the end, he waited for his family to come home, then slipped away in my arms.

It was so quick, there was no way I could have gotten him to a vet in time. Ramie had saved my life twice in the 8 years he was with me, and he did this for me too.

RIP my angel Ramie

Shaela

[picaflor]

My girl Mucha (the only one I have had to make the choice for) was at the vet for the better part of two weeks before we had no choice but PTS.

First weeks she had surgery which was deemed successful - in that time we had considered that she may be in too much pain and we might have to PTS. But when she came home she was soooo happy! She was in a little pain/discomfort (with meds) but she was very happy to be home

Then the surgery failed... the vets tried to do what they could and we let them because of the way she had acted at home - but they couldn't do anything more...

OH has had two PTS - one with advanced dementia. When I met her she had moments of lucidity but these became more and more infrequent...

The other became severely ill which after a few weeks of treatment for another condition that she had had, turned out to be a very agressive cancer (probably actually caused by that previous illness) She was going downhill very fast (she put on two kilos - assumed to be the cancer - in less than three weeks.

In the last days she couldn't hold any food down because it was so large and invasive in her stomach - Food was Naras reason for living (as much as she loved people, they came a far second ) and so that was "the time".

This thread is going to be heavy! ;)

[KitKat]

This thread is going to be heavy!

It could very well be...but i think it will be useful for those currently making the decision and those that know they'll have to think about it in the near and not so near future. A sharing of experiances as it were...