One of my friends has a very old dog. He’s slowly going down hill and is beginning to find himself less and less comfortable.
She is worrying about how will she know when it’s time. Of course there are her other concerns. The holidays are coming up and there are all these social things that she wants to participate in and have fun at. She doesn’t want to go to a holiday party fresh from the veterinarian. Then when people ask what she did or how her dog is, guess what the answer gets to be.
She wants to do the best thing for her dog. She’s worried she’ll miss a clue. She’s worried that he’s trying to say something that maybe she won’t know.
In all my years as a veterinary receptionist no one ever said they choose the wrong time. People second guess themselves about a lot of things (should we have done that surgery? Why did we put them through this and this when they only had this short time left…) but rarely do they second guess themselves about the choice of euthanasia. I have wondered once in my life when a cat’s quality of life and my own collided. This cat was in kidney failure but was still pretty happy. However he had no bladder control and whenever he would jump he would pee all over everything. And he loved to jump And while he wasn’t allowed on the kitchen counters he jumped there a lot. And near my food. How many dinners did I get to toss? Sigh.
Sometimes I wonder if I euthanized him too soon. But I know that he didn’t have that much longer and there was no hope.
I worry that I am waiting too long for my Georgia. But she is so content to just snooze all the time. She isn’t uncomfortable from anything that I can gather.
It’s always a tough decision. I think it is far harder on us than on our pets. Here we are grieving and they haven’t even left us. Here we are thinking always of their demise and they are still here and unconcerned. They understand in some way that death happens and it doesn’t matter exactly when if you have lived fully. We need to understand that so long as they go out with love it’s a good way to go.
Recent Comments