My senior dog was put to sleep. How do I cope with the guilt?

I am sorry to hear of your loss, it is a very difficult time to lose a pet as even as time passes, memories are brought back by many triggers. I would also have agreed that euthanasia was a valid and kindest option given the symptoms of such severe weight loss of more than a quarter of his body weight, bleeding into the bowel and likely the chest given the pink fluid and black stool and the failure to respond adequately to steroids. Please do not feel guilty for allowing him to go with some dignity, quality of life has to be much more important than quantity for our pets and often allowing them to go is the bravest and kindest treatment we can offer in debilitating conditions

Please don't beat yourself up over this! Based on what you are saying, Beaux's quality of life was poor, and you made the right choice. You put his interests ahead of yours, and that was a great gift to give him. You let him go without any further suffering, which is a very hard thing to do. Do not question your decision, it was the correct one. I'm sorry you had to make this choice, it's so hard.

She really does need some investigation into what is going on. If toxins can be ruled out and there hasn't been a traumatic injury to the head it is most likely going to be a central nervous system lesion. Unfortunately this is normally a brain tumour or similar. Epilepsy is still a possibility but rarely occurs in older dogs. I would recommend seeing your vet as soon as possible so they can start with some blood tests and take their investigations from there. Fingers crossed for you.

This is always such a difficult decision to make, and it is very normal to have second thoughts when you have to decide quickly about proceeding with invasive procedures vs. euthanasia in an older dog. While it's impossible to know for certain, I have seen many dogs during my career who have had splenectomy surgery and either have extensive metastatic cancer found during the surgery, or succumb to the disease a couple of months afterwards. I honestly don't know if I would go forward with surgery for my own 12 year old dog in a similar situation. There are many pet loss support groups that can be very helpful: this website lists a few that may be near you https://aplb.org/support/groups/michigan.html

That's tough - and it's so thoughtful of you to be thinking about how to help your husband through what will be a difficult loss when the time comes! There are a couple things I encourage people to do when we know their pet is slowing down, or nearing the end. The first is to write a list of all the was their pet has always shown them that it has a good quality of life or is happy. Things like greeting you at the door, eating her food, eating treats, playing with toys, wanting to go for walks....whatever comes to mind. By having this list, we can watch for when those things start to disappear from Lani's life, which will be her way of telling us she's no longer happy or has a good quality of life. The second thing is to keep a little journal of how she's doing. It doesn't have to be extensive, it could just be a few words at the end of the day. "good day", or "went for a nice walk", or "vomited her breakfast", or "seemed extra tired", ....whatever seems noteworthy. We tend to grasp onto the really good and really bad days, and keeping this journal helps us watch for a pattern - when the pet is declining, and when the "bad" days outnumber the "good". Now, these are the things I normally tell people when they're struggling with *when* it's time to say goodbye. I don't know if I entirely answered your question - but I think it may help your husband to feel like he's an active part of thinking about Lani's quality of life, and realizing that letting go of her will be an act of love on his part, when she is no longer enjoying life. I truly believe that euthanasia can be an act of love - we have the ability to end suffering, and provide a peaceful, painless passing when we can see that our animals are suffering and we can't fix it. I hope this helps.

Thank you for using PetCoach. I'm so sorry for your situation with Brooklyn. Euthanasia for our pets is one of the greatest gifts for our pets, and greatest burden on us as owners and veterinarians. Consulting with Brooklyn's vet may help you to know when to make the decision. Using a quality of life scale can also help to make a more objective decision. This allows you to assign a numerical value to Brooklyn's activities and symptoms in order to determine his quality of life. I have used this one: http://lapoflove.com/Pet_Quality_of_Life_Scale_DrMcVety.pdf Another thing you can do is to have 2 jars - for every good moment put a penny in one and for bad moments put one in the other jar. If bad moments approach or overcome good moments then it is time to consider euthanasia. I hope this has helped a little bit with your decision making. Please feel free to post again if you have further questions.

I am terribly sorry to hear about your loss, I can only imagine how heartbroken you are. I advise to neuter pets all the time, and it is the right decision to take because it saves them a lot of suffering as they get older. Don't blame it on yourself, you just chose the best for him and he knows it. Dogs are very very special and they sense everything, he knows he was very loved and that's why you all miss him so much. The pain will not go away, will change over the course of time. In my case spending time outside, walking, embracing my family helped me gradually feel better, which felt impossible in the beginning. I know it feels impossible now, but give yourself time. Sending you love from the other side of the world.