My Sweetie is 16 and the time is coming soon. I’ve done this Quality of Life Scale for Pets online calculator a couple of times over the past few weeks. On a scale of 8 to 80, I get 46.
Here she is in better times.
What’s going on:
AM and PM, she’s on 100 mg Carprovet, 100 mg gabapentin, 50 mg tramadol. She does not appear to be in pain. Her breathing is regular, but she may pant for a while sometimes. She does seem a little out of it, but she still comes looking for me, and knows her name. She has never been a cuddly dog, and it doesn’t seem to me that my sitting with her and petting her brings her any comfort. When I talk to her (and I make a huge fuss over her when she comes to me), she wags her tail. When we go for a walk she stops and sniffs for long periods of time deep in the neighborhood lawns–very engaged with the scents. Not looking for Cat Poop Snacks as much as she used to (thank goodness). Her walking outside is good. She gets good traction on grass.
She can still get up to her feet in the house on her own 90% of the time. She can’t get traction on my hardwood floors, so currently the house is wall-to-wall with carpets and yoga mats. If she lies down (or falls) on a spot that’s not covered by a mat, I have to help her, but she assists and gets up readily. She’s long-legged and weighs about 44 lbs. Her walking is sometimes shaky, but other times, she moves right along, especially outside.
As soon as she gets out of bed in the morning, she heads straight for the kitchen to see her food that I’ve (usually) already put in her bowl. She gave up eating dry food a few months ago. I feed her a variety of high quality stuff, good dog food, plus beef, rotisserie chicken, hard cooked eggs, cottage cheese. She is still eating a pretty good amount (about 7-10 oz. total), but it might take her all day to eat it. She eats most of her food in the evening, even late at night.
She has not been incontinent in the house except for a couple of occasions when she fell and (I think) had an accident due to her distress. I leave my back door standing open in the daytime so my cats can go in and out, and she readily takes herself out when she needs to go. Some days she wants to go for a walk, but other days shows no interest or actually turns around and goes back in the house after I put the leash and harness on her. The next door neighbor has four yappy dogs in their yard, and when they’re all outside yapping, Sweetie doesn’t like to walk past them.
She sleeps a lot. Some mornings she doesn’t get out of her dog bed until 9 or 10 am (when she does that, I sing her the nursery rhyme “A Diller, a Dollar”), and sometimes she gets up at 6 am with me. The other day, I got up and 6 and she was already in the living room waiting for me.
She has a hard time getting settled at night. She’ll get in her bed and lie there for a few minutes and then get up and walk a few steps away then come back to bed. She will cycle through this maybe five or six times over 30-40 mins until she settles for the night. She may get up a couple of times during the night (don’t we all?). I need to be alert in case she wants to go outside, but usually she takes a few steps in the hall and then gets back in bed. As a result of this routine, my sleep is utter crap. I don’t mind, because I know it’s temporary. 
About 10 days ago she started losing big clumps of fur from her flank area. I had been giving her Dreamcoat (omega-3s) but stopped during a period when she was eating a can of sardines or mackerel every day. She has given up on the fish, so I ordered another bottle of Dreamcoat and will put her back on that. I texted a picture of her fur loss to the veterinarian, but she didn’t have much to say about it. She thought starting her back on Dreamcoat was a good idea.
I’ve told the vet I don’t plan to take any extraordinary measures to prolong her life, and for that reason I really don’t want to take her to the animal hospital because just getting her in the car is so stressful for both of us. Anyway, they have tile floors and she cannot stand up on slippery surfaces. I don’t think there’s anything they can tell me that would be useful. Alas, the next time I put her in the car will be the last time. I just want what time she has left to be as comfortable and pleasant as it can be.
I hope I know when it’s time. She’s only the third dog I will have had to make that decision about. I’ve had to do it with quite a few cats, and I have been guilty of waiting too long with some of them. Over 20 years ago, I had a cat that was quickly declining, and I told my mother about the situation. My mother was NOT an animal lover and was also not a very sensitive person TBH, but on that occasion she said something wise, “Are you keeping the cat alive for her or for you?” That clarified the issue with the cat and I took her in soon after. I ask myself that question about Sweetie, but I don’t think I’m keeping her alive for me.
If I did decide that tomorrow or the next day was to be her last day, that not would be wrong. At this point, it could be any time. But she is still engaged with this life, to some extent. I don’t want to wait too long, but I don’t want to rush her either. She does not seem to be suffering, although she’s not having much fun. She has never been a playful, happy-go-lucky dog. She was dumped out in the country where I lived and was fully grown when she joined the household in 2007. My ex-boyfriend (the one who died a couple of weeks ago – see my other thread) gave her the name Sweetie, because she is truly the sweetest dog in the world. Having to deal with her impending death in close proximity to his death compounds my sad feelings about the troubled relationship with him.
I know others here have gone through this, too. I’d be interested in your comments even though I know they will make me cry.
If you’ve gotten this far, thanks for reading. I didn’t want it to be this long, but I didn’t know what to leave out.
The following paragraph is from my Feb 2017 thread when I had to take in Sweetie’s companion and pal, Buddy. Looking back, Sweetie isn’t even close to being as bad off as The Budster was. I think I may have let Buddy go on too long … 
(There are two pictures. Click for second one.)