I think this is only true in the sense that you can torture any action into being a selfish one if you are so philosophically inclined. It’s the same reasoning that claims people only volunteer at soup kitchens for the warm fuzzies and run into burning buildings to save babies because they’d be eaten up with guilt if they didn’t. It’s too cynical even for me.
What is behind your bizarre thought? Have you never seen anybody want to avoid suffering in which they have no direct share? Please say more. How did you get to this thought?
Dragging this back up because I’m wrestling with this decision, again.
drewtwo99, I can assure you that relieving MY suffering is not the focus of my decision to euthanize. I have multiple animals in my house and life, always have. I’ve lost many a furry friend to age and disease over the years, almost all of them have left this world with me and a veterinarian beside them, and I can tell you it shreds my heart every single damned time. Losing my friends leaves a giant hole in my life, and it hurts.
I will admit that it is a relief not to have to worry about them any more, and I mean that in the sense of making sure that I am reading their comfort level correctly, monitoring what goes in and out, wondering every day when I go home and every morning when I wake up what I’m going to find. FWIW, I felt this way when my dad died too, I knew he was safe and out of pain. I only wish I’d had euthanasia available to me for him, to end his pain when there was no hope left. But it doesn’t make their loss any easier, I can still get weepy thinking about them, and I miss them all.
Right now I have a 33 yo horse and a 10 yo German Shepherd who will be next to break my heart. The horse has few teeth left, is pretty well blind in one eye, is arthritic as all get-out, and has a bladder stone the size of a softball that makes him incontinent. He’s still eating (an unbelievable amount of $enior feed) still seems cheery enough, but he’s losing weight and I know his feet hurt. I think he’s going to his well earned rest this coming Friday. My dilemma is the GSD. He has spinal arthritis, and is losing control of his hind end. He can get himself up with great effort, But he gets his back feet tangled and if he moves too fast he falls. He has to wear booties because he drags his hind feet. He too eats and seems happy enough so long as he can follow me around, though he hurts despite his meds. It’s the follow me around part that’s so hard. He lives to be with his people, my husband and I. And its very rapidly getting to the point that he can’t, and he gets depressed when he’s left behind. I have to talk to my husband (who’s a physician, so his thoughts on euthanasia are convoluted) but I’m thinking of asking my horse vet to send Jack to his reward too, along with Archie.
It’s tearing my heart out trying to do the right thing. I will miss them terribly when they’re gone, and I’m an advocate of better too soon than too late, but… I’m signing their death warrant and I feel like a traitor.
Dammit, this sucks.
Let’s move this over to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
This last year, I watched a family hold onto a GSD long after he was able to rise and walk safely. From my perspective, it was horrible watching that family hold onto that dog for way too long. Yes, he was a friendly sort and had his moments of happiness, but he was always just a ‘wrong-step’ away from injuring himself and having to be put down in horrible pain. I actually have not been back to their house since because I find what they did to be terribly selfish.
I’ve dealt with horses and always gauged them by how well I thought they’d do in the up coming winter months. I’ve put down ‘healthy’ horses because I knew that in the up coming winter they would suffer terribly from their illnesses. I had a filly that had a condition that worsened as her size grew. She was ‘healthy’ when put down and I had to explain to the vet (new out of school) that the choice was to allow her to break a leg while running across the pasture (a near certainty because of her condition, she lost control of her legs and would go flying end-for-end at a full gallop) or put her down now, before she was injured.
Another senior I put down was weak in the hind end. He could manage in the summer, but had gotten much worse that year. So, my choice was to risk that he’d lay down in pasture in a storm and become stuck there at a time that I wouldn’t find him or couldn’t get equipment out into the field to help him stand or to put him down as a preventative measure.
It isn’t that I didn’t care about these animals, even writing about them now makes me tear up, it is that it was my responsibility to keep their best interest at heart. In my opinion, making an animal hit the bottom of pain and suffering before you let them go is not keeping their best interest at heart.
ETA: It sucks having to make such decisions and I wouldn’t want to be in your situation. I was just posting my experience and my thought processes, not trying to tell you what to do with your animals. I wish you the best of luck no matter what you choose to do.
I f these same animals were in nature they would not have lived near as long. Only the owner can guage when the proper time is. A large outside dog would have a different criteria than a small house do for instance. I won’t spend a lot of money on a dog with a chronic illness. I love my animals but have my own guidelines.
This. Further to the points made so movingly by saje and Enkel, I’ve known three elderly horses whose owners just couldn’t bear to let go of them and who kept them alive long after they’d become gaunt, shuffling, dead-eyed shells of their once vibrant selves. It was grievous and horrible to see, and in each case the owner refused to acknowledge his/her animal’s obvious suffering because the horse’s death would (and eventually, inescapably did) devastate them.
I’ve only had to put down one horse (so far; the two I have now are 20 and 22 years old, and the elder has founder issues, so…); seven years later, I still believe it was the right choice, made at the right time; and I still grieve.
saje - I have an English setter with spinal arthritis right now. He’s slower getting up and down, and will lose his balance in the back end if he’s bumped hard by one of the bigger, rammier young dogs. At this point he’s still happy to have the premier place in the dog bed next to my computer. He was adopted from the pound where they picked him up nearly starved to death and covered in ticks. He’s been happy to be a house dog since I adopted him, so not playing outside is no big deal to him, and he still gets up and comes outside with me when I feed the horses. Still, that decision is in my relatively near future.
One of my dogs is going in in two weeks for hip dysplasia surgery. He’ll be in pain, and for a 3 year old GSD not to be able to run will be torture. But I know that by doing the surgery now, while he’s still young, not in too much pain and little arthritic changes will help him have many good years to come. And he might not be happy immediately post-surgically, but he’ll get over it. It’s worth it to me to put him through some discomfort now to extend his happy healthy life later.
To me, that’s what it comes down to - my animals may not have a concept of the future, but they are entrusted to me to make the decisions for them. If they have a future, I’m going to do what it takes to make sure they get it.
StG