I just read this thread. It was incredibly sad. It is a horrible thing to go through.
I didn’t want to say anything there to make what the poster is going through harder but I wonder about why we put pets to sleep.
I honestly believe we put them down to for our benefit. We don’t like to see suffering. It makes us feel uncomfortable. So we have a suffering pet dispatched to save us from watching them die.
Is it to be kind though? We don’t do it for our family and loved ones. There are few places where it is legal to “put down” a suffering person. Many of us consider our pets members of our family, we love them, care for them and want only the best for them. Why is it ok to speed up their deaths when it isn’t acceptable to do the same for a human family member?
When Grandma is in serious pain in hospital and obviously dying, we hold her hand and talk about the good times and hug her and tell her how loved she is. When Rover is in pain and obviously dying we take him to the vets to be dispatched.
There is something wrong with this. Do we not love Grandma as much as Rover? Or do we love Rover more? Animals die everyday in pain…so do people. I think we put pets down because we have control over their lives and it makes us uncomfortable to see pain.
In my family there is a 17 yr old cat. Thankfully she’s still going strong (though her “baby” died last year, in her sleep) but when her time comes I want her to be home not on some sterile table. Why add fear to the pain in order to spare me seeing her in pain.
I can’t (and probably wouldn’t if I could) “put down” any human member of my family so I am not going to do it for an animal member of the family. I watched my nana die of emphysemia (sp?) 2 years ago. It was painful to see her in pain…but we loved her to the last moment.
I also sat in a cage (at the vets) with my best german shepard friend while she died. She was in pain, you could see it in her eyes but she also died the same way nana did. Under her own steam with someone holding her and telling that she was loved.
I may be cruel but I don’t believe that the animals in my family should be dispatched because their pain makes me hurt. I don’t believe pets should be the only things on earth offered a pain free death. Just a death any of us can hope for, a death where our loved ones are close.
I’m in the camp that we often treat the animals better than we treat humans. I’ve had two beloved pets put down in the last year. Both, I held them and stroked them as they died. It was horrible horrible horrible, but I truly feel I did the right thing.
Animals don’t understand medical treatments or procedures. They may not understand that the painful surgery and horrible recuperation to have tumour removed, to extend their lives by a couple of months, is not just torture.
I absolutely agree with both these statements. But if their pain makes me hurt, then no doubt it’s making them hurt as well. With one of my pets, I dreaded taking her in to be euthanized, but I felt that putting it off to save me the pain was being selfish.
Nor do I believe that pets should be the only ones with a pain-free death, but rather than denying it to them, I’d rather see it made available to others as well. Why can’t I choose a quick painless death to an excruciating long-term demise. Shouldn’t that be my choice?
Not everyone gets to die what is known as a ‘good death.’
It is wonderful to be with a pet or a human relative at their final moments.
It is the weeks, months years up to the final moments that can be hellish.
My boss watched her mom suffer for three years before she died. Her mother, who was in her 90’s, had a lot of pain and could neither walk nor see very well.
She wanted to die. She couldn’t. At the same time, my boss had an ancient golden retriever who was in much the same shape as my boss’ mother. The golden did not linger for 3 years.
I definitely understand and respect what you are saying, calm kiwi. There was, for me, an element of selfishness when I put my old guy, a 10 and a half year old mastiff, to sleep last spring. I held his huge head in my lap. He was not afraid.
This dog had so much heart, but not the body to go with it.
He could no longer get up.
He weighed 180 lbs. We had arranged the household as best we could to make things easier for him the final year, but I was his main caretaker (he had 60 lbs on me) and it had become impossible.
I have an 18 year old cat, she is living with kidney failure, relatively okay at present but won’t be forever. I am praying that she will be able to just die in her sleep without suffering. We shall see.
Yes, animals and people die every day in pain.
Some animals and people go to sleep hungry every night–until they die. I don’t think this makes it okay.
If there is a final illness, whether for human or animal, there is more than just caretaking to consider, there is also cost, treatment, side effects (my mastiff almost died from his medication!) quality of life. I don’t think the pets are thinking about how long they can last. They pretty much live for the moment.
Do we love Grandma or Rover more? Well, I can’t see it in black and white.
Not everyone will have an easy death. Some will. Others will make sure they do.
I have this feeling that we still all die alone, despite being either medicated or euthanized or having loved ones near.
But I have not been there yet so I just don’t know for sure.
I would point out that oftentimes grandma can tell whether or not she would like to be “put down” and could decide by herself, if it were legal. Which is a very significant difference.
I must say that, in the light of this, I was a little upset by the way the OP was expressed. I assume that it wasn’t what the OP thought or meant, but it sounded a little like it would be up to us to show mercy or not and to decide about grandma’s fate.
My vet told me this as well, that animals can’t understand pain when it doesn’t seem to have an obvious cause, and that often euthanasia is a final act of kindness and care for our pets.
She went on to talk about the lack of a similar option for humans. She had a beloved uncle (IIRC), whose last days were spent hooked up to machines, sometimes conscious but unable to communicate - I think he had a feeding/breathing tube down his throat. He was kept strapped down to the hospital bed because he’d tried to end his own life by pulling the plug on himself.
Back to the animal end of things, my inlaws kept a dog alive for so long that their children complained to them about how cruel it was. The whole house smelled like “sick dog,” the dog literally dragged himself around at times. It was horrible.
I’ve had to euthanize a few ferrets I’ve owned. Each time, I compared their situation to what it would be like for myself or a loved one to have the same ailment, and I couldn’t see having to suffer needlessly like that. In a couple cases, something could have been done, but it would - at best - have extended life by a couple months, and it wouldn’t necessarily have been a decent state of health even then.
In a way it was exactly what I meant. I feel we soothe our own feelings when we put a pet down. I also believe that as a society we take away the choice for pain free death from people.
Our dog, who three weeks ago I was sure was Time To Put Her Down because of a sudden onset of arthritis in her portly 9 year old body and I would have to take her for the last car ride. She is much better now that I have figured out that she cannot wrestle with her 100+ lbs boyfriend next door, a lab/st.bernard mix and to keep her from going to lay down in the basement next to me when I am on the computer down there. Its too cold for her joints.
Having witnessed first hand the lingering illnesses of the human condition that take forever for the patient to die, I vowed I would not keep my pet(s) alive when they no longer had a productive meaningful life.
The problem I have encountered is mine and mine alone. I cannot bring myself to take her into the Vet or Shelter for the shot. Its too clinical. Too sterile.
My Murphy deserves to be surrounded by family ( well, not the kids, no sense in traumatizing them) as she crosses into her next life. She has given me so much pleasure and love for nine years. And hairy tumbleweeds that float across my kitchen floors. She’s warmed my feet in the winter, is my pregnancy pillow for two pregnancies, foretells thunderstorms/ hunting season/ 4th of July fireworks and has eaten nearly everything we have shoved off on her. Patiently she sits there with baleful eyes as the kids read stories too her. ( I think she thinks the stories are beneath her. Maybe she likes Shakespeare.) She has never been sick, never bit anyone, growled only as a threat and announced the arrival of the UPS man, where she jumps into his truck to go for a ride. Every time. She derserves more than a cold setting to go to the next world.
I’ve been thinking that vets could make more money, get more clientele and humanize the final days of Poochy by going to the dogs house in a larger van of some sort and euthanize them there ( if the family cannot handle Poochy dying inside the home) or at home somewhere. Maybe even have a couple of high school boys agree to dig a hole for burial while the goodbyes are being said. That way, eveyrthing could be done on a pre arranged date ( as morbid as that sounds) but in a familiar and loving setting.
For that, I would pay mula for. Like $200. It would be worth it.
By taking these animals into our homes, by genetically engineering them and their food, by extending their lives through nutrition, care, and medical procedures, we have taken on the responsibility to expediently end their lives when they reach a point where the quality of life is, essentially, non-existent. In other words, the majority of these animals- had they existed in the wild- would have been taken care of by predators long before they got to the age/medical state where their quality of life would become a question. We have to take on the role of the predator and the role of the loving pet owner who makes the final choice for our charge. It is the last, best thing we do for them. Not because their pain hurts us (though it does) and not because it’s “easier” for us, but because it is our responsibility when they are in irreversible, untreatable pain.
Are you actually implying that you would allow an animal to suffer- let’s say an animal that’s been hit by a car, with a broken back and significant internal injuries that surgery won’t help but who could probably exist for a few days/weeks in excruciating agony- because you think nature should just take its course? You realise that it’s exactly that kind of attitude that keeps us from having nation-wide “right to die” laws, and set up situations like what ferretherder describes. Imagine for a moment spending your last days tied to a bed because you tried to end your suffering, but those around you refused to allow you that final choice. Now imagine being a pet, who is incapable of understanding why you’re in pain/suffering, and equally incapable of doing anything about it. You rely on the person who has cared for you, supplied all your needs, to help you. You’re going to deny them that? Is that what a good pet owner does?
And just a comment on this:
No. We “dispatch” them to save them needless pain and suffering. I have yet to meet a pet owner who chose euthanasia who did not stay in the room with their animal to the very end, thus meeting your criteria of “watching (the pet) die.”
And I’m all for euthanasia for people. I think it’s pathetic that the medical establishment robs people of their dignity and right to choose how/when they go out. But I disagree with your premise- I think we don’t allow people the same dignity we allow pets because we still have these completely whacked ideas about how euthanasia=suicide, and we can’t allow people to commit suicide- what would god think?
My former vet does exactly those housecalls. When I lived with my boss and his wife, the vet came out and euthanised their elderly dog in their bedroom. When I went in later to say my own goodbyes, she was curled up in her dog bed, right beside the “people bed” like she always was, and the other animals in the house were piled around her. It was an incredibly peaceful scene. IIRC, he charged for his mileage- $25. There was a “deal” (if you can call it that) where he’d euthanise the pet in the home, then take it back to the office with him for cremation/disposal if the owner was unable to. Again, just the mileage (plus the outside company’s cost for the cremation).
I agree that it’s horrible we can’t euthanize humans who are suffering horribly. But it’s not Fluffy’s fault Granny has to die a slow, lingering, agonizing death, so why should she have to suffer because of it? That’s just punishing the animal for something they have zero control over.
My girls are not going to suffer needlessly. Not while there is breath in my body. If and when the time comes, I’m going to be with them, holding them close, rubbing their ears, and telling them how much they’re loved…while I hold off the vein for the injection. What would be the point of letting them hurt when I can help them? It’s not going to alleviate anyone else’s suffering. It’s not going to change the laws about human euthanasia or assisted suicide. It wouldn’t accomplish anything but to cause someone I love pain, and I can’t see any good reason to deliberately hurt somebody I love.
