I’m really happy that you posted this thread, CrazyCatLady. I broached this subject with my bf last night. He’s got a dog who’s 9 years old and is really started to wear down. She’s a very active dog that doesn’t know when to take a rest. So, the older she’s gotten, he’s had to monitor her playtime even more. She’s got a couple more great years in her though, but we know they’re going to end sooner than we expect. 
I was relieved to hear from him that he loves his dog, but quality of life has to be at the top of the list. We talked about how we should handle it if we’re ever in a situation like the couple in the OP. We both decided that we’ll do what’s best for the dog and not for us.
::sigh::
It wasn’t a fun conversation, but it hopefully will make that time a bit easier.
BRAVO to the people who are saying discuss about this eventuality before the pet is ill. What a wise thing to do.
After reading this thread, I am a total mess. I have a seven year old dog myself, and I’ve noticed that she isn’t as spry as she used to be. So this thread is kinda freaking me out. Luckily I have the kleenex with the lotion.
I honestly don’t know how I would react to a situation like this. On the one hand, it would be damn near impossible to say OK to putting her down. On the other, I hate to see her suffer even the tiniest bit. I do understand the problem presented to owners who don’t have money though: Put your pet to sleep and pay us for it, or don’t and we’ll call the SPCA" is an ultimatum if I ever heard one. If I was in that position I’d be WAY pissed off. Of course, if I was in that position I’d probably not want her to suffer anymore, but I think you get my point.
I hope my S.O. would have the ability to talk me into putting her down if I was too hysterical to know better myself. :’(
makes mental note to hug doggie extra hard today
This attitude just kills me (heh). How much can a freaking overdose of anesthetic cost?
I’m pissed off all over again about something I nearly witnessed at my vet’s office. I stopped in to pick up some meds, and several people were waiting while the vet and his wife were wiping down the exam room. Apparently some waste of skin had brought in a dog that was bleeding profusely through its nose and mouth. It needed emergency care, more than the vet could give, and he told the man that the dog needed to go to the nearest emergency vet hospital, about 40 miles away. Well, he wasn’t going to bother with that and spend all that money. The vet told him the dog wouldn’t live without treatment, and offered to put the dog down. Nope, not gonna bother with that either. He just took the dog back out and left.
WELL THEN WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU BRING HIM IN FOR??? :mad: :mad: :mad:
Poor doggie. I was near tears as I left the vet’s office. All the rest of that day I sent up a fervent wish that he at least went quickly, and that he had been better loved. And when I got home, I gave out extra doggie hugs all around.
You must have missed this part of the post:
They had the option of surrendering it (the animal), in which case the SPCA would have done the deed for free.
As to the OP, my husband and I will not ever be in this situation, because this is one of the many things we see eye-to-eye on. However, given a different hypothetical circumstance, yes, I would override him if I couldn’t talk some sense into him. Hopefully, once he was clear-headed again, I would make my apologies and he would understand. If he’s just a selfish jackass, though, I’m guessing that would come through in other things, too, and I’d probably dump his self-absorbed ass.
Well, Ghanima, perhaps you missed the third option: sign your cat over to the SPCA and let them put him to sleep for free. To refuse something that won’t cost you a dime and will keep your pet from suffering is just beyond assholish, imo.
Unfortunately, Scarlett, those sorts of people are depressingly common. We don’t see as many of them at my current job as at the previous one, but we still see a lot of them. The really shitty thing about it is that if someone truly has no money and the animal is suffering, a lot of vets will euthanize for free. We do it for Good Samaritan cases, where someone has found a sick or injured animal and doesn’t want to take financial responsibility for it, and sometimes we do it for owned animals who seem to be suffering and whose owners can’t afford an exam. We don’t do an exam first, and we don’t offer them the option of being present during the euthanasia (that would require an IV catheter, which is far more expensive than the injection), but the animal doesn’t suffer and they’re not out any money.
If the animal is pretty fixable and one of us has the money and inclination to adopt or foster it, we also offer the option of them signing it over to the clinic. That’s how I wound up with Claudia the Vunderhund. The lady who found her was going to adopt her, but she had pyometra and heartworms, and the woman just couldn’t afford to treat all that. She paid for euthanasia, but said if we could find someone to adopt her, that we could put the euthanasia fee toward hospitalizing her till she was ready to come home. One of my bosses donated the surgery and did the heartworm treatment at cost, and even if she hadn’t been suitable for our family, I would have paid for the x-rays and meds for her heartworm treatment.
Suburban Plankton and I are of the same mind on this. When our dear sweet kitty Mog was too sick to live a comfortable life, there was no question that we would have him put down.
I would overrule SP if I needed to if the pet was ours jointly and it was really sick. However, if he was the sole owner of the pet, I don’t know what I’d do. But that isn’t really likely to happen. With the exception of my mare, all pets belong to the family. When I had to put her down, I had to make the decision on my own (with the vet, of course). It was awful, but the right thing to do.
Would it cost anything? I assumed you’d be paying for care for a couple of hours or something, and the anaesthetic would be just charged into that total bill…?
I think that many people fail to realize that animals live in the present and have no concept of the future. They are living in the moment, and there are no plans or even the concept of next week, next month, next year. So when they are suffering and afraid, there is only desire for relief.
Realizing this, I’ve always said that I would rather euthanize a month too early than a day too late.
As for my husband, he feels the same way as I do, and we have already had one beloved dog put down without hesitation when she was diagnosed with a previously undetected tumor on her spleen that had ruptured. The cancer had spread, and she was already uncomfortable.
However, I wouldn’t hesitate to override my husband if I felt it was in the animal’s best interest. All of the ownership paperwork is in my name only anyway.
It’s not a matter of the money, it’s a matter of the anesthesia killing the patient. If you’re going to do something that’s going to kill the animal to relieve it’s suffering, it defeats the whole purpose of them choosing not to euthanize. We don’t offer it as an option because it’s not in anyone’s best interests–the dog’s best interest is to get the blue juice and get it over with, the owner’s best interest is to let the dog die and get on with grieving without bankrupting themselves.
And yes, it would cost you quite a bit to keep an animal anesthetized until it died. Veterinary care is charged by the service, not by the hour. Some services include certain things; the hospitalization charge covers cage space, feedings, walks, and general nursing care, and the CPR charge covers intubation and bagging with oxygen, chest compressions, fluids, and injectible drugs. Day vets tend to include anesthesia and disposables in the cost of routine surgeries like spays and neuters. Everything else, however, is charged out seperately. For surgeries like fracture repairs (and for the sort of thing you’re proposing, if anyone was willing to do it), anesthesia is charged by the hour. At my old clinic, it was something like $40/hour. At the place I currently work, it’s roughly $90/hour. Yeah, that sounds steep, but you have to remember that you’re not just paying for the equipment and the iso, you’re also paying my salary to stand there and do nothing but monitor your dog and you’re paying for someone else to do the other work I would otherwise be doing.
First, I think there’s a special place in hell for people who treat pets like animals and refuse to do the right thing.
Second, I think it’s a damn shame that once someone intentionally allows a pet to die a slow and miserable death, they should not be allowed to have any pets after that.
Third, I have no partner or spouse, but if I did, you betcher ass I’d be willing to over rule. Hopefully, I’d have the good sense not to marry a heartless bastard like the one you described.
Incidentally, I just lost a cat from heart failure of unknown cause. Had we been able to save her, I would have been perfectly willing to do whatever was necessary to keep her alive – as long as her quality of life was maintained. I’m fully in the euthanize before they suffer camp. Poor Tribble died before I had to make the decision, but again, I’d thought about it while none of my pets were sick and decided when I was in a stable and not shocked frame of mind.
A lot. It cost me nearly $100 to have my ferret put down, and they didn’t charge me for an office visit considering their exam basicly amounted to looking her over and agreeing that she was dying(she was eight years old, so it was just her time.) A cat weighs a lot more than a ferret and I assume they charge by amount needed to dispatch the suffering animal…but if they were already paying for an office visit etc, I don’t see why they didn’t spend a little more to have it put out of its suffering. What is that attitude to bring it in to see if it’s dying but not put it down, “we care. kind of”?
I’ve had to have a few ferrets put down, and fortunately each time my husband and I agreed that the creature was suffering needlessly and it was the right thing to do then. The last ferret that we had to do this to, we weren’t totally in agreement about when was the best time, but I wasn’t completely convinced that he was wrong and the little critter was suffering too much. The day we made the decision, we both agreed right away; her condition had turned for the worse and we had to get her to the vet. My husband couldn’t bear even going in, and waited outside while I brought her into the vet’s office, and stroked her fur during the whole process. When that was going on, the vet talked with me about how animals don’t really understand pain all that well, especially when it’s not something obvious as to why they’re hurting (cut paw = obvious, cancer = not), and that it’s our responsibility as pet owners to care for them all their lives, and to do the caring thing and ensure that if they are suffering too much at the end, it’s a pet owner’s duty to see they’re relieved of that pain, fear, and confusion.
If I was convinced that my husband was holding out, I’d try to overrule him if necessary. I don’t think that’d happen, though - one of the dogs his parents had from when he was a preteen was kept alive for too long. The dog had diabetes (and needed daily insulin injections), plus it was getting hard for the dog to move around properly. My husband complained about the ‘sick dog’ smell at his parents’ house, and asked if they didn’t think he was getting too frail, but all suggestions of putting the dog to sleep resulted in hostile reactions. I know that if I mentioned that dog’s name to him, he’d automatically think twice. And I hope that if my husband mentioned it to me, I would as well.
It hurts to do that to a pet, but I find I hurt much worse knowing that an animal is in pain.
When I had Kate (my dog of fourteen years) put down, my vet didn’t charge me anything. Nothing for the visit, nothing for the euthanasia, nothing for his shoulder to cry on. And his office sent a sympathy card.
When I had my horse Phelan, put down, the vet made the barn visit and put her down and never charged me anything. And called me at home later to let me know I’d done everything possible for her and the baby (she died in foal of complications from melanoma).
I was at the barn of a different vet, who was trailering a horse for me. Before she was going to hook up her trailer she went to put down a neighbor’s cat. For free. Heck, she trailered my horse on her day off, fifty miles and wouldn’t take a dime, not even for gas.
I know this service isn’t always free, nor should it be expected, but vets don’t euthanize animals as a money-making proceude, I don’t think.
StG
I had to overrule my husband this past February. Our 10 year old English Mastiff, who had had a deteriorating quality of life the past year, started to go really downhill. I was his main caretaker. I’d done all I could to make his life easier, more comfortable, but he was a big dog with a lot of heart but not the body to go with it.
Husband was not in compete denial, but he was not going to make a move.
I had a feeling this was going to happen, and I just took control. I did everything, the loading into the car, the trip to the vet, the holding his head in my lap, by myself. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. We have his ashes now.
Someone in the thread mentioned that their kitty is in the early stages of kidney failure, and I wanted to say that our kitty, at 18 and a half, is in her third year of kidney failure and still having a very good life. They can do a lot for kitties now.
I’m wondering if this whole discussion shouldn’t be about if you’d over-ride your partner on deciding to put a pet out of it’s misery, but if you trust your vet and the staff to give professional advice.
We have a rabbit, and until about three months ago, we had two. We found a vet who is fantastic, and he pulled Bun (our now-dead rabbit) through a couple of hard spots, and he was always upfront and honest about what he could do for Bun and what he couldn’t and what the anticipated outcomes could be. When Bun finally died, he crashed FAST and died before we could even get him to the vets for treatment. Three months later, Nicki (our other rabbit) developed a tumor which is causing her eye to swell. We’ve worked with the vet for over a month now, and he’s brutally honest about Nicki’s chances and the options she had. The last check up, I asked him (while almost sobbing just thinking about it) when we should consider euthansia. He immediately discouraged it at this point, saying that he would be the first to suggest it if he thought it was best, but it isn’t at this point, and then he gave us signs to watch for which would indicate it’s time. He did not, however, follow it up with a list of expensive (and very risky) treatments (like surgery, which rabbits frequently do not survive, and would have cost us a minimum of $500 which there’s no way we could afford–although we did briefly discuss it on a previous visit).
I am eternally grateful for his professional advice, his diplomatic and sympathetic treatment of myself, my pets and my family. His staff is wonderful and we trust their advice and perspective. When we took Nicki into the vet’s the last visit, the whole family came (myself and three kids) because although I would have made the final decision if there needed to be one made, I wanted everyone to understand the situation that I knew the vet could convey. Needless to say, we think our vet (and his staff) is worth their weight in gold.
I have a sister-in-law who drags these things out to the point of animal cruelty. She doesn’t think so, but damnit…I’ve come close to calling the authorities because she can’t bring herself to do it.
If I had a spouse that dragged it out that long and it was HIS pet, I suppose I’d have no choice. But if we were joint owners (as we are now), I’d overrule. My husband has a tendency to wait a bit longer than I do, but nothing even remotely akin to abusive. I’m pretty quick to pull the trigger, so to speak. If there’s no hope, I see little point in dragging it out.
I’ve heard this before, and it sounds fishy to me. Certainly it’s one of those things that would be very hard to prove one way or another; but I would argue that my cats are aware of things like “cat crate out means vet trip in the next day or two” – they’ll take no action at the moment, but the next morning they’ll be notably absent.
Not that it matters much. Humans have the capacity to understand the future, and when THEY are suffering and afraid, they often have only the desire for relief.
We’re in the wierd state that our youngest cat has cancer–tumors, labs all over the charts, and it’s in the lymphatic system. Statistically, even with the chemo she’s getting, there’s no chance of her surviving a year. But if you ignore the bumps, she shows no sign at all of being sick, and she was diagnosed several months ago. There’s this weird sort of “hyper-normality” about her life at the moment; it’s hard to reconcile the fact that we know she’s gravely ill with the perfectly happy cat in front of us. Cats are famous for their ability to hide pain; but if she’s doing it, she’s amazingly good at it.
But we’ll be ready when the time comes. My mother waited too long, once, and the lesson was well learned for both of us.