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Putting Down Your Pet

Discussion in 'The Dungeon' started by VintageWannabe, Feb 4, 2019.

  1. Funkm05

    Funkm05 Dork

    Fine. I’ll be the one point out the obvious. All animals are not equal.
     
    David B and Phl218 like this.
  2. rd400racer

    rd400racer Well-Known Member

    I guess I just don't get the attachment people have to animals. I had the same dog for 18 years and when it died...it was dead.

    What bugs me is the response, "it was the hardest thing I've ever gone through". Try burying your brother...might bring a new perspective to your life.
     
    David B and renegade17 like this.
  3. R Acree

    R Acree Banned

    What if your brother was an a$$hole?
     
    ToofPic and Phl218 like this.
  4. rd400racer

    rd400racer Well-Known Member


    Well, he wasn't.
     
  5. R Acree

    R Acree Banned

    Mine wasn't either. Point is, there are too many variables to make a blanket rule.
     
  6. rd400racer

    rd400racer Well-Known Member



    I know, I was just messing with you. It's been 22 years and the old saying that time cures pain is spot on in my case. I've just never gotten weepy about animals even before he died. In some countries, people eat what we consider sacred and vice versa.
     
  7. Mongo

    Mongo Administrator

    I've liked all of my pets more than I like the vast majority of people I've met. More than most family members. I think you might need the perspective, humans ain't all that...
     
    ToofPic, Yzasserina, kangasj and 2 others like this.
  8. eggfooyoung

    eggfooyoung You no eat more!

    Maybe you need better humans in your life?
     
    David B likes this.
  9. Mongo

    Mongo Administrator

    Nope, all y'all in my life just need an ego check on how worthwhile you truly are :D
     
  10. crashman

    crashman Grumpy old man

    This. It would bother me far more if one of my dogs died than if my sister died...
     
  11. auminer

    auminer Renaissance Redneck

    Why is this even a thread? The only two people who have any input on my pets' euthanasia are me and my vet.
     
  12. Mongo

    Mongo Administrator

    Because people love to tell others what they should or shouldn't do from a position of moral superiority - hence all organized religion ever :crackup:
     
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  13. ryoung57

    ryoung57 Off his meds

    I feel like I'm in a good position to discuss this given my history and recent events.

    Sixteen years ago my ex wife had a Bordeaux that lost the use of his hind legs all of the sudden. We didn't have access to all of the info on the net like we do now, so all we had was the advice of a local country vet. He said we should put the dog to sleep, so we did. It turned out that he had meningitis and it was probably treatable. I've lived with that regret ever since and swore I'd never put another dog down.

    Fast forward to three years ago. My dachshund, Lelo, got sick with something similar, which ultimately morphed into some sort of unexplained auto-immune disease. We must have spent $15k on treatments for her over the course of about 8 months. She eventually succumbed to the disease, but her last days were very hard - her body was shutting down and she went into cardiac arrest. The techs at the university gave her CPR for 45 minutes trying to bring her back but ultimately failed. It pains me to think of how stressful and traumatic her last moments were.

    Then four months ago I lost both of my big dogs within two weeks of each other. Dante had un-diagnosed heart disease which caused fluid retention and a condition similar to bloat. He had emergency surgery to fix the bloat but his heart was too weak and he died a few days later. I'd swore I'd never put a dog to sleep again but he was about 60% into Acute Respiratory Distress, a fatal condition that would have resulted in cardiac arrest within a few hours. He'd have basically drowned in his own fluid. I chose to let him go before the panic and pain set in, so instead of suffering for hours, he drifted off comfortably in my arms. Two weeks later, my old dog Gracie, who had been suffering from multiple ailments for months and had lost complete use of her legs, quit eating and decided it was time. I probably waited too late by a day or so, having come home to find her convulsing in the floor as her body shut down. I rushed her to the vet and let them put her out of the pain she was in.

    So my point is that there IS a reasoning to putting a dog to sleep. It's an act of mercy though, NOT an act of convenience. You have to do what's right for the animal, not what's right for you. I've been on all sides of this, having let a dog go that wasn't ready, having NOT let a dog go and making her suffer unnecessarily, and having chosen properly to let a dog go when there is no quality of life left and death and pain are imminent.
     
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  14. VintageWannabe

    VintageWannabe Diggin Deep

    It’s a thread because I’m curious how the people around me think. I’m not in any way trying to tell anyone what to do. Just a genuinely curious question, why we treat pets differently this way. I realize it may be beyond your level of cognition, but some people recognize they’re not the only person in the world.
     
  15. sheepofblue

    sheepofblue Well-Known Member

    It is always a hard call and some people go to far to a level of crazy. There are also the worthless #$%#$s that put a pet down when its age makes it inconvenient.

    However people are attached and unlike humans the pet cannot provide input for the most part, which makes it tough as to when. There is also the people and the impact on them. Mom and Dad had one who's time had come but Dad was really reluctant. Then Dad got hurt bad, would you want to be the one that kills his dog while he is in the hospital? Eventually we had to which was hard on Mom also and sadly Dad did not get out. Did it go to long, yes. But we were hopeful he was coming home and able to say good bye to his dog.
     
  16. sheepofblue

    sheepofblue Well-Known Member

    Yes some are Shelties :beer:
     
  17. Venom51

    Venom51 John Deere Equipment Expert - Not really

    This discussion is a little too recent for me to be diplomatic about. As you saw from the RIP post on the thread that started with me trying to find Maxwell a home we just recently had to let him go. Kidney failure. We got the diagnosis a year and a half ago. We couldn't fix the kidney failure but we could manage his condition and we did for quite some time. His last week had me running 1000 mil bag of fluids a day through him. That was not enough to keep him flushed. When the involuntary muscle spasms started and then a couple days later the full blown seizures started you have to start thinking of his well being. The last seizure caused him to slam into the living room cabinets causing him to bite his tongue. There was no fixing it. It was only going to get worse for him. It would be entirely selfish of us to have kept trying to treat him for the symptoms when the underlying cause could not be resolved or corrected. Now I don't care what anyone's position is on euthanasia. They are free to have it just as I am free to have it as an way to allow my animals to go peacefully at home in the place they lived and were loved. If I can avoid it they will never pass away from home in a place that is foreign and uncomfortable for them. We have 3 vets. Our normal general care local vet, a mobile vet for the dogs that don't do well with car rides and Internal medicine and diseases specialist. They are all consulted for their perspectives when we make these decisions. We take in all their information and use it to help us make a decision. I think that's the best we can do when making a life impacting decision.

    Our decision is never one of convenience. Anyone that knows me knows that I am often willing to put my life on hold when the dogs need me to do so. The wife and I haven't taken a vacation together for the last 23 years because neither of us is willing to even board the dogs or leave them in the care of even someone we trust. One of us is always home.
     
    Last edited: Feb 5, 2019
    ToofPic likes this.
  18. Phl218

    Phl218 .

    there's a difference between an animal, a pet and a companion. each has different difficulties when it comes to letting go.

    i had gerbils as a kid. they were animals and once dead, they were buried and forgotten.
    our house cat was a pet. nice to have her and i grew up with her, but there was no connection beyond that. was sad to see her go, but that was it.

    Emily, our late boxer, was a whole different animal. she was a pup when i met my wife and her joyful nature and companionship helped both of us through different hard times. loyal as could be. we flew her over here with us and she was like a child. having her put down (liver cancer) was the best thing for her and the hardest thing for us. i'm over it (over a yr later) my wife still isn't ...

    so yeah, if one hasn't had that connection, it's hard to re-imagine ...
     
    Funkm05 likes this.
  19. kangasj

    kangasj Banned

    Well, maybe you never bonded with your dog. I spend more time hanging out with my hound than with people any given person. She's a true friend.
     
    badmoon692008 likes this.
  20. rd400racer

    rd400racer Well-Known Member


    That could very well be it and Phil described it pretty well in his post above. One things for sure...this forum has the dog loving'est bunch of people I have ever experienced. I just never got that connection with an animal.

    One thing is for sure after reading all of the comments...Y'all need to come up with a better class of friends:D
     
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