Guilt and pressure
My 13 year old dog’s euthanasia appointment is Wednesday and I’m struggling badly with guilt and second guessing.
He’s very old and physically declining. He’s been withering away, losing strength/muscle, sleeping most of the day, and overall just seeming tired and elderly. We’ve watched him slowly decline over time and we know realistically that his body is failing. He has a tumor putting pressure on his abdomen that could possibly be cancerous but we don’t know, he has horrible chronic horrible ear infections and ear tumors, he has bad dental disease. He has a heart murmur and heart disease on top of it all so we dont even know if surgeries would be doable or if he would die during it, and even then it’s so expensive. that’s a part of the guilt too, feeling like i’m just doing this because we can’t afford it, but the vet said even if we had all the money in the world it still would likely be not reasonable.
But the hardest part is that he still has personality. He still eats, walks around, cuddles with us, and sometimes even jumps on the couch. He still looks at us like himself. He still loves car rides and going outside. That’s what’s making this feel impossible. I keep thinking “What if we’re doing it too soon?”
At the same time, I know dogs can still have moments of happiness even when their overall quality of life is declining, and I’m terrified of waiting until he’s in a crisis, panicking, unable to get up, or actively suffering. The vet said he is in pain actively for sure.
Today I accidentally clipped one of his nails too short while trying to make paw print keepsakes and I completely broke down because I feel horrible that I hurt him during his final days, even though it was an accident.
I guess I just want to hear from people who have been through this. Did your dog still have good moments when you made the decision? How did you know it was time before things became truly terrible?
Also, any tips to things to do with them before their last day?