I feel so bloody guilty (dog death relates )

[bendigedigg]

Full disclosure my 1st language is Welsh and my written English is not brilliant so apologies if it doesn't flow.

On sunday my mum went on holiday, she told me she had had a few scares with her dog but he was ok and would be happy with me. He is 17, we all live on the same farm and sometimes we stay in the same house but she likes her own space and so do we as farming is hard bloody work

I got to her house a little late than expected the traffic was v busy and I was honestly so incredibly sad by the stare of her dog.

She had left the back door open (accident. We need to discuss that when she's home), and the house was silent when I walked in. I had 2 of my dogs with me who he loves. One is a litter mate. Of her dog.

I found him sat outside; under the bench she had and he was very confused but worse than that he was absolutely emaciated.

I saw him 2 weeks ago and he was a little Ribby (hope that's the word to use? ) he you could see his back ribs but he was ok.

When I got him the house I could see every vertebrae in jos back, every rib was his hip bones.

The first thing I did was call the vet (we all use the same farm vet) and for the first time ever I told him I was coming in with a dog. They usually see the dog when they see the sheep but I didn't want to waste time.

As we drive to the vet I rang my mum and she said 'oh yes he has lost weight but I put him in the barn to catch some mice and he must have caught a cold.. no.

I go to vet and he said they had told her by x ray that he had stomach cancer spread to his lungs and he had limited time. The vet was shocked at the weight loss in a week (2kg) and I had to ask my mum for permission to put him to sleep. She said yes as the vet said he would be likely to die within 24 hours realistically, she had last week been told he had days to live

I spoke to mum and she said she didn't cancel her holiday because she wanted me to make the decision for him and her. I feel so upset and angry at her. How dare she put me in that position.

Aibu ? That she left her 17 years old dog to go on holiday knowing that he would deteriorate and I would have to make this decision.

Your mother should be banned from keeping animals, that poor poor Dog 💔

You think she has dementia.....
Because of how she treated her dog ...
Yet she managed to book a holiday ,pack for a holiday , travel to her holiday and manage to enjoy her holiday..that's not dementia...or at least not dementia when it effects your actions

Poor little sweetheart, thank you for doing him a final kindness by helping him go on his way

I don’t think I could ever forgive her for this, though

If shes had this dog for 17 years how has she been with him for those years? Was she affectionate? Did she talk about how much she loved him?

Is this neglect of the dog recent?
It’s such an awful thing to do. Plus saying he can catch mice? That is not something a sane person says?

This post is about animal cruelty, and should have a trigger warning.

The title alone tells anyone that this will not be about happy cute puppies.

Common sense.

I think the weight loss was cancer related not neglect. I thought the title was self explanatory and if you're triggered by dog death then done click on it ? However I will report it mnhq

I haven't spoken to my mother yet purely because I don't think I can control myself to not scream and shout.

Thank you for helping me see I am not overreacting

She’s behaved appallingly. Is she not from farming stock herself? Even if not, you have to make the decision and that should have been done the minute she found out he had lung cancer. We kept ours for I think a week, but he wasn’t eating so we pts, it would have been cruel to keep him going. I’m really sorry, that was a shitty thing to do to you.

This, @bendigedigg
my lovely mum is acting out of character, sometimes being quite nasty, episodes of delirium at times, then perfectly rational and “normal” at others. Her GP is considering dementia, it seems it can present in many different ways.

sorry you have had this awful experience xx

I'm heartbroken for you, that's an awful situation. Poor dog. I'm afraid I could not forgive someone who treats an animal so callously

I clicked on this thread thinking it would be about someone who felt guilty about having their dog PTS ( a common feeling), and in need of reassurance: it's definitely not clear from the title that the thread details animal cruelty.

I used to be on a Facebook group for people whose dogs had a certain kind of aggressive cancer
It was frankly appalling how people could minimise their dog’s suffering.

They’d bang on about “Big Pharma “ and post videos of their crippled dogs with grossly distorted bone, saying “ We are kicking cancer’s butt”

It was obvious that the dogs were in extreme pain ( animals hide pain)
The owners would say “ I’m not ready to say goodbye yet”

If one has a terminally Ill animal who obviously isn’t well or enjoying life, for pity’s sake, let them go.
Call the vet out.

Much less stressful for the animal.

Letting an animal die of terminal Illness under it’s own steam because the owner can’t bear to say goodbye is just selfish.

A lovely vet said she found Covid the hardest as she couldn’t do home euthanasia for her terminally Ill patients.
They had to come into the surgery without their owners.

Humans too died alone because of Covid rules.

Awful behaviour. Gobeithio dy fod ti'n oce x

I would stay in her life just enough to make sure she never gets another pet. Or remove any she does get. And tell her why. Threaten to report her to rspca if she thinks she can ever be a pet owner again.
Not surprised your opinion has changed about her.. Do 17year old ddogs catch their own food??

It’s sounding like there might be some mental decline.
No one with any common sense left in their noddle would leave an elderly dog with cataracts to catch mice.

Heck, even Famers and stables owners who keep ferals about the place ( Neutered) as ratters feed actual cat food as cats rarely eat the rodents they catch.

Ditto rodent killing dogs- it’s a shake and drop
They don’t eat them in my limited experience.

I'm a bit lost for words!
I'm so sorry for the poor dog and so sorry you were left to deal with this, unknowingly.

Wait so you’re worried your mother has dementia and yet you and your husband plan to evict her from her home? For cruelty? Have I got that right?

My mum had dementia and one of the first signs was her being oblivious to the fact that her beloved cat was seriously ill. I arrived to visit and like you, saw the poor animal in a very sad state. I could never convince her that he was ill - I took him to the vet - and she was very surprised and upset when he died. It certainly wasn't malicious but in an increasingly confused mental state she only saw what she could cope with and shut out anything that was distressing.
I'm not excusing your mum but if she is unwell she may well be struggling far more than you réalisé.

Ok so small update. I have spoken to my sister and she agrees mam has had a lot of personality changes recently and that maybe living with me and my family on our farm hasn't been ideal.

Dad was a farmer but she never really enjoyed living that life, when he died ;(sis and I ) suggested she move onto my farm and be part of our life here. We've decided that she should go and spend some time with my sister and figure out where she wants to live (sheltered accommodation etc) as I am really busy running our farm with my husband. I cannot have her here any longer as rightly my husband is absolutely devastated and angry she let her dog suffer like that. I feel guilty I didn't notice but she's very self contained and I thought everything was do ok.

Either way she won't be staying on our farm by the time she gets home from her holiday. My husband is so angry. If any of our cows or sheep look remotely like they might be in pain we deal with it. She's had access to a 24 hr farm vet for all of her dogs life and chose to let him suffer?

It's against everything we believe in.

My sister is taking her in to her house nearby and we will be asking the GP to either refer to the memory clinic or help us to figure out why she's had a 180 degree personality change

No. But if she has dementia my sister lives in a far more appropriate house for her to stay with her. Right now we do not have the eyes or the ability to keep her safe. My sister lives 15 mins away with a house that is safe and she's home all the time as she does alpaca trekking so it's tourist driven not agriculture based

I used to have a farm op, most people here don't understand what working farms are actually like. They have been to petting zoos and watched a few episodes of Jeremy's farm and think that they are experts. My farm was a hill farm in Wales, extremely remote. I know how very dangerous places like that can be for anybody, let alone somebody elderly or with dementia. You're doing the right thing.

@Anotherparkingthread that sounds exactly like ours. We already have so many hoops to jump through for defra etc if she's going to need a lot more supervision then my sister who has a hobby farm is the best person to support her. We're only talking 30iah mins down the road but our working farm is far too busy for my mother to have accompanied appointments or even just eyes on her 90% of the time. To ensure ahe is safe and can attend appointments so she can gain a diagnosis and more support if she has dementia and that's why she did what she did with her dog, which is awful and unforgivable then she needs to go to my sisters who is more equipped

I think people can end up in denial about a dying pet and not realise how badly they're suffering. I think vets need to do a better job of hammering it home that a pet needs PTS asap and that they might deteriorate rapidly. Really when the vet last saw the dog they should've said he needs PTS there and then, it takes the decision out of the owners hands.

I think vets do do that @Firefly1987. At least ours did. She told us that the cat was in pain and the only kind thing to do was put her down and keep her medicated overnight so she wasn't suffering before that was done at home the next day. My son, who was a medical student, did ask respectfully about how certain they were about the diagnosis but it was obvious to him when he saw the cat that the diagnosis was right.

@Aquamarineeyes some do and it sounds like they helped you do what was best for your cat. We had a straight talking one but ended up seeing a different one when our dog had cancer. He basically said well she needs PTS soon but we can give antibiotics which might help with the infection caused by the cancer.

Of course we jumped at that because who wouldn't want to try everything. There was no follow up either. I wish now they'd just said "there's nothing more we can do we need to PTS today" and taken it out of our hands because looking back I was in denial. I think I would've felt guilty if I'd refused the antibiotics and been like "nope don't want to try that put her to sleep now" ofc now I wish that's what we'd done. It's hard when you have to be cruel to be kind and I think vets can help by not giving false hope and being absolutely clear on what the deterioration will be like. It can hurt at the time for them to be that blunt but it's the right thing to do.