Has anyone put down an animal that seems to be not in pain etc on vet's recommendation and future prognosis pleease?

[lisalisa]

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I (well my parents) had my pet dog put down even though I couldn't see ANYTHING wrong with her. She had cancer and although it hadn't affected her as such, the cancer lumps had become infected. You'd have never been able to tell as she too was happy, eating, drinking etc etc but I know NOW that it was the right thing to do and you will have the same opinion.

Keep remembering the bunny as you know her now and not how she will become if you leave her to go down a bad road.

Could you discuss it with vet again? I have a rat with dodgy hindlegs who has overacticve glands in his penis meaning I have to clean his willy 3 times a day(!!!)...but hes happy enough. Vet hasnt mentioned putting him down at all.
Could you mention seeing how she is, and if it does downhill putting her down THEN, not now?

i think gizmo summed this up so nicely with the "its the last thing you can do for them" comment. It is a tough decision to have to make for our pets, but what you have to remember is that they do not understand quantity of life, just quality. To be blunt, i think nappies and carts for bunny rabbits are plain cruel and selfish, this is an animal who cannot be reassured and comforted in the same way as a human, or even a dog. THese people are keeping the animals alive for their own feelings (its tough not to, i know, i have had to put my dogs to sleep and i was devestated but i KNEW it was the right thing to do)

I have worked as a veterinary nurse and i can promise you that the procedure itself is stressfree and painless for the animal. It is about letting our pets go with the minimum of stress and the maximum of dignity, also for your own peace of mind. That way, you have time to adjust to what will be happening and can say a calm goodbye to nibbles. Of course you will then feel like the biggest shit on planet, i did and i basically hated myself, but time will out and i KNOW i did the right thing for my dogs. I would definately do this BEFORE any discomfort to the bunny, as you are only buying yourself a few days or weeks by the sound of things.

Your bunny is lucky to have you as an owner, i have had to deal with some awful states wehre the poor rabbit is just neglected in the hutch until the poor thing is in obvious pain because the owners simply havent noticed, or bothered as they are out of sight out of mind.

You will make the right decision for your bunny. Go with your gut feeling, this is what i always say, your heart will not want to let you and your head will try and rationalise it, as i can see it is, "oh but he is not suffering yet etc" You have to follow the feeling at the pit of your tummy.

It is hard for your son and you i know. I think

Had my Dalmatian put down in July, he was eleven and had cancer of the spleen, it had spread to his heart and possibly his brain, though you would not know if you saw him running round the park on his last morning.
Once we knew his condition we made the choice to let him die with dignity and did not want the risk of him collapsing somewhere. He had a very very loving last 24 hours where he was spoilt rotten and was given as much love as was humanly possible and he was put down in Mrs BGD's arms in the comfort of his own home. Bless him he did not even make a murmur when the needle was inserted into him. He was brave to the end.
I have no regrets about having him put down when we did, he went as we wanted to remember him as a lovely beautiful dog happy to the last who was not in too much pain or discomfort. I could not put him through the pain that he would have invariably gone through.
To me it is a no brainer really.

To me making the decision has always been to do with the quality of life the animal is having, a rabbit, however bright and feeding well, should be hopping around not dragging hind legs, so for me I would make the decision.

Has your rabbit had treatment for E.cuniculi? This is a parasitic disease of rabbits that can just present with strange unexplained neurological symptoms. Your vet would be able to give you panacur paste to give to the rabbit to try and see if this makes any difference. If you google it you will find out more info. I would suggest if the rabbit seems otherwise happy that you might at least like to try this and see if there is any benefit before putting the rabbit to sleep. It is a disease that in my experience has been missed by many vets but is likely to be seen from time to time by all vets who see rabbits.

I do agree though that this rabbit if there is no further hope if improvement does not have a quality of life to look forward to and therefore sad and difficult though it is saying goodbye is probably the kindest step.

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LisaLisa, I think you have made the right decision. The difference between treating humans and animals is that a person is aware of why they are feeling pain, they can be comforted that it is only for a limited period of time, or find ways to deal with chronic pain. Personally I don't think it is fair to put an animal through prolonged or invasive medical treatment when the long-term prognosis isn't good, they won't understand why they are suffering. (I also believe humans should have the right to die before they reach the final stages of pain and indignity, but that's a whole other debate.)

But it is far from an easy decision when it's a well-loved pet, so I can't blame you for being upset about it. Like you say, I think it is best for your LOs not to have to watch your rabbit suffer.

lisalisa my dog had heart failure and gradually slowed down. he was otherwise fine until he couldn't get up properly any more so he kept wetting himself. for me that was a clear point where his life should end because he was miserable.

in the case of your rabbit it is less clear because he isn't suffering yet, but in my experience small animals tend to go downhill very fast and you would feel worse if you delay.

try to pick a time when the surgery is quiet, it is awful having to come out of room all tearful when the waiting room is full. i got the vet to come to our house but that is probably impractical for rabbit.

lisa, you have made totally the right decision. Best for everyone, and yes, i think a new bunny is the way to go, or possibly a guinea pig? Not exactly the same then, iyswim.

You have raised an interesting debate here actually about euthanasia in humans. I have to say, i was against it until i had to watch my father deteriorate with alzheimers. I had to watch him suffer for two years and i know that he hated what was happening to him. I think it was downright cruel not to be able to let him go with dignity too, although i could never have made that decision obviously. When he developed lung cancer and died relatively quickly and pain free (he was so far gone with the alzheimers, it was appropriate to drug him to the eyeballs with morprhine) i was relieved. I just wished that it had happened two years previously, as i know he would have.

Fortunately for our animals, we are allowed to give them dignity and peace at the end.

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lisa, sorry, ive just thought of something, you say that you are going to wait until sunday? Have you checked with your vets that they are routinely open? All of the vets around here switch over to a general locum service at 12 noon on saturday, This service is for emergencies and charge astronomical prices. I would perhaps give them a call and make sure that they can accomodate you on Sunday.

OMG lisa i am so angry for you Who the hell do these people think they are?? I can rather imagine they are mad old ladies or emotive teenagers. FFS!!!

It takes a strong and brave owner to make the decision you have to make, be lead by what your vet tells you. My aunty used to just let her old dog drag on and on, hoping to find him dead in his basket one morning, the poor dog got in such a bad way that her daughter had to make her mother have the animal put out of its misery. I'm sorry but those bunny people are plainly barking mad!

I do know how hard this is for you, be it rabbit or dog or horse, or even hamster - i've seen grown men bawling over having to put their pet to sleep, its so hard i know. How old are your DCs by the way.

I understand exactly how you feel lisalisa - I too would be very unwilling to have one of our pets put to sleep if I thought they may be able to carry on and have a reasonable quality of life,with a bit of extra care.I do feel that it would be worth exploring beautifulgirls suggestion re E.cuniculi and seeing how things go for a bit longer if the rabbit isn't suffering.

hope i didn't make it worse for you by suggesting you post on a specialist site lisalisa. what is the site btw? they sound just like they want an argument tbh.

only you can decide, it's easy to sit behind a pc and make judgements but you know the rabbit.

and you have had alot of good advice on this thread. for you

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of course, i understand.

how is the rabbit today?

lisa, i think the right decision for this bunny is to put him to sleep tbh, but i have been thinking about you and i think it would help you to receive a second opinion. Is there another vet in the practice that you could see? They wont mind, even if you go elsewhere, sometimes you just need to hear things from two professional sources and your vet will not be offended. We often give second opinions and are quite happy for our clients to seek them too. its common practice. That way, when you do have to make the decision you can be 100% that you have done the right thing. I suspect that the second opinion will be the same, but that way you can be more at peace with your decision.

It is such a hard place to be in to be the one to have to make this decision. [insert big hug here]

• If you feel the rabbit is not suffering and will not suffer staying in this state then not to put to sleep is appropriate.

• If the rabbit is going to deteriorate from here then it is better to put to sleep before things get too bad that the rabbit suffers. Waiting too long to make that choice will affect you emotionally more than trying to make the choice now.

• You can not be sure that there is no hope of improvement given the lack of a firm diagnosis. You could ask your vet for a referral to a rabbit specialist and see if they can help any more. Realistically though there is probably only a very very slim chance of things being treatable even with a specialist. This would most likely incur quite a lot of expense and it is not right or wrong to choose to seek this sort of help or not. It is a personal choice that should not be criticised by anyone whatever you decide.

Did you see my post above? I would urge you that if you do not choose to put the rabbit to sleep and you do not choose to have further investigations that you do at least try the panacur paste for the rabbit. It may not do any good, but it is not going to do any harm. It is not vastly expensive and your vet should be able to get this for you easily.

I'm so sorry that this is so hard for you all at home to cope with and I hope that you all manage to come to a decision you are comfortable with soon.

We have had two of our cats put down, and it is very stressful and sad, but I acted much faster second time around because I felt we declayed too long with the first one. When we took him in he died when the vet gave him an anasthetic to get the needle in for the injection. I felt ashamed that he was so weak that's all it took, and felt I had let him down as he was obviously much iller than we had thought and we had spent a couple of weeks thinking about it. With the second cat she had some sort of neuralogical problem which made her fall over, and after several weeks of higher and higher doses of steriods we made the decision to have her put down. She never had a diagnosis, but the vet felt that it probably wouldn't have made any difference, and I didn't want her to suffer the indignity of not making it outside to the loo, or falling over mid pee, and it was so sad to see a previously active and agile pet in such a poor way. But she didn't appear to be in pain or distress, and dh felt that we were putting her down because she was disabled (maybe a paralel with your rabbit?) and was very upset. Looking back I am sure that we made the right choice. She had, like your rabbit a good long happy life and went without pain. It's what I'd like for myself.

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Ah, sorry that your family is having to go through this, but you are doing the right thing for your beloved bunny. {{{hugs}}}

Lisa i am so sorry

I have to say, i think by putting it off til sunday it will be worse for the children. They dont want to watch a paralysed bunny - i would bite the bullet im afraid and do it today. Also, the children will have the weekend to get over the worse of the upset. Let them remember a happy hoppy bunny and not the way he is now.

Agree with lucyellensmum.
We had an old and beloved cat that lost weight. We took her to the vets (or rather my mother did) and the vet said she had massive tumours on her kidneys. He said she was in no pain, but would be soon.
The vet put her to sleep that day. Was horrible because she had been such a lovely cat, but knowing that she was in no discomfort or distress did help us a great deal.

Just want to add my sympathies LisaLisa. I think my rabbit is dying at the mo (my mum suspects heart failure and she doesn't seem in any pain). I am taking her to the vets tomorrow (or hopefully making dh take her...) but I'm not sure she'll make the night. I've had her 5 years and just typing this is making me cry, not sure how I'll be brave for dd1 as I can't cope with it myself