Hi - I'm sat here devastated that we're even considering it, but I think we might be having my girl PTS tomorrow.
We don't know how old she is - she's a rescue from awful circumstances, estimated to be at least 10 and was saved from being PTS as a stray 6 years ago in the council pound.
She's been an absolute labour of love. She came to us with so many behavioural issues and skin infections, and while we never fully fixed the dog reactivity, she has been a delight of a girl and so gentle and loving with our now toddler.
For about the past 6 months she has been slowing down, gradually not wanting to play or go out for a walk. The vet diagnosed back pain a month ago, we've tried loxicom and gabapentin but no improvement yet. In fact she's got worse, her legs keep collapsing under her and she's become incontinent. She's also recently gone blind and is walking into things, no doubt jarring her back more. She cries and whines a lot and wanders around looking lost. She's been deaf for a while. She shakes most of the time.
It's awful to see. She's absolutely not herself and it doesn't even feel like the same dog is in there.
When we saw the vet last week he was optimistic that with painkillers she would be OK (he even gave her her yearly boosters) but I find think we can go on like this. I can't sit and watch her collapse into puddles of her own wee.
Selfishly, on a practical level this is just not doable. We both work full time and her care needs are increasing a combination on her legs going and her vision means she literally needs leading and supporting to move around a room and we can't be there to do it all day. When we go out to work she cries and howls (it never bothered her before). Neither of us can quit/take time off to be with her and she's not much more settled even when we're home. We also have a toddler which isn't great when we have to ignore her to help the dog up and back in from the garden and when there is puddles of urine on the floor. My house absolutely stinks at the minute.
I can't bear the thought that we're potentially giving up on her. She has been there for such key moments: first proper job offer postgrad (I was walking her when they rang), buying our first home, she attended our wedding, welcoming our first baby home etc.
Are we awful for considering this?