My OH and I have made the difficult decision to call the vet in the morning and ask for our 6 years old rescue lab to be put to sleep.
We got her at 1 year old, no apparent bite history although we know that people don’t always give the full story when giving up a dog. She has always been extremely anxious and if I’m being honest there’s just something about her temperament where we feel like we have a ticking time bomb in the house.
Prior to Xmas she started to display some aggression towards us, snapping and completely intolerant of being handled in anyway. We took her to the vets immediately and she has undergone all manner of tests and scans with no obvious medical cause. Her behaviour is now escalating and we have had a couple of bites towards us. To be clear we very much leave her be, no fussing or anything like that however she is constantly on high alert. If I sit next to her on the sofa I’m wary about how I might move in case that sets her off. We have muzzled her out and about but now we just don’t feel safe with her in the home. We had a visitor stay last week and it really struck me how tense we were the whole time (obviously we warned said visitor not to touch her etc). We now have a situation where she’s not entirely safe in the home, is unpredictable and we can no longer have someone safely look after her if we need to be away.
The decision was made yesterday after a bite and now we have this sickening wait to call the vet in morning when they open to start the process. It feels devastatingly
awful and I feel like I can’t look at her. We haven’t slept and have both been crying since we came to the decision.
I suppose I’m just curious to know what it will be like speaking to the vet. We know rehoming is out of the question and continuing to live like this isn’t for us either. I feel like we have failed her.