Any vets about? Feeling guilty for euthanising my dog.

[Griefstriken]

She was absolutely fine until last Friday when she suddenly went off her food and water, was a little unsteady on her feet in the morning and seemed a little stiff, shaking after her walks or after getting up for a drink, and a totally different dog in her demeanour. I mean she was still lovely but for the last seven years she has slept in my bed but she wouldn’t come upstairs and she didn’t come to the door when my husband came home.

I took her to the vet and they said she was dehydrated and she passed bloody urine whilst being prepped for bloods. They kept her on a drip for hydration all night and gave antibiotics suspecting a UTI. They did bloods but they were confusing. She was abit brighter when she came home as she came to bed at night and did eat a little bit but she still didn’t have her full appetite back. She was still shaking and not drinking much, and didn’t want to get out of the car which was bizarre. She seemed brighter but her breathing was becoming noisy and it became quite shallow and fast paced at night.

So my vet referred her to the Dick vet in Edinburgh. They discovered fluid in her lungs which would explain her breathing and it was bloody when they drained it. They did a CT scan and discovered a tumour on her spleen, enlarged and inflamed lymph nodes and multiple nodules on her abdomen. The vet said it was cancer and said it was widespread and suspected hemangiosarcoma.

To be honest, I was on the phone to the vet and in shock at this point and kind of found him hard to follow but he said they didn’t want to take a sample of the spleen tumour because it would risk rupturing it, ihe said someone about potential chemo, he never mentioned surgery then he offered to put her to sleep then and there but we decided to bring her home for cuddles before getting our local vet out. I can’t help but feel like I have given up on her too soon as she was still eating high value stuff like steak, etc and she seemed quite bright on the day she went. Did I let her down? She was only 7.

I'm currently going through similar with my senior dog.. spleen tumour, a large tumour on his foot making it difficult to walk, and weak hind legs. He is still eating/drinking though.

I was advised to put him to sleep in August because surgery and/or chemo would likely only give us a few more months, but he suddenly perked up when we got home from the vet hospital so I waited it out and he's been ok up until this week. Now I'm struggling to make that decision again, and it's been really really tough looking after him this past few months.

I'm sure you made the best decision you could at the time, it's heartbreaking watching them suffer and you did what you did from a place of love. And you made sure she was home with her family when the time came.

I hope you can let go of the guilt in time 💐

You absolutely did the right thing @Griefstriken

It's very difficult, however in my view, the hardest part of being a responsible owner is doing the right thing for the dog. Even though there may have been ways to extend things, we often do it for our benefit and not that of the animal. They don't understand chemo, and other drugs, they just know they can't get up the stairs anymore, or are constantly thirsty. In the circumstances you describe, I think you did the right thing.

I’m not a vet. All those routes sound like palliative care. The chemo would just elongate her life by a few months but make her wee/poo toxic and there’s no certainty she would be comfortable. I think you did the right thing, the kindest thing.

I understand how you feel. It’s an awful decision to have to take. The important thing to come to terms with is that there was nothing that could have been done to stop her decline and death. She was always going to die. As it was, she died pain free and happy. The alternative would have been to choose to have her gradually lose weight, health and happiness until her life was a painful endurance. As a vet said to me only a few months ago “you don’t want to wait until he’s flat on his back with his paws in the air” . Better two days to early than a day too late. Your self reproach now is nothing compared with the guilt you’d feel if you’d waited to watch her get visibly ill. A few weeks here or there is, overall, nothing compared with her wellbeing. She didn’t know and she didn’t suffer. That’s the gift you gave her.

Better a week too soon than a day too late.

Vet nurse here , I am so sorry.
If this helps , after decades in this profession I would never have surgery for a splenic tumor.
If they survive this truly awful procedure and many don't they usually get a secondary in a very short time, I don't ever recall seeing a dog survive long term after this.
Most dogs that present with it aren't good candidates for palliative care either , I absolutely believe that to put to sleep is the right thing to do.
I would hate to put my precious dog through something so major and traumatic with such a high risk and minimal gain.
I really empathize , I know how painful it is to make the ultimate decision.

Widespread cancer is very serious OP, and I wouldn't have put any dog of mine through various biopsies/numerous vet visits and loads of treatment either. It sounds like it was too far gone and you did the kindest thing for your dog.

I've heard of loads of dogs getting cancer at that sort of age or even younger, it's not that uncommon sadly. Sorry for your loss, be kind to yourself 💐

I was a vet for twenty+years, OP. My DH owns two practices.

I can count the number of times either of us have advocated that a dog be PTS on one hand. The fact your vet said you should do it tells you everything you need to know. A vet will never suggest it unless they truly believe the dog is suffering - and even then, only in the most extreme cases (because they don’t want owners to feel pressured).

Remember, palliative care is to give you time with your dog - not to give your dog the best time left it deserves. Even if you had gone with that option, it would have been for you and not your dog.

You sound like an incredible owner and your dog was so lucky to have you. I’m sorry for your loss.

Hard decision but it was the right one. Sorry for your loss 💐

I'm sure you did the right thing, @Griefstriken . It sounds like the cancer was too severe and widespread for any treatment to make much difference. At best your dog might have had a short extra period of life during which her welfare was severely compromised -- that may have helped you come to terms with things but it would have been a burden to her. You did what was right for her, reducing her suffering.

I think the difficulty you are facing now is NOT that the decision was a close-run thing that you genuinely may have got wrong, but that you have had to process such an abrupt turnaround, from good health, to serious illness, to death, in such a short period of time.

When something like that happens, our thoughts and feelings just can't keep up. It will take time for it all to sink in so that you can begin to come to terms with it. Until it does begin to sink in, your brain will keep hammering you with ruminatory self-blaming what-ifs because that is what brains do in these circumstances. Don't believe any of these thoughts. They are just the pain of your bereavement.

You have to remember that as responsible pet owner, we suffer so they don't have to. If you leave it and leave it, you could have ended up in an emergency situation, which you spared her. Its so unfair, getting a diagnosis like that at only 7 years old, but you did the right thing by her. We've all been there and the decision sits heavy.

I'm not a vet, but I had my old boy put to sleep last year. He had lumps appearing all over, was lethargic, didn't want walks etc. I totally understand how you feel, but please remember that you did the best you could for your girl. She knew that you loved her, she only knew kindness from you, and she loved you. She died surrounded by your love. Your last act for her was kindness. ❤️❤️❤️🌈

It was clearly a situation where she suffered and you gave her a pain free exit.

Sorry for your lovely dog but you did the right thing.

Not a vet, I’m so sorry for your loss.
Seven is no age, if there was anything the vet could’ve done they would have. You gave your lovely dog a pain free exit, I think it’s normal to feel guilty. Let yourself grieve, you did the right thing. I hope you get some comfort from the posts above.

Not a vet but similar scenario with our beloved lab, inoperable tumour, with regular vet checks, we kept her going until vet advised us it was time, said we had about a week,after she had a weekend of being sick, off her food, couldn’t seem to get comfortable, her tumour was now at a stage it could rupture and she would have a painful death if we didn’t PTS, so took her the next day, couldn’t bear the thought of her being in pain. Felt devastated but would we do it again with our current dog, absolutely, last kindest thing you can do. I’m sorry for your loss.

So sad for you. You certainly didn't let her down - you did the kindest thing. Glad you brought her home for some cuddles though. Huge shock and you feel so cheated when they don't make old age. Perhaps write down all the things you loved - the little foibles, the times she made you laugh, even the naughty things she did. I've done this before and looked back on it when a little time has passed.

You 100% did the right thing and she’s very lucky to have a human brave enough to make the right decision.

Not a vet. Our dog had a jaw tumour. Fine needle aspiration showed suspicious cells. The vet wanted to do biopsy +/- excision but the excision would have been difficult due to location. There was talk of referral for jaw resection, chemo, radiation. He was old and had a heart murmur and hip dysplasia. I opted to put him down because they suspected melanoma, which has awful stats, and I didn't want his last weeks to be spent in pain.

It's a terrible shock when it's quick. Try to hold in mind what the vet said, and remember that while it was ultimately your decision, it was based on advice from the vet. One of ours seemed to go downhill super quickly, but once she showed signs of being unwell and we took her to the vet it turned out she had extensive cancer. So it wasn't really quick, but thankfully we were unaware, and she lived a good life until that final brief end. We also wished we'd known and could have given her those high value treats, but we have the opposite situation with our old girl now who's been declining over the course of years, and she wouldn't be able to tolerate those high value treats either.

It's so hard either way. With the one that went unexpectedly quickly, we did what a pp suggested, we sat at the table with small pieces of paper and her ashes and wrote memories and put them in the box.