I'm not sure if she's ready to go

[isthisfishy]

My lovely girl is 18 years old. She has always been tiny wee thing but recently has seemed to be starving hungry but I think it's almost like she has forgotten she has already eaten! She has also started peeing in the house, usually on the dogs bed and I'm fairly certain she has dementia and is deaf.
I am not sure if the kindest thing would be to have her PTS or not because I don't want her to suffer but I'm worried vets will keep her going just for the money. Any advice please?

The best thing you can do is phone up ASAP on Monday for an appointment. Given her age, am assuming you’ll have been with your vets for quite some time. Is there a reason that you’d distrust them? I’m inclined to think that no vet would recommend unnecessary treatment.

It’s a difficult time, so I feel for you. The main aim is to ensure that she’s not suffering.

I always think you need to make that decision before they are suffering. If she was mine, honestly I'd make that decision now. I know how hard it is

I'm worried vets will keep her going just for the money.

Well yes I'm sure some of us are rapacious bastards who think nothing of forcing horrendously suffering animals to stay alive to wring every last penny out of them. Most of us aren't.

My usual approach to this sort of case would be to take the history, examine the animal and then have a good chat with the owner to try to get on their wavelength and see how they feel about their pet's quality of life and what their thoughts are on treatment, euthanasia or neither.

I will usually explain that various options are available, in no particular order:

• euthanase now: usually not wrong to do so, saves any risk of suffering. Sometimes the only realistic choice
• do nothing and euthanase later (usually not unreasonable - depends on guesstimate of any suffering and owner recognition of signs that would tip into "definitely needs to go")
• some workup eg bloods to check out kidney function, blood glucose and maybe thyroid, possibly blood pressure check if cat will tolerate. Comes with a cost which should be discussed beforehand. Just because you test does not mean that you are obliged to treat anything you might find. You can test then loop back to the options to euthanase, do nothing, do further tests or treat. You can also stop the diagnostic bus at any point- for example you can say yes to bloods but no to ultrasound scan or whatever the next step is if bloods don't yield a specific diagnosis (or even if they do).
• Treatment. May be a range of options (eg with overactive thyroid), maybe limited choice (eg with diabetic- inject insulin, try oral meds which are usually but not always shite, or don't treat). All with different implications for cat and owner and different costs.

You usually don't have to decide on any of these options on the spot at the first consult (except the rare case where the poor creature is so far gone that it is suffering really substantially and can only be relieved by euthanasia that day....even then though I push fairly hard I can't actually hold a gun to the owner's head). Quite often there's a lot of information to chew over. I'll usually try to give the owner a bit of a steer but ultimately it's their decision and I try to be sensitive to their thoughts about the whole situation as well rather than considering the cat in isolation. Often owners need to sleep on it for a bit before choosing a course of action, or inaction which can also be valid.

Good luck. It's tough with the oldies especially when they are living with a bit of dementia in a somewhat dilapidated body. If I could "talk to the animals" these would be the ones I would want to talk to..."Are you happy in there??"

Have you not actually taken her to the vet then? If you don’t want her to suffer, you should take her to the vet and get advice and tests done. It may be something very treatable even though she’s quite old. I’ve always found our vets to be caring and honest.

If I could "talk to the animals" these would be the ones I would want to talk to..."Are you happy in there??"

That’s so sweet, really made me smile but also feel a little tearful. ❤️