Putting a cat to sleep rather than expensive treatment

[outofofficeagain]

This is a hypothetical question really, but my cat is getting on in years and was discussing with DH.

A friend of ours is paying over a hundred pounds a month for her cat's treatment. Their cat is too old to be covered on insurance (or insurance was too expensive).

The cat is 13. I said to DH that if that was our cat, I'd let her go rather than prolong her life with expensive treatment, especially if her quality of life was impacted or she was in pain.

DH said we'd probably pay too.

I’d be really sad and surprised if that was the case in the UK - aren’t the Brits famous for being “a nation of animal lovers”?

I think the root of the problem is people not neutering animals, then allowing unwanted kittens who end up in shelters or in homes where they aren’t suited (for myriad reasons, including finances). Our cat can be an absolute bugger and I occasionally hear my DP saying to him in a chatty voice, is your pen at Cats Protection still vacant? We’d never give him up really!

I totally agree that you should be able to afford basic healthcare for your pet, but treatment has become more expensive and more complicated.

Saying 'cats can live to 20' is largely due to the range of treatments now available.

Years ago they just weren't an option. It's great that they are but saying' you shouldn't have a cat unless you can afford thousands in surgery or drugs seems unreasonable.

100 a month is expensive if you had already earmarked it for something else. Or your council tax, energy and water bills go up and suddenly that 100 quid isn't floating anymore.

Our cats have a good life. We've already prolonged their lives by rescuing them. But we don't have thousands to spare.

Hmm, I think the 90% figure is dodgy.

I found a figure of 13% of shelter cats being euthanised in the UK.

It's about quality of life to me. My cat is nearly 17, I would pay for regular medication if it meant that he could continue to live a happy pain free life.

I read recently that they will never put down a healthy cat that could be rehomed.

My 13-yo cat died last year after two years of illness. I was paying about £60 a month for medication that really did help her - steroids and painkillers that gave her a happy, relaxed and good quality life, and I know they did as it was obvious if she missed a dose. But I did turn down expensive investigations and possible surgery, because I couldn’t afford it and cat would have been more distressed.

I was also horrified when the vets had a supply issue and had to source the meds elsewhere and the price jumped to 100/month, which went on for a few months. I could afford it but it wasn’t easy - especially with regular vet visits as well. If I just couldn’t do it I would have had to have her pts much sooner. I think that is understandable and what people have to rather than let them suffer.

To be fair the vets were lovely and not at all judgmental about this. It must be something they deal with all the time and they gave all the options at every stage.

The RSPCA says that, but there are plenty of other shelters.

Those that do put down potentially re homable cats won't tell you about it.

And how much quality of life does a car in a shelter have?
They aren't like dogs - you can't let them out in a field to play and expect them to come back again. They are kept in cages.
Better a shorter, happy life than a long life in a shelter.
We kill cows to eat them when they are perfectly healthy (I eat meat, but it isn't necessary either), so euthanising a sick cat is acceptable to me.

Just because lots of people treat animals poorly, doesn't mean that we should. Animals shouldn't be treated as toys to be disposed of once we're bored.

I pay over £100 a month for my 10-year-old cat's Solensia injections for arthritis. His insurance covered him for a year and that's just run out so it's on us now. We could do without the cost but he's extremely well on the treatment and I wouldn't consider putting him to sleep. The vet did say he's a good candidate for the injections as he doesn't mind having them, doesn't even flinch.

I'm hoping he's going to live until his 20s even though it'll cost me a fortune. But every situation is obviously different.

I think the suggestion about how much is too much to have to pay regularly is so dependant on circumstances. £100 per month is 5% of my total incoming, and is about 200% of my spare cash by the time I've paid mortgage interest, council tax, insurances (including the cats!), heating/lighting etc, petrol to get to work, household cleaning, food for me, food for cats, the occasional bit of clothing when something wears out (farewell my favourite work chinos 😥), internet, mobile etc etc etc. For some people, £100 is less than their eating out bill for a week!

When I first got my cats, my income was lower than it is now by quite a bit but I had plenty of spare cash each month. But when you bear in mind that I now "only" pay £600 a month in mortgage interest rather than the £900 it was costing me 2 years ago, as opposed to £300 10 years ago, my weekly shopping has increased 50% in 5 years, household energy around doubled.....

that is obviously not the point

Saying 'cats can live to 20' is largely due to the range of treatments now available.

I'm not sure this is true - the life expectancy of your average domestic cat is anything between 13-17 years of age, so 20 isn't massively out of that range. The oldest cat on record made it to 38.

Yes, there are lots of new treatments available that didn't exist in the past, but it's not really the case that cats are only living to 20 because of those treatments.

Oh wow 13 is so young for a cat. I had an old dear who lived to 24. Very interested to read the rest of the thread as I've only read the opening post