dog is getting old, so very old
 

:( We got Gideon when he was four months old not long after our wedding. Over the years we have had our struggles. Gideon is a very alpha dog, and very stubborn as well. But it's so hard to see him declining. The other day he was eating and he fell sideways into his water bowl. He's getting more and more forgetful, and often trips himself by twisting his back legs around each other. More times than not he poops in the house, and sometimes pees as well -that's hard on so many levels.

So anybody else going through this with a beloved pet? I don't really know what anyone can do, just needed to share our grief over this issue.

Re: dog is getting old, so very old
 

We put down our dog a couple months ago. We had her for 13 years, from about 4 months old. It was really hard. :bheart

Re: dog is getting old, so very old
 

:hugheart It is hard to watch them grow old.

Re: dog is getting old, so very old
 

Gideon is 16 1/2 years old. We are dreading the time when we will need to make a similar decision.

How do you make that choice? What criteria?

Re: dog is getting old, so very old
 

We knew her health was declining for a while. She was still happy and would want loving every day and want to play at least once a week.

Then one night she was laying under the table and whining loudly and sad barking. I wasn't home, but the kids said it was loud enough to make it hard to sleep.

The next morning, she couldn't stand up. We took her to the vet. They said they could provide meds to take away the pain, but her body was so broken down that she wouldn't last more than a few days. We decided we would rather she die lucid, surrounded by the people she loves than drugged up. The kids came with us and we all pet her and loved on her and cried for her until she was gone.

Re: dog is getting old, so very old
 

:cry Thank you so very much for sharing. I'm sorry you had to make the choice, but thankful that your family was able to come to an agreement and a way of saying good-bye.

Re: dog is getting old, so very old
 

We've not had a dog grow very old but we had a cat who needed to be put down because of kidney failure. It was horribly difficult and even though it was 15 years ago, I'm getting weepy a bit remembering. For our kitty, he began to urinate everywhere very suddenly and then there was blood everywhere. It was fast and sudden within 2 days and I had just brought my first baby home from the hospital. :(

Now our shepherd mix doggie is 11 and has had some recent health problems. He had surgery this week to get a tumor removed and his eye duct flushed (two separate issues) and they are concerned what they removed from his paw is cancer. We won't know until the biopsy comes back. My kids don't know that after seeing it they are very concerned. And all 3 are very attached to the dog. This is the dog we got when my dc were 4.75, 3, and in utero. I am a little afraid for our family when he goes but I'm praying that they are wrong about the tumor and that we can move on to letting him grow old peacefully.

I have cried a few times this week at the THOUGHT that our beloved pet isn't long for the world so I'm having a hard time putting myself fully in your shoes.
I will be praying for you.

Re: dog is getting old, so very old
 

Oh that is so hard. I had a Gideon as well, a yellow lab that was the son of my first female. I had him literally since birth. I say this a lot but usually when you are asking yourself if it is time, it is. :hugheart

Re: dog is getting old, so very old
 

We get frustrated when we have messes to clean up. He loses his balance sometimes and ends up rolling/walking in his mess, then tracking it around the house. We have child gates up to restrict how much access he has, but it's still a miserable task to deal with. Still, the only alternative is to put him down and we aren't ready to make that choice. We have his bedding wrapped in a garbage bag so we don't have to launder that every time he doesn't get up. I guess I'm just whiney.:hissyfit

Re: dog is getting old, so very old
 

My most recent times of having to put a pet down who was old all involved the pet reaching a point where their health and aging issues made their life miserable, and were also very difficult for us to deal with.

For example, a kitty who couldn't quite make it into the litter box anymore because her kidneys were failing. Another kitty who could no longer clean her hair well on her belly, and she would bite if you tried to brush her there. So she would get matting that would immediately irritate her skin. It was a vicious cycle.

Other than that, I had two pets who were injured (one by a car, one by a dog) and I had to put them both down. They were both elderly too though, which I think helped because we knew their quality of life was going down.

It's such a hard, horrible thing to go through. :bheart

Re: dog is getting old, so very old
 

Just rereading through all your posts, taking in the encouragement and the benefit from your experiences, too. Thanks so much for your responses. It's a lot to contemplate.

Re: dog is getting old, so very old
 

i'm sorry:hugheart it is so hard to say goodbye to such faithful been there through it all pets:hugheart

Re: dog is getting old, so very old
 

I just added up what we spend each month on meds/supplements for him. It's over $100 not including things like flee/tick treatment, office visits, immunizations, licenses, etc. I suppose that doesn't really make any difference. If our child needed those meds we would get them anyway. We spend a lot on supplements and meds for us, too.

Re: dog is getting old, so very old
 

It gets very overwhelming :hugheart

Re: dog is getting old, so very old
 

It is a hard decision, I know :hugheart. We had to do it twice. Once, the poor dog was hit by a car. His back was badly broken. We asked the vet what he would do if it were his own dog, and he told he would definitely put him down. An operation might have helped him but that was not sure. And it would be painful and very difficult, and with an unsure outcome he considered the kindest thing to send him to the dog's heaven. So that's what we did.:cry. It was terrible, because the decision had to be made quicly. There was hardly any time to think it over.
The second time our dog had cancer. The vet advised to let her live as long as she seemed to have any pleasure in life and she was not in pain. So that's what we did. Operation was not adviseable, that would only make the cancer spread more quickly. She lived a few years after the diagnose. When we saw that she was starting to suffer, we let the vet put her to sleep.

I believe it is important to see, that the animal is not suffering. Animals are not humans. A human understands that sickens hurts, and they understand operations and medications cause stress and pain. And a very sick and suffering human can still value those little things that life still has to offer. But a dog that is not able to move without pain, ot not at all, can not understand why.
And a suffering human, who believes in God, can still pray. And a suffering unbeliever can still repent. But a suffering animal does not need to repent for it has done nothing wrong.

"There is a door in Heaven for us. Not a gate - that would not work - but a door. Jesus has made that door for us. Otherwise we would never go to Heaven", said my DD2 once when she was a little 3yo. She thought for a while, and continued: "There is also a gate in Heaven. And in this gate, there is a little window. And through this little window all the good dogs, the good cats and the good rabbits and all the other good animals go to Heaven. They will have no sharp fingernails no more".

Try to evaluate if your dog still has any pleasure in living on this earth. But when the suffering outweights the pleasure, it is the right and kind thing to let him go through this special window my 3yo DD believed was there for all the good animals.