How do you know when it’s time to put your dog down?

Question

Chris Pachel · Answer

How do you know when it's time to put your dog down? If you're listening to this question and this is relevant for you. I'm sorry. It's a really difficult part of of life in pet ownership and I understand how difficult this particular question is to find the well, the right answer for Truthfully, the right answer is going to be a little bit different for every situation. What I'm typically looking for when I'm helping my clients or my, my friends even answer this question is to get a better sense of who that dog is and what makes them? Well, light up, what makes them comfortable, what makes them who they are. And if I'm able to still see that dog enjoying life and their health is in good shape and there's not any obvious concerns. And that would negatively impact their overall welfare of quality of life, then it may not be time. With that being said, if we are seeing Progressive health concerns that we don't have a way to address, or we're seeing significant pain or discomfort, or anxiety, or emotional distress, or other issues that are negatively impacting the quality of life for that animal. And especially if we're seeing those have a negative impact on that animals ability to enjoy their own life, then it may be time to consider. Saying goodbye through Humane euthanasia, the actual process for that is something that you should talk with your Veterinary team about and they can walk you through the resources that are available, either through their Primary Clinic or through other community resources. And again, I'm sorry that you need to consider this and I applaud your looking for this particular information, all my best.

Christine Wickenheiser · Answer

How do you know when it's time to put your dog down? Quality of life is something that you as the pet owner and with your veterinarian can should discuss because euthanasia is a gift in veterinary medicine. It is something that I find as a blessing in my job to be able to say goodbye to my patients. When nothing else is going to help them and I know that they're having way more bad days than they are. Good days. You there is a quality of life scale online that you can access that helps you determine if your pets having quality of life, just because your pet is old does not mean every illness means. Now it's time to say goodbye. They're still going to have diarrhea from eating ham, whether there are two or 18 years of age. So just talk to your vet and don't assume Every issue with your pet means, it's the end or that it's time. There are so many things you can do to enhance your pets, quality of life. But the big thing is, if you're like dogs, they love to be with their humans and eat food, and if they can't do those two things, those are their basic life needs. If they can't do those two things, they're not having quality of life and kind of forgets to they like to curl up and And socialize and cuddle and be with you and eat their food. And if they can't do those things, they're also not having quality of life but talk to your veterinarian about it because there are many things that many pet owners assume our end-of-life age-related issues and they're not, they're very treatable normal medical issues. They're just happening in an older pet, so talk to your vet.

Elizabeth Thompson · Answer

How do you know when it's time to put your dog down? Boy, that's a really difficult question. And so the first thing in answering that is to make sure that if you're noticing changes in your dog, weakness, lethargy, lack of appetite, pain, things of that nature, you kind of want to first get an idea of what's going on and whether or not those things are treatable, because there are some changes, even in older dogs that are treatable that help maintain a good quality of life. If your dog has end-stage problems, whether it be organ damage, end-stage arthritis that's not responsive to medications, cancer, things of that nature, where there are really not a lot of palliative treatment options that are effective, I kind of make a list of the quality of life determining factors for my own dog. And that's kind of a personal list because you know your dog better than anybody else. But some of the things at the top of that list are appetite, energy level, and does your dog do some of the things that correspond with their normal quality of life, playing or interacting with people, things of that nature. If they have pain that is not well-controlled, you cannot get them to eat for several days even with appetite stimulants, they have chronic vomiting, they're very lethargic, they're not interactive beyond being able to treat, that's when you kind of know that it's time.

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How do you know when it’s time to put your dog down?

Chris Pachel

Chris Pachel

Christine Wickenheiser

Elizabeth Thompson