We have a dog. I don't like the dog, and I've never liked the dog. She is 10 years old. She's been through obedience school, but she is the least intelligent and least obedient dog I've ever owned or even known. Despite this I didn't feel right killing a perfectly healthy animal just because I didn't enjoy her.
She has developed a number of health issues over the years. She tore her CCL and had surgery to repair it. The whole ordeal was brutal, and both my wife and I regret putting her and ourselves through that. The recovery was months and months of carrying her up and down stairs, and keeping her restricted so she didn't hurt herself. If we could go back we would not opt for the surgery. Shortly after recovery, she was heavily favoring the good leg and putting all her weight on it, and because of this tore her other CCL. We thought it might be her time, and opted to let it heal naturally rather than putting everyone through the ordeal of another expensive, painful surgery and recovery period. Her recovery this time was significantly faster and a much better experience (for us and her). She still shows signs of mild discomfort (doesn't run up and down stairs as readily as she used to, can't walk or play as long as she used to, acts lethargic, gets up/down much slower). I think it's a combination of the injuries and her old age, and arthritis.
She also developed severe allergies. We did oral treatments, diet change after diet change, and gave her subcutaneous shots for a couple of months, all at great expense. Nothing worked. Finally we got her on a steroid (prednisolone), and it was the only thing that even remotely worked to reduce her allergies and give her any quality of life. The vet was concerned about long term use of steroids, but there were literally no other options. We knew we were likely reducing her length of life in exchange for making her semi comfortable in the moment. The steroids also seemed to help with her inflammation and joint discomfort. Finally a new drug, apoquel, was made available and we tried it, and it worked far better than anything else we tried. It didn't work 100% though, and she was still itchy and having issues, but it was manageable. It worked maybe 85%. It was also rather expensive, and they keep raising the price every year. Her current annual cost for apoquel is $520/yr.
While she was taking the steroids she also developed urinary incontinence and would leak urine all over the house. She wasn't intentionally pissing in the house, the steroids caused her to have to urinate frequently and she would just leak. She'd get up and there would be a tiny puddle of piss. Or she would get up, and leave a drip trail of piss because it was just leaking. Once we got her off the steroids and onto the apoquel the incontinence improved, but never went away. After we took her off the steroids she also lost her appetite and stopped eating. Instead of the normal 2 meals a day she would let the food sit in her bowl, and eat maybe once a day, but sometimes would skip a day entirely. She has lost weight and is looking skinny. She also vomits a couple of times per week. It's not constant, but I am fucking sick of cleaning up dog puke.
Over the last 2 years she has also developed some growths on her eyelids. The vet said they are not life threatening, and would incur a several hundred dollar bill to remove them, and they would likely just grow back. We opted not to remove them.
She has also developed a growth on her chest. The vet said it didn't seem painful to her, and was likely benign. We wouldn't know for sure unless we wanted to perform exploratory surgery. We opted not to put her through the surgery. She has grown a couple more since then, also likely benign. They don't seem to cause her pain when they are touched, but she does seem like she doesn't want the area poked at excessively.
She has behavioral issues. She can't be left outside unattended because she will eat anything and everything she can get her mouth on (grass, garbage, etc). She also attacks the fence if there are neighbor dogs (which there constantly are). This is how she tore her CCL the first time, years ago, by jumping wildly at our privacy fence while trying to attack the dog on the other side. We tried to socialize her with the neighbor dog and thought they would stop attacking the fence if we could let them sniff each other and get used to each other, and she decided to attack and bite the other dog. All 4 owners were present, and they were both on leashes, so there was no damage, but we decided at that point she was not a social dog and would never allow her to be around another dog.
She is also possessive of her bones and toys, and if anyone tries to steal one she gets aggressive. She doesn't attack the person per say, but aggressively tries to get possession of her bone again. This is a huge concern for us as we have a 6 month old baby that is going to be crawling soon. The baby won't understand to stay away from the dogs bones, and the dog won't understand that the baby is not trying to steal her bones.
Currently we've been locking the dog in the bathroom every time we give our son floor time. He can't crawl and get her bones or threaten her, but she has this tendancy to go spastic whenever she sees reflected light. If sunlight comes through a window and hits a watch/phone/silverware and reflects on the ceiling or wall she goes ballistic trying to attack the light. She barks and flips out with no situational awareness and will trample anyone/anything in her way. Before the baby this was an extremely annoying though mildly funny reaction, but now with a baby I don't feel safe having them on the same floor.
We've been on the fence for the last couple of years about putting her to sleep for all the reasons listed. Her quality of life is dropping every year, and the cost to keep her is rising every year. She already passed the financial cut off point where I thought it was reasonable to keep her a couple of years ago, but my wife loved her and didn't want to let her go.
We finally made the decision that it was her time, and scheduled an appointment. Much crying and grieving went on. We got a babysitter so we could both see her off. We went to the vet, and prepaid so we didn't have to deal with it afterwards. Then the vet came in and had an awkward conversation that went something like this:
Vet: So what's going on with the dog?
Me: All the reasons above.
Vet: Those aren't good reasons to kill your dog. All of those are treatable conditions. We have medications to address all of that.
Me: Yea I know, at great expense, and then she still has a reduced quality of life, and I can't trust her around my baby/other dogs.
Vet: She might have a urinary tract infection causing her incontinence.
Me: No, she doesn't have a UTI.
Vet: How do you know that?
Me: It's been an on going issue for the last several years, ever since she was on prednisolone long term. We also had her tested for this exact issue last year because you suspected it might be an infection, despite all evidence pointing to it not being an infection.
Vet: Well I can't know unless I test her.
Me: You did test her and it's not a damn UTI! She's been doing it for years at this point! You are her vet, you should have 10 years worth of her history and medications in your files.
Vet: The cost for testing and medication is not that much, and those aren't good reasons.
Me: Yes it is, the cost for the last year has been too great IMO and you are talking about adding several more diagnostic tests and medications to that. I agree that any one of those reasons individually is not enough to warrant it, but all of them in aggregate means her annual treatment costs will be the highest they've ever been, and her quality of life is going to be the lowest it's ever been.
Vet: There is also the option of rehoming her.
Me: Nobody wants a 10 year old dog with all these health issues, that is going to cost north of $2k/yr to keep alive (assuming nothing else goes wrong!), that can't be trusted around children, and can't be around other dogs! You're delusional if you think someone will rehome her when there are literally thousands of young, perfectly healthy dogs being euthanized because nobody wants them.
Vet: I won't euthanize a dog that has treatable conditions and is rehomable. It's not ethical.
Me: Why did you even allow us to schedule an appointment?!
Vet: I didn't personally take the call, that was the receptionist on the front end. Let me work up a cost estimate for you.
Me: Ok, make sure you include everything so we get an accurate annual cost
At this point the vet leaves, and me and my wife are in shock trying to understand wtf just happened. A few minutes later a vet tech came in with an estimate.
VT: This is what it will cost today to get your dog treated.
Me: Yeah, but this doesn't include all the treatments, medications, and vaccines she will require. This is just a small sampling of what the true cost will be, and is only a months worth of medication, this is exactly why I asked for a total work up.
VT: Yes, this is what it will cost today. We can do these services and can schedule the other stuff later.
Me. No, that's the problem, this isn't an accurate representation of the true cost. I need a total annual number to make a decision.
VT: This is what it will cost today.
Me: YES I FUCKING UNDERSTAND THIS IS WHAT IT WILL COST TODAY. I think it's disingenuous for you to present me with a bill that is likely under 20% of the true cost, and have me pay it so it becomes a sunk cost, and then continue to bill me when I've told you the dog is already a financial burden to us.
At that point I walked out of the vet and went home. I've totaled up what I expect her annual vet costs to be based on previous bills, and come up with about $1,000. Adding the new medication the vet wants to put her on brings the total to about $1,600/yr. Add in the other non vet costs brings the grand total pet ownership to $2,000/yr. This is the guaranteed cost, assuming we don't treat the growths on her eyes or the growths on her chest, and her health doesn't decline at all (it's been in continuous decline for about 6 years). For an animal I don't like, that pisses and vomits on my carpet, I don't trust around my baby, and doesn't seem to enjoy life early as much as she used to. I have spent the last week wrestling with the emotions and trying to come to peace with saying goodbye, and then the plan got turned on it's ear by the vet, and it's been a total mind fuck for both me and my wife.
I know I can call another vet, or shelter, and have her euthanized. I know there are places that will do it no questions asked. But now I'm having a lot of self doubt that I am making the right decision. I still think we are, but it's really bothering and stressing me out, and the decision is so irreversible. I can't decide I regret my decision and undo it. She doesn't have a good quality of life (IMO), but she's also not crying in pain constantly. If she had incurable cancer, or couldn't walk at all, or needed a $7k procedure, or something this decision would be a lot easier. As it stands now it's a judgement call, and she's somewhere on the spectrum between being a happy dog, and living a miserable existence. She still has good days. She still wags her tail and greets me at the door. She doesn't get to chase the ball around or go for long walks anymore. I've seen too many people hang on to their pets for far too long after the quality of life has declined, and I always thought it was immensely selfish and unfair to keep the pet around that long. It's unfair to the animal to let it suffer.
Now I feel even more conflicted than I did originally and I don't know what to do.