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Hi
Took my 14 year old dog Claude to the vet last week, he`s been losing weight badly, first i put it down to him being in a kennel for 3 weeks while i was on holiday but it seems that the lump that has appeared on his back as the weight dropped off is a tumor. I have not bothered getting it tested going by the philosopy that as its inoperable there`s no point in finding out if its benign or mallignant so there`s no point in getting the test and putting him through the stress of it all. Been feeding him up on posh food and he`s been loving it, put weight back on and looking bright and happy (he still is) i almost thought that the grasping at straws had worked and its just a lump, that was till this morning when he got up and urinated in the hall and acted like he`d done nothing wrong. Now i can deal with this happening, he`s my best friend, he`s old and him, his now deacesed mother and sister have made my life worth living over the past 20 years and nothing is too much trouble. The ONLY thing that is important is that he does not suffer closely followed by me not doing the inevitably nessesary deed too soon so how do you tell when its time ? He`s the same dog he`s always been. Happy, eating his posh food with enthusiasm, loves going on walks, not a sign of discomfort or pain all. He`s only had a wee maybe two as i`m not sure if my 4 year old bitch has contributed. The thing is he would never do that and i mean never so i`m wondering whats happening ? is the lump thats on the outside of his rib cage pushing on something, is he losing his mind. I am not trying to find excuses to prevent me having to do this, i`ve had to do it a few times before allthough then i was in a position where i had no choice i just want to make sure i do it at the right time
Thanks
Alan

Hi Alan,


What breed is Claude? Is he castrated?


Did you have a look at the information on this page - 'the right time' under 'Euthanasia'? http://www.theralphsite.com/index.php?idPage=11 This page contains my general thoughts on how to think about when the right time is. A very important thing to stress is that this is not an exact science, there is no objective way of knowing exactly when the right time is. The most important thing to do is exactly what you are doing - that is facing up to it, thinking about it, making the most of the time you have while always reassessing Claude's quality of life. Don't let yourself ignore or bury your head in the sand about signs he starts to show that suggest that he is deteriorating or suffering. Please have a look at that page if you haven't already.


Obviously I have to be careful about making judgments without having seen Claude but from what you say at the moment it does not sound like his time has come.


From where you describe this lump to be, it would seem unlikely that it has directly affected his urination. If it is a malignant lump then it may have spread to a place where it could affect his urination but we cannot know that without a specific diagnosis.


When a dog does something like this, wee where he/she hasn't before, we always want to understand some facts. For example, did he strain at the time? was there a good stream? a decent amount of wee? did the wee look bloody? did he/she know that they had urinated (even if they did not seem troubled by it)? is his drinking normal? etc. These bits of information help us to try and decide whether the dog is incontinent due to another underlying problem - e.g. bladder infection or stones - or whether they are incontinent without one of these disorders. In such cases, it is quite common for an elderly patient to urinate in this way and appear unphased about it because of ageing of their brain - like senility in people. These animals can also show other signs for example seeming aloof at times, barking for no reason, sometimes passing faeces indiscriminately.


I guess my advice would be to contine to monitor Claude. If the weeing is the only abnormality and happens again, you could discuss with your vet about for example having a urine sample analysed, maybe doing some blood tests to look for an underlying cause. If it is because of 'senility' then there are a couple of therapies that people try and sometimes find they help.


Hope that helps.


Best wishes,


Shailen


Shailen Jasani MA VetMB MRCVS DipACVECC

Comments from our Facebook page:

"An elderly lady told me once you know when the time is right because your special friend has lost their smile. xx"

"That's so true. I've had to make that decision 4 times this year and it never gets any easier but I know I made the right decision every time. It's one of the important parts of having a pet is knowing when to say goodbye and having the courage to make that awful decision x"

Hi
Thanx for the replies. He`s a staffie cross but he looks more like a lab and he had his reproductive bits removed when he was about 1 year old. Looking at him now he`s looking great. Bright eye`s, waggy tail and giving me that "its time to go out" look. No sign at all of anything wrong but knowing how quickly his sister went downhill i know that means little as for the urinating, well i go to work at 2am and i`m back home at 8am and there has been no mess when i returned but i also work wed, thur, fri afternoons and on both thur and fri there has been a very small pool of wetness but the 4 year old Mastiff/staff bitch i have got could well have done that on top of his original mistake, my obsession with watching the csi`s tells me it never had the directionality that a male would produce :) (she still thinks and acts like a puppy all be it a giant one) When we go out i check everything from both orifices, no blood, no straining nothing abnormal at all , guess its just a case of observing until i see something, thanx for your input it helped me out of the hole i was descending into.
Alan

Glad to help Alan, hope he continues to be well for a good time yet. Feel free to post again as/when you need to.

Well its been almost three weeks since his diagnosis, no more wee`s in the house. His ribs and haunches have disappeared under a layer of fat, he`s always loved going for a walk but now he doesn`t lag behind except when he find`s a particularly interesting smell. I`m beginning to think his weight loss is partly down to age making his enthusiasm to eat boring complete dog food less and partly down to being in the kennels for 3 weeks. He`s enthusiastically eating the posh dog food i put in front of him. The only thing wrong is the lump on his side and that doesn`t seem to hurt him and hasn`t grown anymore. I wont tempt fate with any statement but for a dog who`s got weeks to live he`s looking more like a dog who`s getting younger
Alan

That's really great Alan, glad to hear it. Fingers crossed he continues like this for some time to come.

Hi Alan,

It does not sound like you need to be too concerned about this at the moment but I came across this article on canine 'dementia' and thought you might find it of interest nonetheless http://bit.ly/uVBt5y

Its been almost two months since his diagnosis and there`s still no sign of pain but that's were the good news ends. He stopped eating dog food about three weeks ago, since then its been chicken thighs from the supermarket with some ham, cheese and generally anything he will eat. He scoffed it all down enthusiastically until the past few days but now that's becoming a chore for him. One of my big indicators is going for a walk. He`s still keen to go out and has been jogging along happily until a few days ago but now he keeps stopping for what i presume is a rest although he shows no signs of panting or tiredness. After the ups and downs of the past few months i think i can safely say he`s fading away, its not going to be very long before i have to do the deed not very long at all :(
Alan

Sorry to hear that Alan. It does sound like his quality of life is declining. You do have the option of reconsulting your vet as this decline may not be related to that lump but something else, or Claude may be uncomfortable just not showing it in a more obvious way and some pain-killers may help. However you may also feel that further testing and treatment is just prolonging the inevitable given Claude's time of life and I think that would be an entirely reasonable and understandable judgement to make - he is your companion, your friend, you know him the best and are best placed to make this judgement on his behalf.

Well i`ve been contemplating the unthinkable for a week now and in that week he`s slowed down considerably, eating is a chore that takes a lot of encouragement and he`s pitifully thin. He comes on a walk but a walk is all it is, no sniffing or rooting round in the undergrowth. None of that stuff that dogs do when they are out, none of that doggy fun. He just slowly plods along behind me with a "why are you making me do this" expression on his face. I think he only comes out of that unswerving loyalty he has towards me. I insisted that i would not do anything untill he was in pain and i dont think he is he`s just become so weak that his life has no quality anymore and i feel that I am on that line between letting him go or keeping him going out of my selfish need for him in my life. We are going to the vets on Monday morning to get an opinion but i already know what its going to be. I`m going to lose that special being in my life that i still struggle to put a name to because friend or family does not sufficiently cover what he is to me.
Despondently
Alan.

I will be thinking of you on Monday as I am now. I had known for the past 4 months that it was approaching decision time for my boy but on new years day he kept collapsing. He got worse over the course of 2 hours and I 100% knew it was time. I always worried about how I would know it wad time to say goodbye but I knew instantly it was time. It broke my heart to say goodbye but seeing him like that destroyed me and I would have done anything to let him be at peace. We now know he had a undiagnosed condition called Cdrm (?) and he was in the final stages. Even though he kept falling over he insisted on being by my side.....loyal to the end. It is a heartbreaking decision your faced with but I like to think it is the last loving action we can do for our best friends.


X

Such a difficult time Alan, so sorry. But throughout the pain and the grief I hope that you manage to hold on to the fact that you have to do the right thing for Claude and that in the end that does bring you some comfort. There are some poems that can be very inspiring in helping people hang on to what has to be done, for example If It Should Be:
http://www.theralphsite.com/index.php?idPage=3

Will be thinking of your family this weekend and on Monday.

Thanx but if i start reading poems i wont be able to hold it together and i`ve got Tribute to a dog by George graham vest etched into my soul. Inevitably he seems to have bucked up and thats doing little to help my sanity at this stage. I muse reiterate i`d bet my life on him not being in pain and as i look at him now lying there looking at me i cant help but think he`s just an old dog who needs my love and attention rather than the alternative and i know that look its "i want to go for a walk" not really a sign that what is in store is the right thing to do, people in the know say to me " you`ll know the right time" and right now i am getting no indication that this is it, its coming, its very very close and as i`m writing this he gets off the couch and comes over for a stroke then goes for a drink, soon we`ll go for a walk and during the walk i`ll feed him 1 maybe 2 150 gram flat tins of Cesar ( i`ve worked out he eats better while he`s strolling along) so he`s eating, drinking, not in pain, he wants to go out, wants strokes off me. he`s not the dog i used to have that bounded through the forests leading our pack but i`m thinking 23 hours is too soon, maybe something will happen to change that in the next day and i`ll have to re evaluate yet again i just dont know but as i`m quite prepared to get the emergency man out to do what is necessary to avoid any prolonged stress or pain i`m seriously considering postponing my appointment tomorrow. i`ve soul searched all night to see if i`m doing this for selfish reasons and i can honestly say i`m not its really down to my lack of belief in any afterlife and so every day matters ( to anyone who does believe don't let this spoil your vision i could well be wrong and i hope i am, i`ve always been cynical) there`s nothing i`d like more than Rainbow bridge to be real where i`d be with all my old friends once more. all i can say is i just dont know whats happening from one minute to the next, i`m sorry for dragging you round on my roller coaster and thank you for your kind words and advice. Here is my photobucket dogs album, Claude as he is now is on the last few please feel free to comment on his condition. The rest are his mother and sister along with poppy my 4 year old in happier times. Enjoy
http://s1201.photobucket.com/albums/bb359/schrodingers-cat/My%20dogs/

It is definitely a dilemma to which there isn't always a clear-cut answer. On the one hand we don't want to let them suffer and so tend to say that too soon is better than too late. On the other hand, it is very right to consider whether what you are seeing is ageing rather than suffering. Old age isn't a disease in itself is it although I am not clear how much and how consistently Claude is eating.. It is difficult to tell much from a photo, he looks thin but not sure what his normal body condition was/is. Of course having him put to sleep is very final and you are doing exactly the right thing to give it a lot of thought and try avoid regret. Overall my feeling is take it a day at a time, see what your vet says tomorrow but don't feel like you have to call it a day tomorrow as it does not sound like that moment has arrived just yet..one day at a time...

Today was the day. Last night i let him sleep on my bed completely unaware of what the following day would bring. I noticed him, head up in the night a few times, unable to get comfortable, the first time his sleep has been broken. In the morning I put him in his bed and started doing my own thing vaguely bothered that he wasn`t following me round or had not requested to go out to wee. Eventually he got up and went to the toilet, came back in and was sick. The penny started to drop for me then so i put him in the car and took him for a short walk and while doing a number two his legs went, he go up again but by this time it was perfectly clear to me what i had to do so i made the phone call, got in virtually straight away and now my Dog, My best friend, My devoted companion i`d had for 14 years, since the second he took his first breath who helped me cope with the miseries life has thrown at me is in a little box on the cabinet next to his mother and sister. My other dog poppy who is only 4 is confused although i showed her his body she very unsettled. On reflection i dont think i did the wrong thing postponing it for two days, its been beautiful here and we have been on two short walks every day while he ate his posh food, old age was all he was suffering from then but all that changed today. I`ll write him an epitaph when i`m feeling better. Goodbye Claude i dont know how i`m going to cope with life without you :(

So sorry Alan. I know that at this point in time especially there is little one can say to help how you are feeling suffice to say that we are all here to listen whenever you need to vent some grief. I do think from what you have said that you handled the whole situation in the last few weeks with Claude's welfare at the forefront of your mind at all times and that that is all you can ask of yourself.

Thinking of you.

I am so sorry for your loss. My thoughts are with you. X

Thank you for your concern and guidance :(

Thank you for your concern and guidance :(