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Pit Pet Thread

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Have had a couple friends lose their old dogs recently and our little guy is likely not too far behind. Part of being in that age group where you’re 10-15 years out of college and the dog you got when you went out on your own is now 10-15 years old as well.

This ended up being prescient, our guy had sudden heart failure this week at the ripe old age of 13-14. But he went quick and was a giant doofus right up to the very last evening. He had a good life.
 
I’ve never had to do this, but it might be time to put my 17 year old poodle down. He has at least one tumor in his neck since at least January 5th. He’s been truckin’ along just fine but over the last two weeks has steadily lost interest in food and hasn’t had a proper meal since Friday. The little guy still drinks plenty of water and will move around with relative ease when I put him out for a pee break...but I am wondering how long to let him carry on. I’ve never had to put a dog down before. How do you know when it’s the right time? I’ve had him since 2004 and I am going to miss the little guy.

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I’ve never had to do this, but it might be time to put my 17 year old poodle down. He has at least one tumor in his neck since at least January 5th. He’s been truckin’ along just fine but over the last two weeks has steadily lost interest in food and hasn’t had a proper meal since Friday. The little guy still drinks plenty of water and will move around with relative ease when I put him out for a pee break...but I am wondering how long to let him carry on. I’ve never had to put a dog down before. How do you know when it’s the right time? I’ve had him since 2004 and I am going to miss the little guy.

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Is he in a lot of pain? Does he still have any quality of life? We often extend their suffering for our own selfishness. I know I've been guilty of that, but you know animals. You know when it's time to let him go.
 
We waited way too long with my childhood lab. In hindsight, it's always easy to say we should have done it sooner. I think my thought process moving forward with my 5 year old lab will be analyzing pain and quality of life. My old lab was in no visible pain, but had lost all control of being able to hold in feces, etc. We dealt with it for much longer than we should have rather than making the decision we knew we should make, IMO.
 
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I'm pretty sure that the most annoying dog I've ever owned is a goddamn immortal. He showed up on our front porch over 12 years ago when my wife and I first got married. The vet estimated he was 5 or 6 then. He smells worse after he gets a bath, barks to go out at 2 a.m. every morning even though he pisses and shits all over my garage, and he scratches paint off of every door in my house. We're gonna turn the finished basement, a.k.a. his domain, into a playroom for the kids when he finally goes, and even though he's morbidly obese because he begs at every house in our neighborhood and everyone loves him for some insane reason, he shows no ill health effects whatsoever. Both the mail lady and my wife have run over him in the past year, yet he pops up as fucking spry as ever. I'm convinced that he's some annoying eternal spirit attached to me to pay penance for something horrible I've done in my past life.

Anyone want a dog?
 
I’ve never had to do this, but it might be time to put my 17 year old poodle down. He has at least one tumor in his neck since at least January 5th. He’s been truckin’ along just fine but over the last two weeks has steadily lost interest in food and hasn’t had a proper meal since Friday. The little guy still drinks plenty of water and will move around with relative ease when I put him out for a pee break...but I am wondering how long to let him carry on. I’ve never had to put a dog down before. How do you know when it’s the right time? I’ve had him since 2004 and I am going to miss the little guy.

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Other than the lack of appetite, it sounds like he is doing ok. And as mako and sd3 said, it's all about quality of life. You can always take him to the vet for an assessment and/or some meds. My experience has been the vets will tell you it's your decision, but they will also let you know that if you are thinking about letting them go or saying goodbye, that it's ok. That has made me feel better each time I have had to make that difficult decision.
 
We put him down tonight. Over dinner we told the kids that the time was coming soon and that maybe that should say good bye, and less than an hour later He had some sort of seizure and his back legs completely stopped working. He was really scared and in pain i think. My wife called our neighbor who is a vet and they came over to put him down. All happened as the deacs were entering overtime. I am kind or wrecked.
 
We put him down tonight. Over dinner we told the kids that the time was coming soon and that maybe that should say good bye, and less than an hour later He had some sort of seizure and his back legs completely stopped working. He was really scared and in pain i think. My wife called our neighbor who is a vet and they came over to put him down. All happened as the deacs were entering overtime. I am kind or wrecked.
Really sorry to hear but you all did the right thing. Dogs are the best, and we really don't deserve them. I was never a dog person until ours showed up on our front porch six years ago, and now I get it. Sounds like he spent some really good years with you all.
 
We put him down tonight. Over dinner we told the kids that the time was coming soon and that maybe that should say good bye, and less than an hour later He had some sort of seizure and his back legs completely stopped working. He was really scared and in pain i think. My wife called our neighbor who is a vet and they came over to put him down. All happened as the deacs were entering overtime. I am kind or wrecked.

so sorry man, watching them decline and having to make that decision is so difficult.
 
We put him down tonight. Over dinner we told the kids that the time was coming soon and that maybe that should say good bye, and less than an hour later He had some sort of seizure and his back legs completely stopped working. He was really scared and in pain i think. My wife called our neighbor who is a vet and they came over to put him down. All happened as the deacs were entering overtime. I am kind or wrecked.

I'm sorry for your loss, birdman. We went through a similar situation last fall.
 
Just picked up this 8 week old monster on Friday. His two big sisters don’t quite know what to make of the interloper, but we’ve made a lot of progress in just a couple of days. He’s pretty perfect tho. A terrorist, but perfect.

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A little over a year ago my parents adopted a senior dog, Beatrice, from the rescue where we got one of ours. She was one of the sweetest dogs in the world but at 12-13 years old had some significant health issues primarily around using her back legs. Unfortunately on Monday of this week the time had come to put her down. She had a magnificent last year of her life going to the lake on weekends and getting endless rub, head scratches and love. Still hit me way harder than I expected.
 
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