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One of the hardest things I've ever done...Follow

#1 Dec 13 2013 at 11:27 AM Rating: Excellent
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Last night I spent 3 hours at the emergency vet with one of my cats, and at the end, I had to make the decision to euthanize. It was pretty hard to do. I've had that cat for about seven years, so she wasn't all that old relative to most cat lifespans, and she was definitely my favorite. She always slept near me no matter where I was, and had one of the craziest cute personalities I have ever seen in a cat.

Her lungs were nearly completely filled with fluid due to a tumor, something was causing serious constipation, and I could literally see tears watering out of her eyes. The vet said the chances of her recovering from it were slim to none, and I made the decision not to drag it out.

I feel pretty guilty about it now, though. Like I could have done something more, or like I could have caught the signs earlier. It was so sudden. She was just at the vet a few months ago for some ear gunk (that turned out to be nothing but just excessive wax production) and they didn't find anything abnormal.

Posting here about it is pretty lame, but I guess I'm just trying to work it out. Hurts and I miss her. Feel like maybe I made the wrong call. Don't really know how to deal with it. This is the first cat I have ever had to put to sleep, and now I'm just wondering when the other two are going to go. They both have like 5 years on this one, and I never expected her to be the first to go.

I'm sure some of you have been through it. How did you handle it?
#2 Dec 13 2013 at 11:36 AM Rating: Excellent
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With extreme rage. I had to put my German Shepard down due to extreme hip dysplasia combined with being 12 years old, and even though the Vet could see the grief I was going through at the time he had the balls to ask me to help him put my dog in the body bag. If the Assistant hadn't heard him and immediately ran back in the room there would have been a second body for disposal.

Sorry for your loss, it's never easy putting down a loved pet. Smiley: frown
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#3 Dec 13 2013 at 11:38 AM Rating: Excellent
It always hurts. They're our little furry children.

My cat and dog obsessed friends refer to it as "crossing over the Rainbow Bridge." It's a sweet thought, but if I dwell on it too much I end up bawling.









... dammit, not again. Smiley: cry
#4 Dec 13 2013 at 11:42 AM Rating: Good
Pretty sure the souls of our pets don't end up in Asgard.
#5 Dec 13 2013 at 11:43 AM Rating: Excellent
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Smiley: frown
#6 Dec 13 2013 at 11:46 AM Rating: Excellent
BrownDuck wrote:
Pretty sure the souls of our pets don't end up in Asgard.


Well, according to a lot of sects of Abrahammic religions they don't go to human Heaven, either. They've gotta go somewhere, and if the Norse gods are the only ones who'll take them, why not?
#7 Dec 13 2013 at 11:48 AM Rating: Excellent
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#8 Dec 13 2013 at 11:50 AM Rating: Excellent
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BrownDuck wrote:
Pretty sure the souls of our pets don't end up in Asgard.
Someone has to bark at Ratatoskr.
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#9 Dec 13 2013 at 11:51 AM Rating: Excellent
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You did the right thing. Too many people wait and it's selfish. It was her time and she was in pain and miserable...to keep her would have been for you, not her.

My cat (the only cat I'll ever refer to as "my cat") died when I was 14 and I'd had her since I was born (she was six months older than me). She had pneumonia. She'd had pneumonia twice before, and recovered, so I wouldn't hear of my parents putting her to sleep...at the end, she couldn't walk and I had to hold her in the cat box and hold water up to her mouth to drink, if she could be bothered. It wasn't right, and she should have been put to sleep, but I wouldn't leave her side to let them take her. I went to my grandmother's for a couple of hours to help her with something and when I came back, was told she had died. I accused my father of tricking me into leaving and then murdering her. He had buried her in a hillside on our backyard that she liked to lay on in the sun. I sat there for hours until well after dark and refused to speak to him.

Anyway, my point is, loving an animal and being a good pet-parent is also accepting when it's time to let go and do the right thing by them. You did that, good on you.

Nexa
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#10 Dec 13 2013 at 11:56 AM Rating: Decent
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I could walk over and kill our cats right now with my bare hands and feel nothing. Really. Nothing. They're animals. I'm sure you loved your dog and to stroke your own ego assume it loved you. The reality is 15 minutes and a bucket of chicken livers and the dog would have gone home with a stranger and never thought of you again. They aren't ******* people.
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#11 Dec 13 2013 at 11:57 AM Rating: Excellent
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Smasharoo wrote:
I could walk over and kill our cats right now with my bare hands and feel nothing. Really. Nothing. They're animals. I'm sure you loved your dog and to stroke your own ego assume it loved you. The reality is 15 minutes and a bucket of chicken livers and the dog would have gone home with a stranger and never thought of you again. They aren't @#%^ing people.


No one thinks your emotional state should be the standard for normal human beings - don't worry.

Nexa
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#12 Dec 13 2013 at 11:58 AM Rating: Good
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Shaowstrike the Shady wrote:
... the Vet could see the grief I was going through at the time he had the balls to ask me to help him put my dog in the body bag.
Maybe the vet thinks or hopes that actually handling your lifeless beloved pet might help with the realization and finality and thus hasten or soften the grieving.

My daughter, last week, had to make a similar call. Her (and her bf's) cat had cancer. There were still things that the vet could have yet tried to 'save' the cat, but nothing with much guarantee for success. The animal had been wasting away for some time and appeared to be suffering. They opted to have it euthanized.

I had cautioned my daughter a couple times since she'd become a cat owner, about going broke on vet bills (been there - done that), and felt a little bad that her decision to put down the cat may have been influenced, in part, by my advice about spending at the vet.

Anyways, I'd not lose any sleep about your decision. I'm sure you did well by the animal. Spg woulda had cat-stew cooking in the crock by now. too soon??.

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#13 Dec 13 2013 at 11:59 AM Rating: Excellent
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Not something I've generally looked forward to, those cute little fuzzy things yank at the heart strings and such. I've never had to actually be there when one was put down. My two cats growing up, one found the wheels of a car, and the other was put down while I was away at college. My most recent cat, we had to leave at the shelter knowing she'd likely be put down.

If there's a silver lining at all, one of the guys here just had to put down his last cat about a month ago. Him and his wife don't have any children, and their cats have been their life, so it was quite difficult for them. Within 2 weeks they were followed home by a runaway kitty, and after finding the old owners they wound up keeping the fur ball. You never know what good things are right around the corner. Smiley: smile
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#14 Dec 13 2013 at 12:04 PM Rating: Excellent
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Elinda wrote:
Spg woulda had cat-stew cooking in the crock by now. too soon??.
Tsk. Moo Goo Gai Pan or some other Chinese order.

Edited, Dec 13th 2013 1:05pm by lolgaxe
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#15 Dec 13 2013 at 12:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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Elinda wrote:
Anyways, I'd not lose any sleep about your decision. I'm sure you did well by the animal. Spg woulda had cat-stew cooking in the crock by now. too soon??.
Smiley: oyvey

Cats aren't worth it on their own. You catch them, and put them in a trap so you can nab a coyote or something with more meat. Smiley: schooled

Edited, Dec 13th 2013 10:12am by someproteinguy
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#16 Dec 13 2013 at 12:08 PM Rating: Excellent
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Smasharoo wrote:
They aren't @#%^ing people.

I've got some videos that say otherwise.

Sorry to hear about the cat. I went though a similar thing a couple years ago when our cat began losing weight, then rejecting food then I was blending canned food into a slurry he could drink, then he started vomiting that up... anyway, the vet eventually suspected stomach cancer and we had to make the same choice to end his suffering then rather than wait on it.

It sucks and it's hard but it's part of owning pets that unless you have a tortoise or a parrot, you're going to outlive them. We waited a few years and then got a new cat (the wait was largely due to a new baby, not 30 months of grieving) and life goes on. You kind of have to accept that years of good times will be capped by a couple weeks of bad.
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#17 Dec 13 2013 at 12:11 PM Rating: Good
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Elinda wrote:
Shaowstrike the Shady wrote:
... the Vet could see the grief I was going through at the time he had the balls to ask me to help him put my dog in the body bag.
Maybe the vet thinks or hopes that actually handling your lifeless beloved pet might help with the realization and finality and thus hasten or soften the grieving.


You should remember to ask the EMT or hospital staff to let you help move the freshly deceased body of a loved one, you know, to help with the grieving.
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#18 Dec 13 2013 at 12:11 PM Rating: Excellent
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Shaowstrike the Shady wrote:
even though the Vet could see the grief I was going through at the time he had the balls to ask me to help him put my dog in the body bag.

My experience wasn't close to that but I did think the part where the vet poked my dead cat in the eye to see if it was really dead or not could have been handled better.

Plus, if the cat wasn't dead yet, why would I want my last memory of him being one where he just got poked in the eye before supposedly restfully passing on? Save that for after we leave and if you need to do some additional cat-euthanizing, do it then.
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#19 Dec 13 2013 at 12:24 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Shaowstrike the Shady wrote:
even though the Vet could see the grief I was going through at the time he had the balls to ask me to help him put my dog in the body bag.

My experience wasn't close to that but I did think the part where the vet poked my dead cat in the eye to see if it was really dead or not could have been handled better.

Plus, if the cat wasn't dead yet, why would I want my last memory of him being one where he just got poked in the eye before supposedly restfully passing on? Save that for after we leave and if you need to do some additional cat-euthanizing, do it then.


Wow, that's not very sensitive at all.

This vet was completely professional about the whole thing, the doctors and the assistants alike. Not one of them asked if 'I was ok', and all of them just offered words of support. The whole process was surprisingly quick. She yowled a little when they were putting the catheter in her vein and that broke my heart to hear, but when the time came, three shots and she just quietly disappeared. They left me with her for a moment and then took her to the back to do whatever their normal post-euthanasia procedure is. She was returned to me in a sealed box, with her name and some hearts hand drawn on the top.

Of course I was up all night worrying that it somehow got botched and she was trying to claw her way out of the box, and that was fueled by my relentless google searches for peoples' general experiences with euthanasia... but that was probably just post-traumatic stress. right?

I appreciate all the kind replies.
#20 Dec 13 2013 at 12:26 PM Rating: Good
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Shaowstrike the Shady wrote:
Elinda wrote:
Shaowstrike the Shady wrote:
... the Vet could see the grief I was going through at the time he had the balls to ask me to help him put my dog in the body bag.
Maybe the vet thinks or hopes that actually handling your lifeless beloved pet might help with the realization and finality and thus hasten or soften the grieving.


You should remember to ask the EMT or hospital staff to let you help move the freshly deceased body of a loved one, you know, to help with the grieving.

I think I would be honored to 'move' a dead loved on if that was the task that needed doing (cept I'm a weakling).

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#21 Dec 13 2013 at 12:30 PM Rating: Excellent
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We had to have a dog put down last year, and going through that process never gets any easier (for me, at least). The crematorium sent us a casting of his pawprint, which was really nice.

Edited, Dec 13th 2013 1:32pm by Spoonless
#22 Dec 13 2013 at 12:36 PM Rating: Excellent
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Elinda wrote:
I think I would be honored to 'move' a dead loved on if that was the task that needed doing (cept I'm a weakling).

If it's a gerbil, you can try to free throw it from the three-point line into the wastebasket.
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Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#23 Dec 13 2013 at 12:38 PM Rating: Excellent
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Jophiel wrote:
Elinda wrote:
I think I would be honored to 'move' a dead loved on if that was the task that needed doing (cept I'm a weakling).

If it's a gerbil, you can try to free throw it from the three-point line into the wastebasket.


You probably just whip em at cars.

Nexa
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― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones
#24 Dec 13 2013 at 6:57 PM Rating: Excellent
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You take what comfort you can in knowing you gave your pet the best life it could have had, and when it was time to let go you eased her out as gently as possible. You grieve, and you move on.

I'm sorry about your kitty.
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