We are putting our 15 year old mini schnauzer down soon. We've done all we can, she's in constant pain, can't walk much, had a stroke so when she does walk it's in left hand circles. She was my adventure buddy. She waited on the back of the couch looking for my car at 3:20 every day, I'd get home at 3:30. We went for a million hikes, hunted Montana black bear, understood probably 200 human words.
Her mind is still there, her body gave up.
My family and I made the made the (now regrettable for me) decision to euthanize our dog (golden doodle) of 16.5 years on Friday May 3 at 5pm.
A week before May 3 my sister's boyfriend brought over his new puppy and my dog given her age and bad legs usually didn't move too fast. But when we took both of our dogs outside in the yard we were amazed to see our dog running around a little bit with the puppy. She was wagging her tail and looked several years younger
Fast forward to Wednesday (4 days later), and our dog took a sharp turn in health. She was not looking good and wasn't walking straight. She had fallen over due to balance a few times. She wasn't eating much. She had several moments in the past few years where she wasn't doing well but we were able to slowly bounce her back to recovery with medication and such. But we had never seen her this bad before and were thinking she ultimately wasn't going to recover from this. During the night she was panting quite a bit. She was overdue for a haircut given the heat, but the closest appointment we could get her was June 1.
The next morning (Thursday), she didn't seem to keen on moving too much and I had to carry her more than normal. We tried feeding her but she wasn't interested. She seemed very tired and was still unbalanced/sluggish when walking. Everything was happening so fast and we had never seen her this bad before that we had made an appointment for Friday (May 3) for her to be euthanized. We were hoping that she was gonna be able to turn it around so that we could just cancel that appointment.
It wasn't until later that day in the late evening/night when she ate a little bit of food. We also decided to give her a haircut ourselves with a pair of dog clippers to see if that might make her a little cooler.
Friday morning she's still looking bad but we take her out for a pee on our yard and she seems to have little problem doing that. She still is not eating, but in her later years she was not much of a "breakfast person". We still had not cancelled the appointment for her to be euthanized. We had a cat that died in 2021 where we let her health decline too much to the point where she just died, when she should have been euthanized to be put out of her pain. We did not want to make that mistake again. For the next few hours we let her rest on the couch and gave her lots of cuddles. As we thought this could be her last several hours in this world, we took her to her favourite park where she loved sniffing and was able to be free. It had rained a few hours earlier so there was a puddle that formed in some sand. She walked over to it and started drinking it. Typically we would not let her do that over fear of her getting sick, but we said this time we would let her enjoy it. Over the course of the next hour she did more sniffing, but several times came back to that puddle to drink. She did seem to be walking better while at the park.
As her appointment was drawing near, we again ask ourselves if this is the best decision for her. We knew we had to think of what was best for her and tried our best to put our own feelings aside as hard as that was. We brought her home one last time and we gave her some of her favourite treats, she only had a few. We made the decision to continue with the appointment.
When we got to the vet hospital, she walked up to the doors herself and once inside greeted the vets working there, even passing the reception desk to see the people in the back room. They weighed her there and she was 35 lbs (15.9 kg), about 5-7 lbs (2.27 kg) lower than she typically weighed. We played her on the table, the vet looked at her mouth and said she was dehydrated. We said she had been drinking lots of water earlier that day and the day before. Her water dish sat right beside our kitchen and front door, so we always made sure her water bowl was full with fresh water and she drank it whenever she pleased. Shortly after she was then sedated and put to sleep forever.
My mom and I were the closest with her, with my mom being even closer with her. My mom and her were best friends and we definitely felt her passing the hardest. Wherever my Mom and I went, my dog followed her. Even in the later years when my dogs legs were bad and the stairs were tough to climb, my dog would put all her effort into climbing the stairs just to be with my mom (even though my mom was only gonna be upstairs for 2 mins)
We tried our best to think that we made the best decision for her, but the following day after her passing, we questioned our decision multiple times. I tried my best to think it was just grief playing its part.
Then the day after that (the day I am writing this), I wake up with my mind racing and I feel sick to my stomach. I begin thinking that all of her symptoms were due to her being dehydrated. I know that's what the vet told us but I think due to our emotions, we didn't think much of it as she had drank a bunch of water at the park just before arriving at the vet. We didn't know the symptoms of dehydration and we didn't think to ask the vet, I think due to how emotional we were. This morning I go on my phone and begin searching for dehydration symptoms and hers match up unfortunately well. Her panting during the night, lack of interest in food (even her favourite treats that she would normally go crazy for), her eyes seemed droopy, her being tired at an unprecedented level.
I now feel a wave of guilt wash over me and I think I deserve it, I can't stop thinking that we just robbed her of her life. All it would have taken is to simply ask the vet about her dehydration problem and he could have told us her symptoms, which we then could have put 2 and 2 together. I imagine dehydration is not a difficult thing to fix, even in older dogs.
I don't know what to expect from writing this post. Maybe I just needed to tell someone my thoughts. I can't tell my mom my thoughts about this because it would completely crush her even more. As I am writing this, she is sitting in the living room crying. She loved that dog more than life itself, they were inseparable and they were best friends to the end.
