Let me preface this by saying we love our animals and we've always done what we could to keep them happy and healty.
We currently have three cats and three dogs, lost a lovely dog three years ago at the early age of 7 due to an issue that caused his immune system to attack his own body and after two weeks of lethargy and internal bleeding was put down after he couldn't walk two feet on his own. One of our dogs is on seizure medicine, and we have a cat with FeLV that lives with our other two vaccinated cats. Our vet bills and medication for the year are probably $1,000 a year. We paid $4,000 for a leg surgery for our previous dog when he tore his ligaments in his leg from landing wrong catching a ball.
All that is to say we have no issue when it comes to financial responsibility of pets, so that is not what drives this question.
Now, my sister adopted her first cat and found out it had FeLV. We were told that 70% of cat's with this end up just being carriers and live normal lives (like ours, and my sisters cat), the other 30% aren't so well off but if they make it past two years they are generally in the clear. If not, they health will continue to degrade.
My sister being the caring person that she is wanted to adopt another FeLV kitten since she already had experience with the virus, unfortunately her new cat isn't doing so hot. She's been in an out of the vet for the past 1 1/2 years and has had two surgeries (maybe three?), due to swelling in her brain that is pushing on the back of her eye, now she's back in the vet again for the same issue. She also hasn't been eating and the vet said it was due to stomotitis, she's lost some teeth already and they pulled 14 more to relieve the pain so she'd start eating again.
My question would be when is it more humane to euthenize? It would appear the cat is happy when it is healthy, although it would seem the longest stretch between vet visits is a month tops. I feel sorry for the cat, and I know she has a strong emotional bond with the cat, but I can't help but feel it might be getting close to needing to let the cat go in peace.
We love our animals and it still makes me tear up thinking back when we took our dog in thinking he just needed an antibiotic only to realize we'd loose a friend that same day. Any one have experience with a FeLV cat in a similar scenario that could comment on long term health as they get older? I think my Sister needs to start considering euthenizing, for anyone that agrees any advice on how to bring it up without sounding heartless and unsupportive?
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/b902vd/rpets_opinion_on_euthanasia/
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