Hi, I know I’ve seen questions like this before here and tried reading them through. I also want to make an appointment with the vet soon but would love others’ opinions on this, especially those who’ve been through this decision before
My family dog is 14 years old, he’s a rat terrier mix. As he’s aging, he’s gotten quite a few health issues. He himself has energy but I’m worried about his quality of life, and when you know “it’s time”
He has the onset of congestive heart failure and a grade 4 heart murmur (on medication)
He also has had dental surgery since his teeth aren’t doing so hot as he’s getting older, but they don’t want to do any more dental extractions because of the risk with his heart condition. So if they sense an infection, they give us antibiotics but think at his age with his condition it would be more risky to put him under anesthesia
He has a bad coughing problem due to weakened tracheal/tracheal collapse which is common in small dogs I believe. He takes coughing medicine, but he coughs every day and especially at night. I hear him sleeping at night and I feel like I can hear him straining. This is actually the issue that makes me most worried because he loves to play and gets very excited still with energy, but he can’t/we don’t want him to get riled up because he starts coughing instantly and it takes a few minutes for him to be able to stop and catch his breath again. This is what is having me think of his quality of life lowering, because now we have to keep him very calm around food and people and toys, he really wants to play and get excited, but his coughing fits get worse each time. This happens often when we are on walks too, and I’m worried that I basically can’t let him get excited about things
He sometimes pees in the house (he is very house trained) and I have a feeling it’s age-related incontinence because we take him out often to pee
The last, he has a hard time going up and down stairs (we carry him) and the vet recommends joint medication since he’s showing some hind leg pain
The vet hasn’t brought up euthanasia although he goes to the vet multiple times a year, our dog still loves socializing with people but not sure if I’m being too worried about his health. Any insight would be very much appreciated
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/q0tb9s/worried_about_aging_dog_and_euthanasia_and/
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