OT: My Dog :(

Man on man, tuff decisions in life.

I've been on both sides of the fence. I've paid good money to save my best friend just to have to put him down at a latter time as there was more wrong with him that what medicine could cure. This happens more times than not.

I've also read for many hours on the net trying different things on my own with great results.

Sorry but if she was mine and truely in severe pain, I'd spend a few quality days with her then put her down myself. If she just has a hole and lung problems with NO pain or very little pain then I'd let her continue on until things change.

We live with all kinds of aliments, including some terrible pain but we don't put ours selfs down until we know it's time. I figure my best friend also should be able to do the same.

We had a cat one time that came home with huge infection under his chin, down to his lower belly and most of one side. All the surface skin and hair was gone, just open red meat. He layed on a small rug for a couple weeks without moving and drinking a small amount of water and he recovered without any more problems, he grew new skin and hair, other than he ran away 6mths latter.

We figured he was coyote dinner until I found him on the road 2yrs latter where he'd been hit by a car. He again healed up from that just to leave again 6mths latter. That's the last time we seen him. LOL

T_Bone

Mark

I have a pretty reasonably priced vet (though her prices seem to go up faster than inflation...).

Still, I've had a couple times I've spent approaching that for what sounds like it was simpler surgery (one of my dogs form stones...he just couldn't pee...finally we had to bypass Mr. Winky). Fortunately, I was earning a good income, although I hadn't built up savings at the time from trying to pay off old debts and I was scrambling to scrape up the funds...$400 from that account, $200 on this credit card type of thing.

Check with other vets, especially if you can find a "country" vet -- some of the prices I hear from "city" vets people on a Dalmatian board I visit go to are crazy. Although $900 for internal surgery, figuring a week or so recovery @ vets, doesn't sound that out of line.

I also considered the long term prospects. With Jake, he was (and is) a very active, healthy dog. The surgeries where simple and fixed the issue -- it wasn't like "this will stabilize but then all this stuff will still be wrong..."

I've also had Lexie, who went lame. Just lost control of her hindquarters. She wasn't super old (8 or 10...), but not a spring chicken and she hadn't been "thriving" for a while -- just acted much older than her age. She was a sweetheart. I was ready to put her down, but the vet wanted to give her several days at her office but she didn't improve with drug treatments. I wasn't going to spend the money to take her to Tuft's vet school for a more sophisticated work-up, etc and we put her to sleep -- I just couldn't see her having that high of a quality of life, or living that much longer anyway, compared to what it would cost.

Saw someone talking about bringing their 10 year old dog to a veterinary oncologist the other day...I just couldn't imagine treating any dog never mind a senior for cancer -- either the drugs or the surgery or whatever has got to be hard on them, expensive, and they're not going to live that much longer anyway.

Hurst

That money is important to my family and our future and that dog is just a dog ( or a horse or a cow ).

A lot of times the best thing is to have them put down I am sorry to say.

How much would another boxer cost?

T_Bone