We had made an appointment for Georgie our almost 14 yr old scnoodle. She is big for her breed at 26 pounds and is a real sweetheart. She has been going downhill for about a year and although there was no treatment plan as there was nothing "wrong" with her aside from getting older. She started sleeping all day and wandering around at night, with me getting up in the middle of the night because she would be stuck on the stairs and unable to get up or down. Terrible to hear her crying because she was stuck and splayed across the stairs
She has bad hips and walks very oddly as well as having issues getting up and often just falls onto her bum.
Over the past 6 months she has started doing her business inside at night although she NEVER did that, she was always a good girl. For the past couple of weeks she started having off and on diahrea which has been non stop for the past few days. She even started to walk to the kitchen last night while me and my DH were watching TV and just squat and went! Again really out of character. So today we went to a new vet to see if there was anything we could do for her recognizing that she is at the end of her life span. If she had cancer at 14 for instance I wouldnt see value in torturing her so as to give her a few non-quality months.
So the vet took a very thorough look at Georgie, unlike the last vet. Georgie has cataracts bad enough that her vision is poor, she has poor range of motion in her hips, she is most likely suffering from dementia due to all the odd behvior and getting her days and nights mixed up and has a very deminished quality of life. My DD at 17 has always had Georgie and is taking this all very hard. She wanted to her the vet say what to do but thankfully she did offer her some thoughts. She said that if we decided to put her to sleep she would support the decision. That she has people bring in dogs that are in better shape to be put down and she said its better to remember Georgie like this rather than where she will be health wise in short time. Even with all the meds that medicine could offer there really isnt anything they can do except to manage her hip pain. Nothing is going to make her better.
So we brought Georgie home tonight. I had brought in a stool sample to ensure that she hasnt picked up a parasite. I need to also ensure Chloes health too. We will have the results tomorrow. Today we have meds to help Georgies little tummy and have talked as a family. Tomorrow Georgie is going to eat steak and yummy food that we dont allow and we are making the appointment to bring her in and let her go. I can't believe how much it hurts to know that she wont be here. Granted she just sleeps most of the time now but I remember her first bath at home and wrapping her in a little towel and singing to her. The first few nights of sleeping on the floor with her so she wasn't alone. The crazy obssession she had with Kleenex and how much she loved to cuddle up with me. I know that she is suffering and I know that its cruel to continue to let her get worse and worse just so I dont have to make this choice but it's still very hard.
We are going to have such a difficult time of this. I know that Chloe too will be confused even if Georgie wasn't much of a playmate, she was always there.
She was such a good dog, gentle and loving, loyal and so motivated to please for nothing for than a good girl in return. I love her and I will really miss her.