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[Schenley]

Nicefish-- you have my complete sympathy.   As a dog owner all my adult life I have had to make those tough decisions too.  But sometimes it is best to do what is best for yout pet, ....

[NiceFish]

Well I made the call to the vet and it was met with the utmost resistance! Couldn't believe it even as I explained my story and my reasoning to not pursue further treatment, basically wanted to "do the surgery and see what happens" so, I remarked well after the surgery and things do not go exactly as "planned" and you agree to put him down, who is going to cover the bill? "Well its your dog your responsibility!" What a surprise.... Sometimes you have to wonder what the vets are thinking here, yes IT IS my dog and we've come to our decision!

Sorry i am using this as a bit of a vent for me as my wife is just a mess.

[firstlight]

Sorry to hear about your dog.Is a very tough time indeed.
From the sounds of it you are doing what needs to be done.
I would take him somewhere else and find a new Vet.

[NiceFish]

We were pointed in the direction of a vet who would put our dog down last night. It was gut wrenching for us, we actually went through two vets before the 3rd one agreed to put or dog down. The second one decided to call the 1st vet to get thier story - so of course they declined what we wanted to do, again citing the dog is so young and we should wait atleast a month on "pain medication" that they had given us (although we were never given any pain medication, just some anti inflammatory to hold us over till we made a decision. It came down to us bringing our dog in and them having a morale debate over it untill I stepped in and said "do you think I would really bring my healthy dog that I love and cherish to be put down? Am I some type of monster do you not see the hurt and anguish in our faces over this? He's young we know that, and he does not deserve a life full of surgery and treatment."

In the end it was clear that everything that he did that was cute when we had him were all signs of problems, regardless of the cataract and the front elbow in his leg, i am 100% certain he had hip dysplasia as well , having all the early signs of it just with the way he walked and the way he sat with his hips, that was only a ticking time bomb before he was going to be crippled with it -- and there is no real concrete cure for it.

The whole result of this is that we purchased this dog from what was just some person breeding their own dogs probably in an uneducated way, our other one came from a registered quality breeder and Kato has been a complete gem health and personality wise as compared to Jericho who seemed to have a majority of the issue that this breed faces.

If I can offer some advice over this if you are thinking about getting a dog, more importantly a pure breed make sure to know the breeder and ask to see health records of the dogs they are breeding.

RIP Jericho

[Easywater]

We were pointed in the direction of a vet who would put our dog down last night. It was gut wrenching for us, we actually went through two vets before the 3rd one agreed to put or dog down. The second one decided to call the 1st vet to get thier story - so of course they declined what we wanted to do, again citing the dog is so young and we should wait atleast a month on "pain medication" that they had given us (although we were never given any pain medication, just some anti inflammatory to hold us over till we made a decision. It came down to us bringing our dog in and them having a morale debate over it untill I stepped in and said "do you think I would really bring my healthy dog that I love and cherish to be put down? Am I some type of monster do you not see the hurt and anguish in our faces over this? He's young we know that, and he does not deserve a life full of surgery and treatment."

In the end it was clear that everything that he did that was cute when we had him were all signs of problems, regardless of the cataract and the front elbow in his leg, i am 100% certain he had hip dysplasia as well , having all the early signs of it just with the way he walked and the way he sat with his hips, that was only a ticking time bomb before he was going to be crippled with it -- and there is no real concrete cure for it.

The whole result of this is that we purchased this dog from what was just some person breeding their own dogs probably in an uneducated way, our other one came from a registered quality breeder and Kato has been a complete gem health and personality wise as compared to Jericho who seemed to have a majority of the issue that this breed faces.

If I can offer some advice over this if you are thinking about getting a dog, more importantly a pure breed make sure to know the breeder and ask to see health records of the dogs they are breeding.

RIP Jericho

I watched a friend's Shepherd suffer from displasia until the dog was finally put down - it was heart breaking.

[Robert_G]

What many people forget is that pets are a luxury...NOT a need.

A person's dog to a vet is no different than a fishing reel to someone who repairs fishing reels. Both situations make money for the person doing the fixing.
Anyone buying a dog nowadays will understand that vet bills can run well into the thousands of dollars. If you are not prepared for that, then don't buy a dog.
If you have to go without a dog in your life, your kids will still be fed, you will still have a place to live. Dogs to not provide a basic humanitarian need for the average person.

As for fighting with the vets when they refuse to put your animal down and try to manipulate you into paying for expensive treatments.....you have perfect legal rights to do the deed yourself.

[NiceFish]

Yes of course pets are a luxury, but there is a limit to what some people can spend on their pets when they do become sick or have an accident.

I did manipulate the vet however they simply won't do anything for free, not even an xray, obviously it shows where they stand.

This case wasn't about a single surgery and he's all fine and dandy it was more about a life time of surgeries and still not being 100% and we just cannot put our dog through something like that, it's not a good quality of life.

[oni_kage]

I know it is a bit early but if you get a pet next consider getting pet medical insurance. It is the least you can do to ensure your pet will always be able to get the medical treatment it deserves. I pay around 35 a month from Trupanion and it has unlimited coverage.

[vancook]

I feel for you. Putting m dog down was the hardest thing I've had to do. They're truly a member of the family and it's a very tough decision. Definitely when purchasing a dog you have to be careful, puppy mills and pet shops usually have dogs who are sick and bred improperly and will have a multitude of health issues. Some health issues are common for certain breeds, like poor hips for German sheperds.

[Brian]

I know it is a bit early but if you get a pet next consider getting pet medical insurance. It is the least you can do to ensure your pet will always be able to get the medical treatment it deserves. I pay around 35 a month from Trupanion and it has unlimited coverage.

careful, things like TPO for hip displaysia are NOT covered under pet insurance.  Ask me how I know. 

Nicefish, you have my condolensces.  I hope to never have to walk in your shoes.

[NiceFish]

We did look into pet insurance for both our dogs (we had 2 bullmastiffs) however it just didn't make sense it was something about 100$ a month per dog for near full coverage on most things with "limits" in each category of illness or sickness.  We decided to just put money away every month as we figured that the dogs wouldn't require much more than the annual checkup and shots untill they were atleast 3-4 years old in which time enough money would be saved up to afford some stuff and then we could come up with the rest. Like I said (maybe i didn't say it here) we could have afforded to put jericho through all the medical stuff but that wasn't our wish for a dog, not a project to get healthy his life would be half over by the time he was near normal and then his developing displaysia would have crippled him soon after if it hadn't of done it already.

We made the mistake here - i bought my first dog from a CKC breeder, checked out the parents, saw health records of them, 100% quality pups. Jericho, we just bought from some lady in Calgary cause we wanted another dog but we didn't do our homework. That being said, sometimes you do get great dogs from non registered breeders but always check the background - and we didn't do that on this case and we paid for it. So hopefully someone can take that lesson from this, save your self the emotional heartache. I think the most important thing is to see where the dogs are being bred, and you need to see the entire medical history of the dogs.

[marmot]

I think you have made the right choice, for you and for your dog... but it doesn't matter what anyone here says or thinks anyways... the dog is your responsibility and ultimately the decision is yours.

It's always hard to put down a pet.  

[hazardmatt]

Dont buy a dog if you cant take care of it knowmatter what may happen.Spend the 100 a month or whatever else you hadto do.I had a bill last year go just over 6500 bucks and still managed to pay it as I do not believe in killing a pet when it is over somthing that CAN be fixed, sickening.......Simply go in, put a deposit down and make friggin payments.Thats all I did.Sorry about my rant but there was alot more you could have done.Worst comes to worse, BORROW.


Iam done

Sorry for your loss

[NiceFish]

You are right I am such a horrible and terrible person because I saw the early signs of what was going to be a life time of pain for my dog. So I put him down, I only did this cause I am a cheap prick who didn't want to spend a dime on his dog! How do you know me so well? I won't bore you with the details of how emotional it was for us and how much I cried over this, I'm human too after all. Read my posts. I said I could afford the bills, I can easily borrow if I have to, I've got a big limits on my credit cards it wouldn't have been an issue, what I was looking for was a possibly more "affordable" vets that someone might recommend who has performed quality work.

It's a selfish choice to keep an animal alive if it's in consistent pain, it doesn't understand, as much as it loves you and you love it, it's still in pain and has no idea why. I hope your pet is healthy and pain free, I really do. I wasn't talking about just one surgery here I was talking about multiple ones, hell I wish it was from an accident then I would have bucked up and had the surgery but it was genetics, something you cannot change is the DNA make up of an animal and how it is going to develop.

At the end of the day a decision had to be made, and we can discuss right and wrong about it for the rest of time as there are valid reasons for both sides, but we made our decision, what's done is done and we can move on and live life feeling comfortable that we made the correct decision for us.

[firstlight]

Dont buy a dog if you cant take care of it knowmatter what may happen.Spend the 100 a month or whatever else you hadto do.I had a bill last year go just over 6500 bucks and still managed to pay it as I do not believe in killing a pet when it is over somthing that CAN be fixed, sickening.......Simply go in, put a deposit down and make friggin payments.Thats all I did.Sorry about my rant but there was alot more you could have done.Worst comes to worse, BORROW.


Iam done

Sorry for your loss

What a frickin moron.