ISABEL October 2017  I could barely breathe when I picked her up – all skin and bones — to put her in the carrier for that wretched last ride.  Isabel’s final path had been a steep decline brought on by multiple-site breast cancer that had metastasized to her lungs. 

When I received her agonizing diagnosis I also learned the treatment options – none of which would give her more than 5 or 6 months and all of which would invade her frail body with scalpels, needles and drugs. Without surgery and chemo, she might have a week or 10 days.  Or maybe as long as Thanksgiving or Christmas.  I knew from that first gut-churning moment that I would have to decide how to make this final phase of her life as comfortable as I could.

My emotional anguish wasn’t in the moment of stroking her for her last breaths – my own breathing unconsciously slowed to sync with hers. It was in the decision 15 days earlier to keep her comfortable with pain meds and antibiotics rather than pursue painful and possibly fruitless multiple surgeries and chemotherapy.  She spent those days pain- free, sleeping in the sun while I was tormented by “whether” or “when.”

Over the years, I’ve had to make this heart-wrenching decision about other pets – Trinket, Ampersand, Big Orange, Freud, Pumpkin, Duke, Buffy and Mr. Blue — as well as Isabel. It’s in the near future for Zuzu. After I have provided all the pain-free comfort care I can, should I have a beloved pet euthanized?

And there have been the fragile lives of days-old orphan foster kittens about which I’ve sought veterinary counsel.

It’s never easy. But for me, thinking carefully through all the medical and quality-of-life considerations, giving the options time to bring the hoped-for improvement, and making myself open to whatever my furry companion might try to tell me have given me enough certainly to be able to say, “It’s time.”

Euthanasia isn’t the only option, but it was the best option for Isabel.  Each of us needs to find our own way of facing the terminal illness of our pet.

Isabel’s last days were the impetus to put on paper what I hope will help other pet owners as they consider the solemn decisions they face as their pet’s life approaches its close. I would have chosen for her to die at home, peacefully, painlessly, in her own time.  But I feared that an unhurried death would be neither peaceful nor pain-free.  

For me, these words resonated: “Putting your pet to sleep is the final step of a lifetime of care. You’re making sure your friend is treated with compassion and dignity in his final moments.”¹  Euthanasia may not be the right choice for you and your pet, and this project will describe other options most commonly described as palliative care and pet hospice.

I choose to stay with my pets through the euthanasia procedure. I want the last hands they feel, the last voice they hear, to be mine.

                                                                                                                March, 2018