Feeling extreme sadness and guilt....

[LynnieCDM]

We made the decision to put my mom’s sweet 14 year old mini-poodle down last week.  I keep asking myself… Did I do the right thing?  Was I too hasty in my decision?  Should I have gotten a second opinion? Should I have done more research? Why didn’t I bring her to the vet sooner?  I am feeling a huge sense of loss (loved the dog like my own) and feel like I let the dog down by not recognizing her health issues and doing something sooner.  I live out of town.  I stayed at my mom’s over Christmas and noticed the dog lost a fair amount of weight.  My mom is elderly and had the bad habit of giving the dog table scraps.  My mom is eating less, so thought the dog was eating fewer scraps and that was the reason for the weight loss.  I also noticed one day the dog drank a lot of water but, other than that, she seemed fine.  Six weeks later she was near death...ketoacidosis, possibly due to diabetes that had not yet been diagnosed.  She was also extremely anemic.  She was in really bad shape, but I asked the vet to do whatever was possible to save her. We quickly moved her to an emergency hospital and started treatment.  The vet said she had a 70% chance of surviving the ketoacidosis but he wanted to do an ultrasound and x-ray to see if the dog had any other underlying conditions.  The vet found a large mass on her bladder and said she seemed to have spots on her lungs.  He said her prognosis was “very, very poor”.  We decided we did not want to put the dog through chemo and possible surgery since the vet did not sound positive she would survive.  I keep wondering if things would have been different if I just would have taken her to the vet six weeks sooner.  I also wonder if the mass was cancer or possibly something else.  I recently read that cysts can be mistaken for bladder cancer, and cysts are not uncommon with UTIs (and UTIs are not uncommon with diabetes).  I read some old dogs can show white spots on the lungs and it may not be cancer.  We did not have a biopsy on the bladder mass because the dog was so ill, but am now wondering if we should have waited a few more days to see if she came out of the ketoacidosis so we do have done the right test.  Needless to say I am very sad and grieving, and feel like I didn’t do my best for this little dog I loved so much.

[I miss my girld]

It sounds like you have been learning more about the possible medical conditions she could have had. I understand this desire to find out what happened (even if you'll never actually find answers), especially given how sudden and unexpected it all was. Since my sweet girl died (I wish with all my heart she had made it 14 years) I have read so much about the disease she had and the medicine I wish I had put her on earlier. I had read up on it during her life, but the details of her death gave me so many more specifics to look into. I never would have anticipated what happened based on everything I had previously read. Some loved ones have discouraged me from reading about these things, but I think searching for answers makes a lot of sense (even if it is sometimes an additional source of pain). 

Unfortunately this knowledge can't change what happened and it still doesn't turn us into knowledgeable and experienced veterinarians (who can think and make decisions about these things with a clearer head than the rest of us- especially when our beloved animals are in crisis). She had an emergency and you responded in a very caring and responsible way. You trusted what the trained professionals were telling you. It sounds like you made a very loving decision for your mom's dog, even if it's a decision that will probably never feel good. You saved her from the possibility of dying in the middle of surgery and potentially traumatizing treatments. She was loved. 

[KayC]

I am so sorry for you and your mom's loss of your little poodle.  It's common, in grief, to second guess our decisions in a hope to find a different outcome, even though it's too late.  The truth is, you both loved the dog and she knew a good life, and we have to trust the professionals, that's why we take them to them.  It sounds like she would have had to endure a lot of pain and discomfort had you not made the choice to have her put to sleep when you did, and sometimes that is the kindest thing we can do for them.  I've had to make such decisions, and it's never easy.

My boss' dog got Diabetes and even though she went through all of the treatment, she still died a few months later.  Diabetes is very hard on dogs.  As for the table scraps, my parents brought our dog up on nothing but table scraps, they were of the depression era, and he lived to be 15 and was put to sleep with nothing major wrong with him other than old age.  I don't recommend table scraps because of the high fat and carbohydrate content, and so many have gluten intolerance, but it does depend on the dog, and undoubtedly her diabetes played heavily into her situation.

This article has been one of the most helpful I've found, so I hope it's of help to you:

http://media.wix.com/ugd/0dd4a5_e934e7f92d104d31bcb334d6c6d63974.pdf