Trigger warning: Dog and Quality of Life pet issues
Hi all, you have probably heard me talk about my Chihuahua named Pinto. He’s 14 years old and I’ve owned him since he was six years old, but I have known him his whole life. He’s a purebred Chihuahua and it shows with all of his health issues. He has seizures and moderate to severe heart disease, he’s deaf, he has two bad knee caps that he was born with, bladder crystals, incontinent, is deaf, arthritis, the end of his spine is fusing, and lately he has been having this neurological disease that makes him very wobbly. I believe I’m forgetting some because I can never seem to remember all of his health issues at once, but that’s most of them. He is on medicine for his heart, seizures, and pain meds(related to the neurological disease and arthritis)
The neurological disease that makes him wobbly is progressing very quickly. It started only about two months ago and at first it was just about five minutes a day and now it’s up to most of the day. He is so wobbly that he can’t stand up straight or walk properly, when it’s bad, he’s not stable enough to eat or drink.
Just this past week, he started having attacks that kind of looked like seizures, but slightly different and his cautious for them so it can’t be a seizure. It must be related to this new neurological disease he has. In the past week and a half we started tracking how many good and bad days he is having and it seems to be about half and half.
He’s a very loving dog, and loves his one or two walks a day, and the treats that contain his medicine we joked that he lives for those treats. I just worry about how much pain he is in. It’s not like dogs can just tell us what’s wrong.
This week he was supposed to go to the vet for a quality of life chat but unfortunately my husband is out of town and this weekend is my graduation so it will have to be next week. I just worry about him being ok until then. This has been very stressful for us in 2020 before the pandemic is when he started having seizures, we took him to the vet and also learned that he had moderate to severe heart disease so in a way we’ve just been on borrowed time since then. In 2021 he ate rocks and almost didn’t make it through that so in a way he’s also been on borrowed time since it was a miracle he didn’t die from that. The vet was very surprised that he was able to pass it.
I love Pinto very much, but I also worry about his quality of life and to be honest, watching over him has become very stressful. It’s hard to watch his attacks. It’s hard to see him fall when he has the wobble. It’s hard to always keep track of his medicines, it’s hard to clean up after him multiple times a day.
About a month ago I was wondering when I would know it was time to put him down or not because I didn’t wanna do it too early and rob him more time with us but I also didn’t want to wait until it was too late and either he died or suffered for too long. But at the end of last week I came to the conclusion that I was ready. Pinto has lived the best life possible with all of his conditions. He’s been on medicine for years. My husband and I have taken him to specialists and he has regular vet visits. We’ve done everything that we could for this dog, and we are very fortunate that we were able to do so because I have never seen a dog that has had to go to so many emergency vet visit as this one.
A small part of me feels guilty, that I am ready to put the dog down. Shouldn’t I want him to live our every last moment with us? But at the same time to me, I really dislike it when owners keep their pets around, even though they’re suffering. I know that it will be hard when my husband and I take him to the vet next week but in a way, I think I will also feel this sense of relief in the past few months. I haven’t been sleeping well and have shown many different signs of stress physically over this, but I also feel guilty that I feel this way I guess in a way it’s never easy when you have to part with a member of your family.
Thank you for reading this. I didn’t think that this would end up this long. I know that there’s nothing that any of us can do for Pinto and in a way that’s OK because all the options, in my opinion, have been exhausted but I did feel the need to share it with the community that I care so much about. I’ve had many pets before that have come and gone, but never have I had to deal with a pet that was very sick for so long. It makes it easier to say goodbye than when it sudden, but at the same time it wears you down for a years when it’s like this.
