Question by Mike L: What to do with 14 year old dog?
I’m sure this question will stir many emotional responses, but here’s the situation. My wife has had her dog for 14 years. We also have 3 children under 5 years old. The dog doesn’t like the kids but has never bit them. The dog is incontinant(even with meds), deaf and is starting to show signs of arthritis. However, all in all, she’s still energetic and playful. Having had the dog for 14 years, my wife can’t imagine ever letting someone else care for her and can’t imagine someone other than a shelter taking a 14 year old dog that pees everywhere. My wife is going thru very difficult times. She’s on anti-depressants and mood stabilizers. For her own sanity, she’s considering putting the dog down. By most people’s standards, the dog still has some life in her and is not ready to be put down. At what point does my wife’s needs trump the rights of the dog. Obviously, this is tearing her up inside, but the day to day stress of caring for her around the kids is taking its toll as well.

Best answer:

Answer by rweger26
i think if dog showing signs of suffering my opinion i would put it down

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Question by Shelly B: Dog died of Bloat?
Hi, I just posted a question about my 12 year old lab that died from bloat. Thank you all for answering it helps to hear others opinions. I have one more question. Not that I can change the outcome now but just for knowledge if this ever happens again. My dog was 12 yrs old and lived a long good life I had him from a puppy. After my other dog died of old age last month he went really down hill. He seemed tired and his itchy skin that he dealt with for a long time with meds got worse and his arthritis starting getting really bad.. then he got bloat. He was in bad shape by the time he got to the vet and hours had passed. I didnt opt for the operation.. it was $ 3500 and I couldnt afford it I could have I like to think I would still have choosen to put him to sleep. I felt that at 12 yrs old and being a 100 pds he was close to the end. Plus with the arthritis i thought the surgery and recovery would be hard. Does the operation usually have a good outcome.. would you have recommended this

Best answer:

Answer by landshark
You did the right thing. Surgery on a dog that old would probably only buy him a few months. I’m sorry for your loss.

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Question by “Hoodie Girl”: Would you do this to a 10 year old dog or put it to sleep?
We were pet-sitting for a week, and ended up keeping my husband’s friends dog who is a 10.5 year old Scottish Terrier. We thought they had taken good care of the dog, but it seems she has so many health problems from not seeing the vet on a regular basis that its not even funny. She had shots and thats about it.

Problems:
-She had an old injury from being in a possum fight that they didn’t know about causing a bad scratch in her anal glands causing them to be impacted and infected.
-She wasn’t spayed (like we thought…)
-Her toe-nails were so overgrown she could barely walk
-She needed grooming badly
-She was extremely overweight
-She has arthritis
-She has really bad teeth that need attention soon

We took care of everything over the last six months. The dog is now at a good weight; teeth are a little better, toe-nails aren’t so horrendous with bi-monthly clippings to get them back; on medicine for arthritis; got the anal glands cleaned up; got her antibiotics; and we were waiting until this month with my husband’s bonus to get her fixed and have the scar on her butt repaired (its expensive).

Now, the poor dog has some type of hernia or else the anal glands got re-infected; her arthritis has taken a turn for the worse; and we took her to the vet again because her butt area got swollen and infected even though we’ve been cleaning it twice daily like the vet said.

She basically needs…
-Spay surgery combined with anal gland removal and a teeth cleaning (all at once while she’s under already), and then if she recovers well will still need arthritis medicine and hopefully we won’t have any other problems.

My question is that this is going to cost us upwards of $ 1,000 on top of the $ 800 we have already spent for vet costs alone, not counting heartgard, food, beds, etc. Would you pay this much for an older dog and put her through a surgery that intense?

We love this poor old dog, but I’m just not sure that its fair and/or worth it. What are your opinions? We are going to talk to the vet friday about what he would recommend.
Edit*** It is necessary to spay her in order to repair the crevice on her butt by the anal glands which is most likely what keeps getting infected. They would use tissue from the spay to correct the fissure. Also, if she is going under to have that corrected it makes sense to do the spay too so she doesn’t have any chance to get an infected uterus which is common in unspayed older females.
Chloe: I have 3 dogs and I spent thousands last year keeping them well vetted, fed, and stocked with lots of toys/bones so I am very aware of how much dogs cost.

However, I almost lost my 6-year old Rott that I rescued in a spay surgery due to complications with her age (not that old), so it is a very real risk to put a 10-year old dog under drugs for long enough to do all three of those procedures that the vet told me were necessary. If we think she could live for another couple years, I will by all means pay for the surgery–but I’m not sure that she will, and I was looking for opinions. Thanks for yours as I know you would do the surgery.

Best answer:

Answer by Been there,done that
I wouldn’t keep pouring money down the drain but it’s your dog & your money.

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Question by kim: Should I consider getting rid of our dog?
Here’s the situation. Our dog is 11 and is a terrier chihuahua mjix. She is getting old, has arthritis and can barely see anymore. This isn’t why I am asking the question though. I really don’t want to get rid of her but am looking for suggestions on what we should do. We have a 16 month old son who LOVES playing with our dog, however the dog wants no part of it. Yesterday the dog snapped at our son leaving a big scratch mark on my son’s face and it came very close to his eye. I try and move my son away from the dog to avoid upsetting the dog but I can’t spend all day doing this. My son is drawn to our dog! I don’t want to give away our dog but I don’t want my son getting hurt by her again either. What should we do??? The dog is old and probably doesn’t have much longer to live so I would feel horrible giving her to someone new at this point in her life. I have to consider all options with my main priority of keeping my son safe.
I actually have not made my mind up to give away the dog. In fact I cannot imagine doing that. We do have a cat in the house that my son also likes but he tends to want to play with the dog more. I think I have to be even more vigilant when watching my son and the dog.

THANK YOU for all of your suggestions. We will just continue to watch our son with the dog and try and keep them away from each other whenever possible. I also have a 3 year old son so there’s a lot going on in our house which makes it difficult to always see my 16 month old heading for the dog. But we will do our best. We will keep our dog and try and give her the best life possible for the time she has left, while keeping our babies safe!

Best answer:

Answer by Fred F
Hard question to answer.
All I can say is that when the time comes to put the dog down,stay with her .

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Question by attagirl: My dog seems stiff when she walks, does anyone have any tips?
She also seems to have a little trouble going from standing to lying down. It’s quite cold where we live, so this may be a factor. She still can run up and down the stairs, and jump on furniture. The vet thought she may be developing arthritis, (she’s 10) Does anyone use any natural, not harmful vitamins they can recommend?

I am just looking for ideas to ask my vet…

Best answer:

Answer by OMG.that.scene.hampster.XD
if your dog is old, he/she may have artheritus or joint stiffness, i suggest getting him checked out by a vet

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Question by Baz: my dog hurt her leg when she was 6 month old?
she fell over and the vet said she damaged the muscle/ligament now she is 12 years old and the same leg she hurt is limping.. she can barley walk around the house or get up or down the step into the yard. could it be arthritis ? she is a cross between a sheep dog and a gray hound.
i feel really sorry for her and don’t know what to do she is just sitting there been all depressed.
taking her to the vets tomorrow, thanks everyone

Best answer:

Answer by Launi
Yes, it is probably severe arthritis and if you take her to your vet you can get her on some pain medication which will help her have a better quality of life.

Feeling sorry is all good, but doing something about it is far better.

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Question by eqtrans: help with fat cat/ retarded dog?
my cat eats diet cat food but she gains weight. but my dog esats it half the time and i dont no if the cat or the dog eats it so i put in more. but my dog probly doesnt no which food is hers because she is blind, deaf, cancer 4 6 years, arthritis and other problems. Also i need help with a good way to get my dad to put down the dog because she is 15 and is obvioulsy not happy but i hate her so my dad think i just want her gone but she is unhappy friends and family all say its time but my dad says she is still happy, yeah when he is home, but he is at work all day, when she goes out every 5 minutes think (i need 2 go out) ( i was just out. bark) 5 minutes later ( i need to go out ) (i was just out. bark) and she cant get up the stairs so i have to help her up every 5 minutes because she is a retarded dog. so i need help with the cat food problem, the telling the dad thing and if question 2 fails, assaination of my dog. I will resort to that if she is still here in 2 years. thank you…

Best answer:

Answer by Lauren J
Separate the animals a food time and remove any uneaten food after 15 minutes. A fresh food diet without all the preservatives and junk in canned food is good for arthritic dogs. She may very well be a happy dog….. so what if she is blind and deaf….. that ma make people uncomfortable to see her struggle a bit, but would the put down grandma for the same reason??

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Question by Kristen Chandler: What dog breed is the best for protection?
I have two children (6 and 3 yrs old) and we live in the country. There are NO leash laws out here so dogs roam free doing what they please. Most of them are okay, but sometimes a mean one will come around. We have owned 2 pit bulls over the last 14 years. Our male had to be put to sleep recently because of arthritis/old age but we still have his Aunt that is aging better than he did. They each had/have shock collars so they couldn’t/can’t roam around when they go out of the house since we dont have a fenced in yard. But they were always like an extra set of eyes for me outside with my kids. They never actually got into any fights with roaming dogs, but they would get themselves between my kids and any aggressive dogs that pop up out of nowhere out here. I am always outside while our kids are out so I have always been able to run off these bad dogs when I hear my dogs warning barks…I just will never be able to run across our property as fast as our dogs can so I always want to keep a good guard dog around. Cops wont do anything when I call about aggressive dogs (they tell us to shoot dogs that come on our property aggressivly, but i don’t want to do that), so we have to deal with them ourselves. The female we still have is too old to really protect our children from roaming dogs anymore. She will still do it, but I don’t want her to worry about younger dogs that could hurt her. Like I said before, our dogs have never actually had to fight off these dogs, but one day it might happen. It came really close to a fight once. Our male that just passed was outside with us back when we only had our daughter and she was only 2 yrs old. A male dog came out of nowhere and was running at our daughter! I started running towards her, but Chance (our male) got there first and put himself between her and the other dog. The dog stopped running at them, but they were growling at each other. I grabbed a branch and ran at the dog…he ran away and we havent seen him since. We LOVE our pit bulls…they have been the best dogs we have ever owned! They were always gentle with our children and we never had to worry about them ever hurting the kids (unless their tails smacked them…haha). They have been amazing guard dogs and have kept countless strange dogs away from us and our kids without ever actually fighting them. But we are not sure if we want to get another pit bull right now…it feels like we are replacing our male, Chance. But we need to get another guard dog so our older female can ‘retire’ and let the younger dog deal with new strays. I have heard dobermans are good, but they are all looks and no ‘bite’. With dogs out here its all about intimidation so I need a dog that won’t back down until I get there to run the stray off myself. I know Rottwielers are supposed to be good as well. If pit bulls are really just the ultimate BEST (when they have the right owners and training) then we are going to stick with them, but we would like to try a different breed out for a change. I just dont want to get a breed that will back down to any of these strays cause some of them are pretty big and mean. And the breed has to be great with kids! Our kids could do anything to our pitts and they would never be aggressive towards them (not that we let our kids ‘abuse’ them, im just saying a 2 yr old boy is going to play rough)…our kids could literally take the food/bones out of our dogs mouths and the dogs wouldnt care at all (they also knew they would get their bones right back…haha). So please, no posts about ‘oh you horrible person looking for an aggressive dog’…i am NOT fighting them…i just need a good guard breed that can handle the life we live out here!
it also has to be a fast runner…the main thing is how fast they can get to our kids before the stray. cost is also not a factor…our dogs are like our kids…worth every penny we ever spend on them!
we have considered fencing, but we have a lot of acreage to cover and don’t plan on staying here for even 2 more years.
and yes, my dogs are like a personal security system and they love it! its what they were bred for and what they do best. all breeds have things they were bred for and stopping them from acting on their natural instincts is just mean and wrong and can lead to those same dogs turning into bad dogs because their owners wont let them be their true selves. if i had a hound dog i would use it for hunting whatever animal it was bred to hunt…or use it for tracking if it has a great sense of smell…etc. all dog breeds have a purpose and they should be able to use their natural abilities. and why even post saying your not going to read my paragraph…yeah i know its long. if you don’t like it then move on buddy!

Best answer:

Answer by delo dancer
Bulldog is the best for protection

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Question by normski: Whats the matter with my Dog?
We have had him for about 2.5 years now, after rescuing him when he was abandoned, he had a hard life till then. He is a monster 75 KG Russian mountain dog, about 7.5 to 8 years old. He has quite bad arthritis knee which we give him stuff to help with. But the last 2 or 3 days he seem very depressed, As he is old, and the winters can get harsh here, we now bring him in doors. But he seems to have gone down and down. I let him out the other night, in snow and -2c in the wind, for the toilet. And when I found him in the garden, he was just laying there, and did not want to move, he did not even lift his head up! I had to force and drag him back into the house. It’s as though he was giving up, and just wanted to die. But he has not been this bad, it’s only the last 2 days or so. Whats mad this come about I have no idea. He eats well, like a dustbin, drinks. Is it because we have got him at the moment due to weather. as he did spend over half his life wandering free at the bottom of the mountains, although he was starving with a bunch of problems. So he far better off health wise, just not as free. But again, we have had him over 2 years, and he has never been like this!

Best answer:

Answer by Kimberly
Sounds like a vet visit is in order.

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Question by myaspan: My dog is very sick. She feels very warm and is barfing everywhere, What should I do? What Does She Have?
She already had a spinal stroke and has arthritis

Best answer:

Answer by therealprinsess
Call your vet immediately. Because of her previous medical issues you should not wait . Have her checked by the vet. Good luck

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