It’s not a happy subject, end-of-life decisions for your pet. You bring home a puppy or kitten, excited to get to know your new family member, looking forward to raising and educating a pet that you can love. But there at the beginning of your new animal companion’s life, you rarely (if ever) consider what the end of that life will be, and how you will handle it. That’s not very wise.
“The worst thing about dogs is that they don’t live as long as we do.”
I don’t know who said it, but it’s true of most household pets. Their lifespans, compared to ours, are very short. (That’s not true of some tortoises and some birds, who must actually be provided for in our wills, as they can certainly outlive their current caregivers!) The average golden retriever’s life, for example, is 10 years long. Once your pet has outlived the average for animals of his kind, he or she . . . and you . . . are living on borrowed time. The older they get, the more likely they are to die.
Winston, my golden retriever, had already surpassed the average for his breed when a pre-surgical blood panel revealed the age-related deterioration of his kidneys. They were simply wearing out. Our veterinarian advised switching to a kidney-friendly diet, available by prescription in kibble or canned, and avoiding foods and treats that were not kidney-friendly. No more sardines.
That discovery began over a year of what might be called doggy hospice. There was nothing to be done to heal him, no veterinary intervention that could change his situation, no pills or procedures that would fix his kidneys. He wasn’t going to get better. My job, from that point on, was to do everything I could to lengthen the time during which he wasn’t getting any worse.
I succeeded, for a while. Most of that year, although he clearly was feeling his age—and recovering from the amputation of an outside toe on a back paw because of an infection that had gone up into the bone—he cheerfully pursued his regular life. He slept a lot, but that was nothing new. With one toe missing, he learned how to get around differently than he had before. A step-hop maneuver was added to his going-downstairs behavior, and he listened to me carefully when I reminded him to Slow! He still chased balls in the back yard with fervor—though at first he’d slide on his butt because his back foot wasn’t holding ground. But that never stopped him! He played with other dogs, greeted his friends effusively, and enjoyed pretty much everything in his life . . . until he didn’t.
He crashed one weekend in November. He was weak, low-spirited, not interested in food. He threw up, mostly water, a number of times. I took him in for another blood test immediately. His kidney values had deteriorated. He was feeling nauseated and, my vet agreed, could be given small doses of Pepcid to reduce the discomfort. That was all—no medications. There was nothing wrong with him that could be treated. I asked specifically about his inappetence (lack of desire to eat). Our vet said, “To get him to eat, you’ve got to get him to eat.” Easily said, not so easily done.
I asked one more question. Was there any way to know how long he had?
I was very grateful for the answer, because it was honest. My vet said, “No.”
Those next weeks were stressful. Not for him, I think, but certainly for me. Within days after the blood test results came back, our city was hit with almost tornado-force winter winds. The power went out, in my neighborhood, for six days. (Much longer in other areas.) It was cold outside. It was cold inside.
I made a huge pile of quilts and blankets on the bed and hauled my dog under it with me. I spent the night of the windstorm huddled there, holding him, whispering stories of how the wind was not going to hurt us. For six days, I fought to find something that he would eat—and I succeeded. I fought to keep him warm and comfortable—and I succeeded. Friends and neighbors stopped by to check on us and he was delighted to see them. They brought us pet food, cheese and crackers, hot coffee. We survived.
The power came back on, finally, just before Thanksgiving. (I can only guess what my dog thought of our six days under the covers; I’m not certain he saw much of a difference from our normal life.) One sunny afternoon when I lurked too long on the back porch after letting him out, he insisted I join him in the icy back yard. He wanted to play ball. I went, of course.
He was thrilled that his friend—and my significant other—was able to visit us for Thanksgiving. (I was thrilled to have a warm home for us all.) When the visit was over, I thought that maybe, just maybe, at least one of the two of them knew he was saying goodbye—the dog. But maybe, just maybe, the dog would be wrong, and the two of them would play ball in the back yard again? As was often the case during our 14 years together, the dog was right and I was wrong.
We had company for the holidays: three dogs (and a cat) who’ve been spending Christmas and New Year’s with us for years. My dog seemed pleased to have them around. They’d been friends a long time; two of them are almost as old as he was. There was a lot of sleeping and no interfering with each other. They were very companionable.
It was becoming more and more difficult to find something—anything—that my dog wanted to eat. He’d show interest in a particular food one day, turn his nose up at it the next. He hadn’t eaten out of a bowl for almost a year. I fed him by hand. Initially, he would take chunks of canned food off a spoon. I fed him fish right out of the foil package. I draped thin pieces of string cheese directly into his mouth.
I tried never to show my own discouragement to him. I think I did fairly well at that. I praised him when he ate, and tried subtly (and not so subtly) to kick in his competitive spirit by allowing my little dog to stand next to him while I was feeding him. It all worked sometimes . . . until it didn’t.
Finally, I was down to feeding him soaked and mashed kibble (kidney prescription diet) by spooning it into his mouth, which he willingly let me hold open, tipping his chin up so he would swallow, which he always did. He never tried to spit it out. I fed him that way three times a day until a third of a day’s food was too much for his stomach to take, and he threw it up. After that, for a short time, I fed him several spoonsful at a time, giving him his full amount throughout the course of the day.
He slept more. He often could not seem to find a comfortable position. He wasn’t thrilled about the spoon feeding, but he allowed it and came to expect it. (Every time I walked into the room, he would check to see if I was going to feed him.) He was fully functional mentally, a huge blessing. He eliminated normally. He walked, he trotted, he ran, he went up and downstairs without physical assistance, he watchdogged at the front door, he barked from upstairs and hustled down to see what was up if he heard something untoward outside. He snuggled up to me at night, as he had since he was a puppy.
He had lost a lot of fur, but honestly, it didn’t seem to matter. He was, a Facebook friend said, the Sean Connery of dogs: the older he got, the better he looked. She was right. He had also lost a lot of weight; I’d known that for months. It had been one of the first signs of his decline. No matter what or how much I fed him, he wasn’t bulking up at all. He’d become a very skinny guy.
One day, to his delight, I brushed him out a little bit, put on his collar, and took him to the car. He hadn’t been in the car for a long time. The most recent ride had been to the veterinary clinic to get that second blood test. Today, our destination would be the same. It was time.
His tail was wagging as I hefted him into the car. He made not one sound on the way across town . . . more than unusual for him, as he’d always been an excited whiner in the car. I talked to him as I drove, pointing out various local landmarks, like the park, as we passed them. I sang him some of his silly dog songs.
His tail was wagging when we got there.
Next week: making end-of-life decisions long before the end of life
