Pet Euthanasia

[Armoured]

I have a personal dilemma, and I would like to ask the advice of the forum concerning it. My partner and I have an 11 year old Dachshund who was diagnosed this morning with detached retinas in both eyes, causing permanent and total blindness. It was obvious a few days ago that he was having trouble seeing, which is what prompted the vet visit. For the past few days, BooBoo (the dog) has been completely lethargic, seemingly depressed, and apparently miserable.

He's alone in the house all day long since we both work, and it's a brand new house we just built and closed on in late August. I don't believe he's had enough time between moving in the new home and losing his sight to get a good feel for his new surroundings. Further, he was always an extremely tame dog, never biting anyone, and always loved meeting new people - usually greeting them with several licks the to the face. In the past week, however, he's bitten a small child (not a serious bite, just a nip - and the kid wasn't a stranger to him), and growled and snapped at a very close friend of ours who the dog knows well.

I'm at a loss for what to do. My gut feeling says that we should have him put to sleep. But my selfishness contradicts the gut feelings.

What would you guys do?

Couple of weeks ago we had to put down my wife's cat. Kidney failure. He'd been pretty sick for a couple of weeks, I took him to the vet a week earlier for some tests, we changed his diet, but there's not a lot they can do for kidneys. Then one night he was very stumbly, he hasn't been eating, drinking or cleaning himself. So we took him back to the vet, he'd lost 300 grams since week before. It was a very hard decision, but it was kinder to let him go that night than take him home to degrade and be miserable for maybe another week, just to save us making a hard decision. Being a grown up sux sometimes.

My point is, I feel for you, I really do, but you know what's right.

 

[selfinflikted]

BooBoo update:

His mood seems to be improving a bit. Yesterday, we let him out into the garage/onto the driveway unleashed to see how he would do. He didn't dart around, was pretty pensive about each step for the first few minutes, and then the cutest thing happened: He found his way over to a box in the garage that has all his old toys in it, and started whining (I guess he smelled them?). So we dumped all the toys out on the driveway, and he was so happy going through them - smelling and nibbling on each one. I took a pic to share with you guys.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

Awww-WWWWW!!! He's adorable!

 

[Paulos23]

Good to hear a positive update! Hopefully things will get better for him.