I posted this in my old topic i made some months ago... but it said an admin has to check the post before it can be seen? I'm sorry if this isn't allowed but i don't have the time to wait however long that is. I need to know your stories of how you coped with putting your pets down. How you delt with it after.. and everything and anything to do with it.

My original thread -

My cat is going to die....

And what happened today -

It has been a long time since i posted but I've had this thread bookmarked ever since.

I have not spent tons of time with him (mainly because he slept most of the time and he seemed so happy sleeping so i only checked up on him). When i spent time with him i got so upset thinking about losing him, he has always made me so happy just being there. We have had many happy moments together even though it has been so hard seeing him get worse and knowing he could go any moment.

Lately he lost most of his appetite (i guess it's painful to eat now), the fur around his mouth started blackening from i don't know what, he has a lot of excess saliva so maybe that, kinda like how his eye blackened from so much watering and he seems to be breathing from his mouth now.

That probably sounds terrible already but this morning as he was eating he started bleeding from his mouth. I got so scared. It was dripping on the floor and he had bloody saliva hanging from his mouth. I started crying like crazy, like when i learnt he had a tumor and was going to die. All i could think of was this is finally it.

After crying for quite a while we phoned the local vet out of desperation. I say desperation because the local vet turned quite nasty on us a while back, when i wanted him to maybe have a biopsy (which i was going to a few days ago).. But i decided against it because i saw the person (who phoned and told the news months ago) about it and she talked to us and showed the scans. She said there is nothing else the scans could be except a bone tumor. It would just be more pain for him. If it was something we had ourselves we would eventually have to be fed through a tube in the stomach... and then we would have difficulty breathing...

The vet was very nasty. I was very distraught, crying. I didn't want him put to sleep. It was still such a shock only having happened about 30 minutes ago. I wasn't ready for it, even after all these months knowing it is coming. And i definitely didn't want my memory of him passing to be done by this vet, who obviously has no regard for how difficult it is to say i want it done, let alone do. He said he would call the RSPCA for cruelty to animals and other nasty things. I got really upset by all this. Then he was saying about how he needs the consent of the owner to do it. The person i was with was talking about how he's a family pet (which he's not so i shouted at her). The vet then said not to shout and disturb the people waiting which just made me flip and walk straight out.

It's not that i am against putting him down. I just couldn't believe how he could be so nasty. What do you people think?.......

So after getting home we thought what other vet could we go to? There is one that is only open after 2PM. The other is the surgery place where he had his scan etc.

I talked to someone on the phone from there about it. It calmed me down a little. The person who we had been seeing (Katherine) about him wasn't in today so i was talking to someone else called Lisa. Lisa said Katherine wasn't in today but she would be tomorrow. I was still very upset. Thinking of putting him down is so difficult. I was really worried the bleeding wouldn't stop but i think it has now. We phoned them about putting him down... so now Katherine is going to phone tomorrow morning. It's so hard to think about. I haven't even slept today and i don't know how i am going to now. He is sitting in the front room, he seems so sad, it's heartbreaking, i spent some time with him but i think he would rather be left on his own but i still keep checking on him.

I know this is very hard and you are very, very upset. But it sounds very much like this is his time to go. I'm not excusing the way the vet spoke to you, but the fact is, your baby seems to be suffering with no prospect of recovery. You know what to do. There are lots of people here who have been through it too, so you are not alone. Please do the kindest thing for your cat, and do it soon. If you possibly can, be very brave and stay with him. He will be comforted by your presence. I promise you it is very quick and peaceful.

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Rescue cats for many years, currently one moggie and 3 young Maine Coons.

So sorry to hear of your cat but I agree with Howlinbob. It sounds as if your cat is suffering & from your original post this has been going on for a few months now. You need to put his needs first now.

It's never an easy decision but if he is as bad as you have written then this needs to be done sooner rather than later. I have had to make this decision for my cats & it's never easy but is the best option at times

As the others have said I think you realise that sadly the time has come. If you possibly can have the vet come to your house so much the better for him and you; and if you feel up to it stay with him. It's not easy for you as your heart is just breaking but generally once the injection is given it is over within a minute or two at the most; they just slip away and you know they are not suffering any more and in some strange weird way you may feel a sense of relief.

You were treated shabbily by the first vets - particularly at such a distressing time.

Our thoughts are with you and hope you have the strength of make whatever decision is deemed best by the vet tomorrow.

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Kaz

For kittens, joy is for the asking and smiles are for the giving

It is an awful decision to make, but your cat needs your help right now to put a peaceful end to his suffering. Like you I wasn't ready when my cat Jimmy was dying from kidney failure and I hung on to him and hope until it was obvious he was very miserable and I couldn't bear to see him like that any more.

It was just an injection and he didn't even move or react, and I was able to put my arms round him on the table at the vets and cuddle him and talk to him until he fell asleep. I remember saying to the vet afterwards that I was surprised at how calm I felt - he replied that it was because I knew I was doing the right thing and I think he was right. I was desperately upset, for my loss and because my children back home were really upset, but I felt at peace with it because I knew I had done everything I possibly could for him.

Your vet handled the situation very badly, but I suspect he had animal welfare at heart and possibly felt frustrated at you taking a suffering animal away, when he thought that suffering should be stopped. My vet is excellent at counselling the owner, as well as treating the animal, unfortunately the compassion of some vets stops at the animal and they don't take into consideration the emotions of the owners.

The day I lost Jimmy is coming up to its eighth anniversary - he died exactly a week before Christmas, on the 18th. You don't forget. It wasn't a very happy Christmas that year, but you do cope. I obviously had a lot of upset from my children to deal with, but we looked amongst old photographs and found as many as we could of Jimmy, then made a photograph album of him to look at when we got upset and missed him.

I'm sorry this is happening to you now, people on here do understand. We must have thousands of years of cat ownership between us, that inevitably brings its pain, as well as its joy. I hope that tomorrow you will see a more understanding vet, who will help you and your cat through this. Let us know how you get on - we do care.

I don't know how to phrase this gently, but I don't think it is a matter of the vet having no regard for your loss. I believe it is rather a matter of the vet thinking you need to realize how incredibly much your beloved cat is truly suffering.

If a vet is prepared to call in the RSPCA, it just has to mean he is deeply concerned that your cat is really, really suffering unnecessarily and should in fact have been PTS some time ago. In any other case the vet himself would be given a really hard time and get into a lot of trouble for calling them in.

He was indeed very harsh in putting it to you this way, but apparently the vet thought it was the only way to make you see you really cannot postpone it any longer, that every day you keep him alive is in fact an act of cruelty.

However hard it is for you, you need to pull yourself together and do what is right for him. Waiting will not lessen your grief, it will only prolong his suffering.

You will be heartbroken, I know, but I bet you are just as heartbroken at seeing him the way he is right now....

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Jiskefet & the mognificent Dutch bunch

My little angels at the rainbow bridge

I know it's time for him to go. It was only this week or so he started having trouble eating and his mouth. When i made the first post it was just after he had been scanned and he still seemed to be enjoying his life but now he's so miserable after yesterday. It breaks my heart to see him suffering not just the fact he won't be here anymore.

Yes, the vet he was saying how it is his job to look after the welfare of animals and such... i do understand. But i didn't want to go there in the first place because he had been so nasty previously and didn't want anything to do with us ever since we had the scan and found out he couldn't be treated. Saying we spent so much money (huh? we just had the scan and medications, some which WEREN'T EVEN HELPFUL BECAUSE THEY HAD NO CLUE WHAT WAS WRONG!) This was the vets we went to about 5 TIMES AND STILL NO ANSWER ON WHAT IT MIGHT BE THAT'S WHY WE HAD THE SCAN WHEN HE FINALLY SUGGESTED IT!

The vet being an utter dick (i'm sorry) about it does not help me see my cat suffering. I only have to look at him right now and i can plainly see that.

It's 3:30AM (managed to get some sleep) and Katherine should be phoning some time this morning. It would be lovely if it could be done at home but i don't know if they can do that. I will have to speak to her about it...

And what do they do afterwards? I would like to bury him outside and have a place for him to rest but i don't have anything i could put him in...

There is no real reason why your vet cannot come out to your home - may cost you a bit more but for all of you it is the better option. If you are in the UK I think there are some regulations now about burying pets in gardens but perhaps someone else can advise on that.

You could ask the vet to arrange for an individual cremation; you will get his ashes back in a little box which perhaps you could bury in his favourite spot.

Thinking of you today.

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Kaz

For kittens, joy is for the asking and smiles are for the giving

I remember attitude of a particular vet at my local clinic when they discovered the extent of the still much missed Becketts heart murmur prior to him being neutered and the risks involved in the op, it was blunt to the point of pig ignorance imo. I can only assume he thought as he was speaking to a grown man being so forthright wouldn't matter as I'm sure he wouldn't have spoken that way if I'd been female.

Beckett survived the op only to fall victim to a local cat hater (poisoner) some 12 months later. Letting him go at only 18 months old was heartbreaking, especially as on the day he looked a picture of health, but his kidneys were beyond help by that time. I *could* have brought him home for the weekend, and I was sorely tempted to let him have some time here, but that would have been for my benefit not his so the kindest thing, tho' hardest for me, was to let him go there and then.

As ChinaBlue said, there may be the option for the vet to call to your home.

Ian

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RIP Black Tom and Beckett, not just cats, they were my cats and the best ever.

I buried all my cats in my garden, except for Tuppence, who was the first cat I lost. I did not have time to consider the options then, really, I went to the vet to have her cured, and her heart turned out to be so bad I decided to let her go there and then.

I know it was the right decision, she had trouble breathing, and when she got the first injection, which is sedation only, she sank back into my arms with a relieved sigh and started purring. She died in my arms, purring away, while she hadn't purred for a week....

But as I was not at all prepared to lose her, I had given no thought whatsoever about what to do with her body, and at that moment I couldn't bear the thought of coming home with a dead Tuppence in the travel basket.
So I left her there, a decision I have regretted ever since.

All my other rainbow cats have a grave in my garden, and I had ceramic statues of some of my cats made. Which reminds me I have to send the artist a load of pics and order a few more. There are 2 rainbow cats I don't have statues of, and I want them of all my living cats, too.

I don't know what the options in th UK are, but over here in Holland we are allowed to bury small animals in our own garden (I believe up to 10 kg). And we have pet crematoriums and pet cemetaries for those who cannot or will not bury them in their own yard.

A friend of mine still has the urn with the ashes of her dog, who died 15 years ago, on a sort of shrine on the mantlepiece, and another friend buried the urn in the garden, as she could not bury the dog himself, he was far was too big for it to be legal.

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Jiskefet & the mognificent Dutch bunch

My little angels at the rainbow bridge