Pet Lovers

[PamfromCT]

---

@Stormygirl wrote:

@Kachina624 they are gorgeous!! Uncondtional love and lots of warm kisses they give. Is the part of pet ownership that is so sad..........so hard and after the last doberman I just couldnt handle it anymore. My house seems so empty now and to be honest I really hate that feeling now that I am disabled and on a morphine pump. Sometimes I wish I could put myself to sleep when times get very bad as it would be merciful but that is another story for another day. Dobies rarely last more then 10-11 years and seem to get cancer. It got very expensive and I cant afford to or physically give them what they deserve anymore so I cant adopt another at this point. Oh they are so beautiful and thank you for sharing your pets. (hugs)

---

@Stormygirl, I have been thinking of you and wanted to reply to your post.  I just want you to know I feel so badly for you and your situation.  Being in such pain has got to be terrible, and I want you to know you are in my thoughts and prayers.  Please know that there are many fine people here on this forum - try Among Friends - who are thoughtful and caring and support one another.  I have pain issues myself, but nothing like you have.  Please take care.  I do care.

Pam

[Stormygirl]

@PamfromCT Thank You sooooo much for your post. You have no idea (or maybe you do LOL) how much it meant to me. Im so sorry you have pain........everyones personal pain is bad really. I will take your advice and thank you for your well wishes and prayers. Is so nice to know I am among friends here. Hugs to you and hoping you have a great weekend.

[SXMGirl]

Kachina, your dogs are beautiful.  All of us who love our pets lose a large portion of our hearts when they cross The Bridge.  We have a 15-year old catahoula mix that we adopted from the pound 8 years ago, and luckily, she is doing very well, even though she had lived in several states and quite a few shelters before ending up with us.  Our other is a puggle, who we fostered several years ago and she is about 12.  I am hoping that we have many more years with them.

[Lilysmom]

@Hellodemocrat, I agree completely with your comment about the sedative.  When we lost our yellow Lab Millie, we had the vet come to our home.  He gave Millie a sedative and she passed in my arms completely at peace.  It broke my heart but I was so glad to be with her and watch her go so easily.

I like my dogs more than some people.

@Kachina624, I will be thinking of you.  Such hard decisions.  God bless. LM

[Bird mama]

@Kachina624

Oh boy, I've been where you find yourself now.  It sure does stink, no doubt about it.  

I have an 11 year old sparrow who is prone to scissor beak since he ws 3 months old.  Poppi has perches and cuttlebones galore.  I swear to the almighty, there isn't a cuttlebone out there that I haven't tried with this bird.  I've trimmed his beak for almost 11 years.  He never liked it and last fall decided to get vocal about it.  He now screeches like I'm going to kill 'em. Can we say Mama needs a xanax?  

I promise that the entire procedure doesn't take more than 30 seconds, I'm that good now.  He has required a recovery period afterwards for nearly a year - he lays like dead for 5 minutes and pants a little.  I live in terror that the next time will be the last time and I will be the one that gave him a heart attack.  He threw me a bone and groomed his own beak last month - his annual birthday present to his Mama.  This month his did his lower beak and I've been begging him to do the upper for a couple of days now.  His wings are not clipped and he is not tame like my younger girl Presto, so I have to let him perch, kill the lights, sing to him for 10-15 minutes then get him off the perch.  All for 30 seconds.

I tell him if I don't do this, he won't be able to eat or drink and then his starvation will be on my soul.  Avian vets are out for my kinds of birds.  

My theory on all of this Kachina, is that they are entrusted to us by a higher power who knows we will do the best for them at great personal sacrifice and pain.  And we do, even when the decisions are hard and take a piece of our hearts.

[Bird mama]

Since this thread is about old dogs....  My first boy Spottie made it to 15 1/2.  Pretty good for a dog who was diagnosed with a heart valve regurgitation issue at age 8.  The vet said, Spottie outlived his life expectancy and that did squat for me when he took his last breath, I still lost consciousness and woke up on the vets floor.

My other boy Max was a shepherd/boxer mix who made it to 3 months shy of his 16th birthday.  I stayed upright that time.  The only comfort that time was Max had sat by the kitchen door for over a year waiting for my husband - who had died.  Max didn't keep a vigil all day, but would go sit by the door.  It's hard to explain  heaven to a dog and I'd like to think my husband ws waiting for him near the bridge.  Let's put it this way, I told my husband he better be at the bridge to greet Max :-)    

[Kachina624]

@Bird mama  You know more about birds than anyone I know.  You give them such wonderful, loving care.  Too bad they have absolutely no idea what lucky birds they are to have been found by you...or maybe they do.  Poppi probably feels it her duty to give you a hard time so you won't take her for granted.  I'm sure she loves you very much in her birdie way.

[Buck-i-Nana]

---

@Sooner wrote:

---

@Kachina624 wrote:

@Stormygirl  I think many people acquire pets not having the foggiest notion about the prices vets charge.  Their rates are comparable to people doctors, then they want to do lab tests, sonograms, even MRIs.  This collie I had with the autoimmune disease racked up $10,000 worth of bills in a year.  Fortunately collie rescue paid the bills except I bought her medicine.  She had a vet internal medicine specialist.  He was the best but he was pricey.

---

So should poor people not have pets?  That's something I have wondered about lately.  I know for a fact that pets are the most wonderful additions to a family--but what if you can't afford expensive care for them?  

---

I see posts in many places talking about the expensive care possibly required as dogs age and many basically saying people shouldn't adopt/rescue unless they can afford that expense.

I disagree with that position.  How many wonderful animals would die in shelters simply because people couldn't afford expensive care later in life?  The choice is simple, at least in my mind.  Let them all die young and unloved, or encourage adoption/rescue by people who can afford to feed and provide basic necessary veterinary care and love for as long as possible.  If the day comes that a choice must be made between expensive treatment or euthanasia, at least the animal knew love and had a better life than it would have had.

I DO have major heartburn with people who abandon or surrender an animal with significant health problems, especially when they don't disclose the problems.  From my perspective, it's so much more heartless to do that and leave a pet in a strange place with strange people when it is least able to adapt or cope to it's situation and the possibility of it being rescued is slim than to opt for euthanasia.

[Buck-i-Nana]

---

@Sooner wrote:

i think in today's world people would be shamed and vilified if they couldn't spend hundreds of dollars and had their pet put to sleep rather than suffer.

I think it is a great sad state of affairs but that's me.  But then I wouldn't put a pet through any extensive painful treatment either in many cases.  They aren't able to distinguish the pain is for better...that's just me.

---

@Sooner - I agree with you.

[Bird mama]

@Kachina624

I am so happy I have to tell somebody, lol.  This morning, I told Poppi, hey mister man, don't worry about the upper beak.  You took care of the bottom one for me, which is the trickier one as far as your tongue is concerned.  It's okay, Mama will take care of the upper for you one evening this week.  It will go quick honey, there is nothing to be worried about.  I think I said it so calmly and matter of fact, it resonated with him.

I got home from work this evening and went to say hi to Presto and Poppi after loving up Grayson and low and behold, the little old man partook of the cuttlebone today and I don't have to manually trim his beak.

Between you and me, I said to St. Francis last night before I went to bed, you know, Francis (we're on a first name basis), could you please see your way to inspiring my Poppi to groom his own beak?  You know Francis if I try to do something for him that I consider life prolonging and he should happen to die in my hands, I'll never forgive myself for it.

What a relief.