[ernie]

Originally Posted by Sample00

yes, not exactly the most cheeriest of topics but something I was hoping to get some input on from the CP faithful.

Our dog is 15 years old. He's a little dog, poodle to be exact and he's been a good pet for all his 15 years.

recently, our dog was diagnosed with an enlarged heart. The heart is pressing on his trachia and thereby its causing him to cough in fits. This occurs mostly in the evening and night while he is in a resting position. He also has a history of seizures, not sure if they are epileptic or not but they leave him quite disorientated, generally for about 15 minutes or so. Afterwards he seems to recover to his old self. Lately the seizures have been occuring more frequently and coupled with the coughing its made for a few messy nights in bed (vomiting and peeing). Yes, the dog sleeps with us.

throughout the day, he is still fairly spry. Doesnt play quite like he use to but in general still eats well and moves around quite well.

we took him to the vet and the vet prescribed some heart medication for him. The pills run about $70.00 per month. They are made to give him more comfort and even the Vet said that he will most likely require the dosage to be increased to double in a short time. This will take the cost of the medication to approx. $140.00 per month.

My children are still young. 13 and 11 and my son is quite attached to the dog. As he puts it, Louie is his buddy!

which brings me to the point at hand. At what time does one take the pup and have him euthanised. It pulls at the ole heart strings for sure, but is there a right time and then is there a time when you have waited too long and the dog is suffering. I don't want the dog to suffer and I also dont want to break my children's heart. Its quite the quandry.

Anybody have some insight?

It's not an easy thing to go through that's for sure. The only thing I can say will seem like a cliche but here it is anyways....you'll know when the time is right. It sounds like he's enjoying life at the moment so based on what you've written would lead me to believe the time isn't quite right, but based on his condition and age it likely will be time sooner rather than later. Use this time to prepare the kids for the eventuality. They'll need it. They are older kids as well so you may want to consider having the kids with the dog at the time of his death (personal decision).