I’ve also had to put down a horse and I chose to do it before things got bad-bad, but in hindsight I still could have had it done earlier.
He had a fractured humerus and recovered enough to be retire mostly paddock sound with slight reduced movement in the shoulder, but a year later he had degenerative joint disease in every leg except for the one that had the fracture. His body had been silently compensating and after a year the other legs showed the stress they’d been under.
He didn’t look all that unsound, no different to an older horse with a bit of mild arthritis… but that’s apparently not unusual when they’re unsound on all four legs, unlike a single limb lameness. You could see it in his face though and his temperament had changed so I made the decision that it was his time. There was another boarder who had no qualms in telling me I was a monster, that I was killing my horse, and in the end she put her hand up infront of my face, walked away and she never spoke to me again!
Afterwards I felt like a monster, like I’d done it too soon and that he wasn’t ready. It didn’t help that the euth did not go well and he thrashed, I felt like he was fighting to stay alive and it was evidence that I’d made the wrong decision.
Many years later, the next pet I had to put to sleep was my cat who was 19 years old and had kidney disease. Still traumatised by feeling like I’d taken my horse’s life too soon, this time I couldn’t do it and ended up waiting until there were signs that she was definitely struggling and there was no other option. In hindsight that was probably the wrong decision. It did help my conscience as I didn’t get hit with the guilt about taking her too soon, but in exchange my cat had suffered more than she should have and so I felt I’d let her down either way. Though an unintended side effect was that I think it cleared how bad I’d felt about having my horse put to sleep, and I now accept that it was the right decision at the time.
So now that I’ve done both ways I can see the pros and cons of both options. Sometimes you yourself need to see your animal struggle a little bit so that you can psychologically accept that their time has come… but it comes at a cost of your animal suffering in order to demonstrate that to you, because they can’t otherwise tell you until things get bad. It’s not a nice thing to do to your pets.
Sometimes you just have to try ignore your emotions in the heat of the moment and proceed despite your heart telling you to stop. Your heart is going to want to lie to you because it cares for your pet, but your brain knows it’s the right thing to do. I feel for you and have no answer for you other than to say that when the time comes and your heart wants to interject and stop what’s happening, try and ignore it and let your brain make the decisions. Down the track your heart will come around and know that it was the right decision. All the best.
