at what time do you put an aged feline down

[nyzki]

I have a question that some of you might fine disturbing but it is something that is going on with a friend of mines cat. My friend has a female cat about 16 yrs old, and she is plagued with health problems. She has just recently stopped eating and she smells terrible, I know that she has had problems with her teeth in the past and she also does not groom herself so she has to be shaved, I feel so bad for snowball. I have tried to gently suggest the possibility that she may need to be put down. Do i just sit back and watch this animal get worse or do i talk to my friend again about this subject?

 

[sharky]

I would consider putting an baby down when there quality of life is not what it should be....

has the cat seen a vet to make sure this is not something meds can help or fix??

 

[avocado]

i had my cat put to sleep when it was clear to me that he was getting no enjoyment from life. he was sick for the last couple of years of his life, diabetes, gum disease, IBS, but he was happy and hungry and purring and still loving life so i let him be. when he stopped purring, i knew it was time. of all of the things that you mentioned, the one that concerns me the most is the not eating... has kitty been to the vet? hearing it from a veterinarian might make the decision easier for your friend.

 

[elizwithcat]

Personally, I wouldn't be telling my freinds to put an animal down. It should be the owner's decision to make, IMO. Also, you already made a suggestion, so your freind knows how you feel about it. I wouldn't push it.

 

[nyzki]

she has a regular vet that she does see, and she is also on thyroid meds she gets 3 pills a day to help with her problem. She is also so very skinny it is so sad to see her this way she is such a sweet kitty and very affectionate

 

[elizwithcat]

Originally Posted by nyzki

she has a regular vet that she does see, and she is also on thyroid meds she gets 3 pills a day to help with her problem. She is also so very skinny it is so sad to see her this way she is such a sweet kitty and very affectionate

Since your freind cares for this cat and takes her to the vet, I believe your freind sounds capable of making that decision on her own.

 

[june]

Quality of life. Can one one adequately measure it without wondering whether or not the " end of the road" is really a matter of one lacking the knowledge necessary to bring about the improvement needed? As one person remarked " all disease is curable, we may not know what the cure is right now but it's got a cure somewhere". And can one measure this quality of life without wondering whether it's the pet that has had enough or whether it's the owner that has had enough.

,What would you think the quality of life is for these pets( real cases) and what would you decide the fate of each should be:


1.)"My family has an 11-year old German Shephard mix that spent six days in a traditional vet's office because he could not walk anymore."


2.)Sambo our cat - (born July 1985)As of last July he had lost 10 pounds (he had been 16 #) could hardly get up and down the stairs, slept a lot and dumped around. Walked like he was 100 yrs. old and we were sure we were going to loose him. He wasn't eating very much either. He slowly was getting worse and worse. He was so skinny and his fur got matted and terrible and then he started pulling his fur out - completely on both sides of his body. It was an area 2" long and full length of his body and on both sides. We never took him to the vet because we thought he was just getting old and we would just have to accept the fact that we won't have him very much longer"

3.)Dr. Sam Jones, DVM - "Two cats, both about 8 years old, had severe diabetes. It was impossible to get the insulin requirements adjusted. They had lost weight to a point that they were skin and bones. Both cats had no quality of life left."

4.)"My Siamese cat has severe deterioration in her back legs. I had taken her to three veterinarians but they couldn't help her. It got to the point that she couldn't walk."

5.)"In March of 99, my dog Chelsea was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer that was detected by the removal of a tumor from her tonsil. The vet held out little hope for her survival and suggested chemo or radiation therapy."


All of the above recovered( easily) and regained their health.(I have the complete testimonials for each one).

 

[pat]

*Disclaimer: Please do not take any advice on these forums about homemade, homeopathic, holistic or any other sort of remedy offered without first checking with your vet. Doing so may harm your cat, because no one has hands on with your cat, but your vet. If your one vet is not giving you satisfaction, seek a second vet opinion. *

Here are my 2 cents based on my experience with illness and aged cats over the past 5 years. Each cat is different in its spirit, what one cat can deal with and still greet you with joy in its eyes, still purr (non-pain related), still swat at a toy, still ask for snuggle time, will be different from what another cat can handle and still act as above.

My rule of thumb is if there is nothing I can do to fix it, or modify it so as to allow my cat to continue with quality of life as I defined above, then it is time to pts. I'm personally open to some holistic treatments but have done so after discussion with my vet, to be sure I do not inadvertently do harm.

 

[june]

Quality of life? There have been at least two people who went in complete trust to their vets concerning their pets and have no pet . The reason? Varied. But each followed what their vet said , to the letter, and did not let cost be a factor in availing their pet of whatever was necessary to save their lives . One was told that their dog had cancer when the dog had a perforated stomach. The other was told the cat had heart disease when the cat had pyometra. Both trusted explicitly in their vets. Some people don't have time to seek a second or third opinion because it's an emergency but even then, if the vet is not versed in all aspects of veterinary medicine and updates his knowledge regularly( medical doctors have to do it for people, why not vets for animals? Why should the same courses that a vet took five, ten, twenty years ago to become a vet be sufficient today? ) then that vet may be severely limited in what he can offer in the way of therapies. The life of a pet may depend on that knowledge in an emergency and the determination of the quality of life of a pet may equally be dependent upon it. For that very reason, what could be termed " no quality of life" for a pet may actually be the opinion of a vet who is limited in his knowledge as to what alternatives are available today . Does the pet owner have a right to know what is available? Do they have a right to know that, if they go to a vet, that they are availing themselves of not only the extent of the vet's knowledge but that the extent of the vet's knowledge is not limited to what was available five, ten , twenty years ago? Should one expect their vet to be up-to-date in his knowledge ? Does this not help one to make an informed decision as to the quality of life their pet may experience?. Just to determine quality of life by a certain set of standards - that the pet doesn't play as much or appears sick, or is chronically sick, or that the vet can't determine what the problem so he thinks there's no hope , or that he can't cure it so he thinks it can't be cured , or that the pet owner has reached his/her limit, could putting a pet at a serious disadvantage. What one may surmise is an indication of demise may , in fact , be something as simple as a deficit in a vital nutrient. As one person in the medical field put it" give the body what it needs and it will heal itself" and as a very famous New York vet put it " as long as the animal is alive there is reason to hope". Each person makes their own choice. All I say is, try to ensure that it's an informed choice.

 

[pat]

June,
Ultimately it comes down to your own best instincts (I've been known to disagree and to do my own research), but...I see vets who respect my experience and knowledge and how well I know my cats, and we work as a team. If you can not trust your vet (and no, no one is infalliable) it is time for a new vet.

I trust how well I know my cats.

 

[june]

Added note:

In reply to:
*Disclaimer: Please do not take any advice on these forums about homemade, homeopathic, holistic or any other sort of remedy offered without first checking with your vet. Doing so may harm your cat, because no one has hands on with your cat, but your vet. If your one vet is not giving you satisfaction, seek a second vet opinion"

I see no mention was made of conventional medicine in the above list, as though it could be no part of the cure process of the previous testimonials I spoke of. That, in itself, speaks volumes.

 

[pat]

I'm sorry, but I don't get your point. I have given my point of view re aged cats, and given an important disclaimer that I think you are reading what you want into. I am not going to debate the disclaimer.

 

[june]

I'm not asking you to debate the disclaimer. For each one of the testimonials I listed in a previous post in this thread, I didn't mention what avenue effected the cure. Holistic or otherwise. Did you think that conventional medicine wasn't involved in the cures? Why is there a disclaimer for everything except the conventional approach? If you had thought that conventional medicine was involved in the cures(( and I'm not saying whether it was or wasn't) , would you still have included a disclaimer in this thread? For each one of the testimonials a veterinarian was involved. How up-to-date do you think his/her knowledge was in finding out what was available out there to bring these cures about. And how did that factor weigh into the quality of life each pet experienced afterward?

 

[gayef]

June, I think it is fair to mention here that in many of your other posts, you have advocated a less than conventional approach and that is fine ... for you. But it may not be as fine for others. Just try to remember that, please?

 

[hissy]

No one on this board is a vet. No one has the right to make blanket statements and state that terminally ill cats can heal themselves, or peddle snake oil or miracles in a can offering desperate cat owners hope when there is none.

If your cat is ailing and has seen a vet, and it has been determined that the best thing to do is to let the cat go to sleep, then follow that vet's advice. If it is not your cat, then there is little you can do than one time gently suggest that the time might be right to put the cat out of his misery. Many people gauge their cat's last days as okay because the cat purrs. But if you research purring, you will find that cats purr no only when they are comforted, but when they need comfort, when they are scared and when they are about to die. They also purr when they are scared. Even our qualified vet techs- Traci, Dr. Doolittle, and Sandie would never suggest much in the way of treatment, instead they will tell members that the best thing to do is seek a qualified vet's opinion. And sometimes another vet's opinion if you don't like what you hear.

With my horse being so ill, I am finding that on forums and websites alike, anyone can say anything about healing, treatments etc... This does not make it true and you should all remember that when you read posts that offer you hope when vets in your life are telling you in their opinion that there is none. Following advice blindly without consulting a vet first is dangerous to the animal, but keep in mind too that some vets will not even acknowledge that holistic cures work- but again you owe your vet the courtesy of telling him or her if you want to go off the beaten track and try unconventional means to keep the animal around.

 

[june]

I'm in favour of whatever works in each particular situation without limiting it to any style of medicine. It seems that the vets involved in the above cures believed the same. You do not know what type of medicine was involved but, seeing such results are somehow convinced that conventional medicine played no part in it. Actually, none of it involved "blanket statements", "pedalling snake oil or miracles" . Each involved QUALIFIED vets . And none of them were pedalling snake oil or miracles.
Am I advocating other than conventional medicine? I don't know. Is offering hope contradictory to conventional medicine? Let's see what famed New York vet( with over 40 years experience ) and author, Dr. Martin Goldstein, DVM says about hope:

"There's one .phenomenon that I think of as spiritual because it occurs among some pets with no explanation except possibly that their spirits have prevailed. With every serious case I do what i can to instill hope in a patient's owner. Holistic medicine is nothing if not a therapy of hope until an animal actually dies there's hope of recovery from even the most dire condition because when you allow for miracles by persisting with the right natural supplements sometimes they occur. "Keep up hope" I tell those owners for hope breeds perseverance and perseverance, I'm convinced, is often the element that makes the difference in desperate cases ."

What was that again?
"Holistic medicine is nothing if not a therapy of hope until an animal actually dies there's hope of recovery from even the most dire condition because when you allow for miracles by persisting with the right natural supplements sometimes they occur."
And he is making this statement to all pet owners without ever having seen their pets.
Was my earlier post concerning pets with various diseases an exponent of any particular style of medicine? I don't think so, if it were I would have included what each of the approaches taken were. The original thread dealt with what determines quality of life. My point was that sometimes what appears to be a lacking in the quality of life could really be an indication of something else. What that something else is can be determined by one's vet or it can be stumbled upon by the individual desperate for an answer.
One has the right to say " it's not the right style of medicine, don't bother telling me even though it can give me the result I want". That's their choice . But do they have the right to say " and don't tell anyone else either"? When all is said and done it's really up to the individual whether or not they wish to determine the quality of life of their pet by themselves or with veterinary help. In the latter case,one would think that a vet well- informed in various approaches would be of immense value. That is, if the pet owner wanted to make a well-informed decision on the matter.

 

[pat]

Any one can share any point of view, experience or suggestion they wish. But I will continue to remind folks they don't know who is behind that screen, and to use caution, common sense, and to work with a vet they trust who can actually touch/see/feel/test their cat.

I doubt anyone here thinks any member or advisor or moderator would try to deny hope, this is a forum of cat lovers.

 

[nyzki]

I honestly did not mean to start a heated cotroversary in regards to the subject mentioned, as it stands the owners of snowball have come to the conclusion that her quality of life is going to remain as it is and when it comes to it being her time to cross over they are going to let her go with as much love and dignity as she offered to her beloved people and i think that is as it should be

 

[hissy]

You didn't start a heated debate- these types of threads always open up this type of debate- Some people believe that cats should die naturally at home and that is their perogative, but because i rescue and I have seen more suffering, my cats will get a peaceful end if it is in my power to do so. Sometimes that is taken away from me, but if the choice is there- it is euthanization over natural death at home for my critters-

 

[pat]

Originally Posted by nyzki

I honestly did not mean to start a heated cotroversary in regards to the subject mentioned, as it stands the owners of snowball have come to the conclusion that her quality of life is going to remain as it is and when it comes to it being her time to cross over they are going to let her go with as much love and dignity as she offered to her beloved people and i think that is as it should be

IMO, you really didn't. It's an important topic, and I hope that you feel you got the support/information/shared experiences you asked for.

Hugs to your friends and best wishes to Snowball,