We have an old dog. She’s had hip surgery as a puppy and now has skin cancer and arthritis. She takes the max dose of rimadyl and tramadol. We keep the house cool and she’s on one level.
She pants a lot of the time. We took her to the dr who essentially said - she could be either in pain or anxious. Hubby declined to do testing on her. We know she can’t be cured. She limps around and pants most as she moves around. But if you lay on the floor and cuddle her, she does stop panting. Apparently she enjoys my singing 70’s mushy love ballads. She also enjoys terrifying the cats and eating their canned food. She somehow magically figured out sitting next to me at the kitchen table oftentimes gains her a few treats.
She lost weight from a high of 46 to now she’s about 35. The dr said anxiety meds would shut down her organs and kill her.
I somehow want the magic answer for exactly at what point to make the decision to put her down in a way that is merciful and not too soon or make her live a moment too long in pain. I don’t know what’s worse to think about - panting from pain or panting from anxiety.
Is she still enjoying her life, overall? If she still likes terrifying the cats and has a good appetite, is eliminating outside as usual with no problems, is generally responsive to you, it most likely isn’t time. If she’s limping and panting, she may be in pain from arthritis. Are you giving her Tramadol 2-3 times a day? While it may not be possible to eliminate the pain altogether, a vet should be able to find some pain med that will make her relatively comfortable. I think Tramadol works pretty well, but I also know they can build up a tolerance to it, so you may need to up the dose.
As far as how to know when to say good-bye, I personally believe that it’s better a day early than a day late. If you feel your dog is no longer having good days due to physical decline, I think the kinder thing is to let them go. They don’t have the sense of time that humans do, and letting them keep their dignity throughout their lives is more important than hanging on until the bitter end when they can no longer manage their outside duties, or if their pain keeps them from getting up and down to eat or be near you.
My Lab is 13, so I know what you’re dealing with. It’s not time for us yet, but within a year or two we will be facing this, too.
Sorry to hear about your dog. I have two senior citizen dogs - both large dogs, one nearly 15 and one 13 1/2. Heavy panting at an old age is actually fairly common. It may be a sign of pain or anxiety, but it also may just be a sign of old age. The nearly 15 year old husky mix is on both pain and anxiety meds, and while we’ve seen several positive changes, the panting has not decreased. She also keeps having bouts of vestibular disease, which can be scary since it looks like a stroke.
Deciding when it is time is extremely difficult. It sounds like your dog is still getting some joy from life. Right now I would be more concerned about the weight loss than the panting. Older dogs don’t always process food as effectively, so the same amount of food may not equal the same amount of nutrients. If she’s not on a senior food, you might try one. I would also feed anything she will eat - the quality of her diet doesn’t really matter much at this point. But keeping her weight up and making sure the pain meds don’t tear up her stomach is important. I also agree on the no testing - that’s the stance we’ve taken as well, since at this age and condition treatment would be more disabling than letting nature take its course.
I wish I had a cure for all these wonderful 4-legged family members. My heart goes out to you…
Is she peeing a lot? My dog peed, panted, and drank a good bit of water when he developed diabetes.
Did the vet check blood sugar?
He’s been on insulin for about 18 months. He still will pant in the middle of the night, but I keep water by my bedside and will give him water at those times. He sleeps with us because of our concerns.
If the water isn’t enough to stop the panting, then I walk him a little and then the panting goes away…burns some sugar.
If it is anxiety, have you thought of trying one of those anxiety collars or anxiety shirts?
Is she emaciated? Most dogs are overweight. Her current weight might in fact be better for her.
Unfortunately, I have lost all of my dogs to cancer circa 8-9 years, so I really haven’t experienced an old dog.
I’m always in favor of managing pain. There are various things, depending on what is causing it/ i’d talk to the vet about it. Not convinced that anxiety is the problem, from your description.
We just had to let our dog go a few months ago. She was 15 1/2. She had nothing serious but deteriorated very quickly just in the last few weeks of her life. Once she started having a hard time even standing and could barely get up we knew it was time.
Thx, @mom2collegekids. She lived a very good and very long life for a big dog (Belgium Shepard.) But with only one dog left our house felt unbalanced, so we almost immediately started looking to adopt another dog. Two weeks later we brought home an adorable 2 year old King Charles Cav.
eyemamom, are her gums pale or are they a normal pink appearance? She could be suffering from lymphoma. The panting could be an effort to get more oxygen - that’s what tipped us off that our Lab was ill and not just aging. I would encourage you to think about having your vet perform a simple blood test at least - if it is lymphoma, prednisone can make her more comfortable.
I second sabaray’s advice of doing the testing. You might find out she has a condition that can be managed (with pain meds or something else). Or you might find a condition that is painful and can’t be managed, in which case, you’ll know what to do. Knowing what is going on with her will allow you to make a better decision for her.
My vet told us to give our beagle a Benadryl if he gets anxious on a long car trip. So far I haven’t tried it but maybe you could ask your vet if it might work for your dog’s anxiety.
Yes, talk to your vet, but pink benadryl tablets (or generic) usually work fine for dogs, but if a dog is already on meds or elderly or sick, then talk to your vet.
We typically give our dogs benadryl for itching or to calm them during 4th of July fireworks.
Our dog just died a couple of weeks ago (age 13+). She deteriorated rapidly the last month of her life and died ln her sleep 12 hours before the scheduled appointment with the vet to euthanize her. I know what you are going through exactly with not knowing if she is in pain. Our dog also had anxiety in her last weeks and would wake up in the night and want to wander around. We would take her outside and she would just wander aimlessly. We didn’t know what to do or why she was doing this. The vet thought this was anxiety from dementia – a sense of not knowing where she was when it was dark – and prescribed valium which definitely helped her sleep through the night. (We had tried melatonin on our own beforehand but the valium definitely worked better.)
Thank you for your thoughts. We started marking on the calendar if we thought overall she had a good day or a bad day. When the bad outnumbers the good we’ll know. Bad days seem very obvious to us both. We were told she had an 12 - 13 year life span - she’s 14 now.
@LBowie So sorry to hear about the recent loss of your dear pet. We think we’ll be facing the same sometime in the near future with our blind, diabetic doxie who’s also had cancer. We hope and pray that God just takes him in his sleep when the time comes.
Thank you @mom2collegekids the end was really hard, as she was weakening. We are lucky our son was home from college and was able to spend time with her and care for her last month. He’s the one who begged for a dog way back when. So the timing and the way she died right where she always slept in our bedroom was all like we would have wanted but it is still hard.
@eyemamom for our dog it eventually became that the next day was worse than the previous and it marched along like that. If your dog still takes pleasure in things, it is hard to make the decision to put them down, I know. Best wishes
