When it's time to let them go.../cuando se tienen que ir...

Pet cemetery at Durham castle

     One of the hardest decision we have to make as an owner, is deciding when enough is enough for our pet's suffering, long term disease, or poor quality of life. After years practicing veterinary medicine I can tell that no matter how strong you think you are, how "cold" and pragmatic others see you, how muscular, or introvert, or grumpy... if you did love your pet, you are likely to cry (read more). 

     We vets are used to find different reactions, from anger, frustration, hopelessness, denial, wives ho had never seen their husbands shear a tear before, others needing some days to separate themselves from their diseased pet, performing religious rituals... Your vet might advice you to considering it deeply, as your animal's condition deteriorates or, unfortunately, the prognosis is very bad, the cost for a referral is too dear, or the disease has no cure. 

Pet cemetery at Durham castle

     Unlike human medicine, pets do not have to spend their last days under sedation, morphine, or comatose, waiting for the fatal end to come and release them. Here are some advice that might be useful for you as an owner:

• Discuss it with your family, avoid feelings of guilty, shame or fear.
• When possible, try to book an appointment to your own vet. S/he will be able to rearrange any other appointments so that s/he can spend some extra time for this last visit, and you will have some more intimacy, or perhaps put to sleep your pet at home, if that is your wish. Leaving it for too long, there is a chance that your pet's condition deteriorates too much when your vet is closed, and you end bringing your pet to to the stranger vet in the emergency service.
• If you are a very sensitive person, it might be a good idea to arrive by taxi, or, preferably, ask someone else to drive you to your vet. This way you will not feel so lonely and you will count on the support of your friends or relatives.
• Bring kleenex.
• Ask any question in regards to the procedure. Your vet will inform you the injection contains an anaesthetic, and your pet will be given more such amount that it will fall unconscious first, and eventually its heart will stop. However, each case is done according to the situation. Some pets cannot have an intravenous catheter placed due to very low blood pressure, or the blood is so dense that it clots within it. In those cases your vet might offer an intramuscular sedation, and the last injection is given in one of the organs (usually liver or kidney)
• Once your pet is gone, you will have three main options:
• Individual or private cremation: your pet will be cremated on his/her own, and his/her ashes will be brought to you. There is a catalogue of casquets an urns to choose, or you might want them in a cardboard, thinking of burying it afterwards. It will normally take from  1 to 2 weeks to arrive to your vet's, where you can collect them.
• Communal cremation: your pet is cremated with other pets, and you do not have any ashes back.
• Home burial: you might have a garden, a wanted land, or a pet cemetery where you want him/her to rest.
• Most owners prefer to sort out any payment before entering the room. Your vet will understand this request from you. However, your vet may ask you go home and give you the option of payment over the phone, if s/he sees you are very stressed or affected.

“You're beautiful, but you're empty...One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass, since she's the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.” 
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince