Cat euthanization opinions wanted.

wrote in message
...
On May 15, 10:51 am, "MaryL" -OUT-THE-LITTER
wrote:
My reaction is, I
can't see how anyone would take the risk that their cat's final moments
would be filled with fear or lonliness. I wanted to be there for them.

I confess to being a bit of a coward when we had to have Fugazi PTS-
it was my first time and she got ill so suddenly (the morning before
she was fine) the vet was worried that my upset would affect her so
what we did was I held her while the vet gave her a sedative and she
fell asleep in my arms while I told her what a good cat she was and
how we would miss her so she did the final injection and I handed her
to the vet still asleep and left the room- she wasn't conscious by the
second injection and the last thing she would have heard was me
telling her how lovely she was and the last thing she would have felt
was me stroking her and to this day I wonder if I did the right
thingeven now 10 years later I am wiping away the tears when I think
of it

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs

You were there almost until the final moment. That is very different than
simply "sending them off."

MaryL

"kraut" wrote in message
...


This is a little different from what the Subject line implies.

A while back I got REALLY attached to a cat that my ex (Now wife
again) had. Up til then I was an un-cat person. Thanks to her Moses
I got into cats and took in several plus have been feeding and caring
for strays for years now. I loved that guy. Moses was 17 / 18 and
was sick enough to be put down. Got him as a kitten

She called me one day and said she had him put down and had a friend
of hers take him who was a stranger to Moses. This has bugged me for
all these years that he had to spend his last few minutes in this life
with strangers. I wish so much she would have called me. I would
have gladly taken him even though it would have broken my heart. I
have never said nothing to her 'cause it is tooo late to make a diff
now.

I was just wondering what some of your opinions are on this. I know
that no one likes having to do this but would anyone out there do as
she did with Moses? I know she loved him and why she did it the way
she did but I guess I am looking at it from Moses view point.

Opinion please. Am I wrong to feel as I do about it? Should I have
said something to her about how I felt? I will next time and with 7
cats there will be a next time.

Thanks all.

I think it's probably not a good idea to bring it up now since nothing will
change what happened, but definitely next time I would insist on being
there. I would strongly urge anyone with a cat at that point to look into
having a vet come to your home. I did with Bandit. I was surprised that it
only cost $80 - I would gladly have paid ten times that amount just to know
that she would be on her own bed, in her own house, and held and petted by
me as she breathed her last. It's a small enough favor to do for a being
that spends his or her whole life giving you unqualified love.

Hugs,

CatNipped

"kraut" wrote in message
...


This is a little different from what the Subject line implies.

A while back I got REALLY attached to a cat that my ex (Now wife
again) had. Up til then I was an un-cat person. Thanks to her Moses
I got into cats and took in several plus have been feeding and caring
for strays for years now. I loved that guy. Moses was 17 / 18 and
was sick enough to be put down. Got him as a kitten

She called me one day and said she had him put down and had a friend
of hers take him who was a stranger to Moses. This has bugged me for
all these years that he had to spend his last few minutes in this life
with strangers. I wish so much she would have called me. I would
have gladly taken him even though it would have broken my heart. I
have never said nothing to her 'cause it is tooo late to make a diff
now.

I was just wondering what some of your opinions are on this. I know
that no one likes having to do this but would anyone out there do as
she did with Moses? I know she loved him and why she did it the way
she did but I guess I am looking at it from Moses view point.

Opinion please. Am I wrong to feel as I do about it? Should I have
said something to her about how I felt? I will next time and with 7
cats there will be a next time.

Thanks all.

I can understand how you feel. I think you were right not to reproach her,
but since there are other cats, you might simply ask her if she'd please
call you next time, rather than having a stranger take them.

Joy

"kraut" wrote in message

This is a little different from what the Subject line implies.

A while back I got REALLY attached to a cat that my ex (Now wife
again) had. Up til then I was an un-cat person. Thanks to her Moses
I got into cats and took in several plus have been feeding and caring
for strays for years now. I loved that guy. Moses was 17 / 18 and
was sick enough to be put down. Got him as a kitten

She called me one day and said she had him put down and had a friend
of hers take him who was a stranger to Moses. This has bugged me for
all these years that he had to spend his last few minutes in this life
with strangers. I wish so much she would have called me. I would
have gladly taken him even though it would have broken my heart. I
have never said nothing to her 'cause it is tooo late to make a diff
now.

I was just wondering what some of your opinions are on this. I know
that no one likes having to do this but would anyone out there do as
she did with Moses? I know she loved him and why she did it the way
she did but I guess I am looking at it from Moses view point.

Opinion please. Am I wrong to feel as I do about it? Should I have
said something to her about how I felt? I will next time and with 7
cats there will be a next time.

Feelings aren't 'wrong' - you can't help having them.

However, what you do about it is where the choice lies.

We all here coudl sit here and speculate as to the motivations of your wife.
We could well say 'thats not what we would have done' but none here,
including you, know what she was thinking or indeed feeling at the time she
made that decision (if indeed, it was a fully informed, rational choice).

Before jumping to any conclusion that she is somehow in the wrong, just talk
to her about it (without accusing her of course).

I had to take a dog to be PTS once because the owner jsut couldn't bring
herself to do it. She knew it was time, in fact it was well *over* time, but
she was so oupset at the thought, she just couldn't take that dog to his
death. And thats why I did. I can't condemn her for that. Perhaps thats not
what the dog would have wanted, but I still feel it was better fo rme to
take that dog and put it out of its suffering than her to hang on to a blind
dog (cataracts) that was in a great deal of constant pain due to arthiritis
because of her overwhelming emotions. She owner agrees and has apologised to
me fro her cowardliness - but I don't this meant she was a coward, merely so
stricken with grief that she was unable to do anything else.

Be aware your wife may now feel guilty about the decision she made back then
so go easy on her. No pointing the finger and blaming.

Remember, your emotional rection to this situation is just as valid as hers.
Support each other and remember that you both loved Moses very much.

Yowie
--
If you're paddling upstream in a canoe and a wheel falls off, how many
pancakes can you fit in a doghouse? None, icecream doesn't have bones.

This is a little different from what the Subject line implies.

A while back I got REALLY attached to a cat that my ex (Now wife
again) had. Up til then I was an un-cat person. Thanks to her Moses
I got into cats and took in several plus have been feeding and caring
for strays for years now. I loved that guy. Moses was 17 / 18 and
was sick enough to be put down. Got him as a kitten

She called me one day and said she had him put down and had a friend
of hers take him who was a stranger to Moses. This has bugged me for
all these years that he had to spend his last few minutes in this life
with strangers. I wish so much she would have called me. I would
have gladly taken him even though it would have broken my heart. I
have never said nothing to her 'cause it is tooo late to make a diff
now.

I was just wondering what some of your opinions are on this. I know
that no one likes having to do this but would anyone out there do as
she did with Moses? I know she loved him and why she did it the way
she did but I guess I am looking at it from Moses view point.

Opinion please. Am I wrong to feel as I do about it? Should I have
said something to her about how I felt? I will next time and with 7
cats there will be a next time.

Thanks all.

I can understand how you feel. I think you were right not to reproach her,
but since there are other cats, you might simply ask her if she'd please
call you next time, rather than having a stranger take them.

Joy



Thanks all for your opinions. As said we are married now so if (when)
the time comes to help another on it's final journey I will be there
to do it. Sad to say that since I have had to do it with several
strays that were sick / injured and hopefully my presence there with
them made their departure a little better for them.

Thanks again all.

kraut wrote:

A while back I got REALLY attached to a cat that my ex (Now wife
again) had. Up til then I was an un-cat person. Thanks to her Moses
I got into cats and took in several plus have been feeding and caring
for strays for years now. I loved that guy. Moses was 17 / 18 and
was sick enough to be put down. Got him as a kitten

She called me one day and said she had him put down and had a friend
of hers take him who was a stranger to Moses. This has bugged me for
all these years that he had to spend his last few minutes in this life
with strangers. I wish so much she would have called me. I would
have gladly taken him even though it would have broken my heart. I
have never said nothing to her 'cause it is tooo late to make a diff
now.

I was just wondering what some of your opinions are on this. I know
that no one likes having to do this but would anyone out there do as
she did with Moses? I know she loved him and why she did it the way
she did but I guess I am looking at it from Moses view point.

I can understand her doing it, but I wouldn't do that myself. I would
want to be with my cat at the end, and would be upset at being deprived
of those final moments.

As for what you should say to her, I think that when the situation
comes up again, and as you said, it probably will sooner or later, that
would be a good time to tell her that you want to be there, or you want
her to be there, with the cat at the end. To me, it's more than reasonable
to request that. It will probably occur to her that you might have some
feelings about how she handled it with Moses, and if she asks you, you
can tell her how it made you feel. But as you say, it's in the past now,
so there no use criticizing her for it. It sounds like she just was unable
to face it. Some people are better at that than others.

Did she ever tell you why she didn't call you to take him, rather than
asking a friend? Were you on speaking terms at the time? If you were, it
seems odd that she wouldn't have thought of you first.

--
Joyce ^..^

To email me, remove the XXX from my user name.

wrote:

I confess to being a bit of a coward when we had to have Fugazi PTS-
it was my first time and she got ill so suddenly (the morning before
she was fine) the vet was worried that my upset would affect her so
what we did was I held her while the vet gave her a sedative and she
fell asleep in my arms while I told her what a good cat she was and
how we would miss her so she did the final injection and I handed her
to the vet still asleep and left the room- she wasn't conscious by the
second injection and the last thing she would have heard was me
telling her how lovely she was and the last thing she would have felt
was me stroking her and to this day I wonder if I did the right
thingeven now 10 years later I am wiping away the tears when I think
of it

You were there for the important part - to hold her and tell her you
loved her, which was the last thing she experienced on this earth. From
her point of view, that would be all that mattered.

--
Joyce ^..^

To email me, remove the XXX from my user name.

On 16 May 2009 07:17:15 GMT, wrote:

wrote:

I confess to being a bit of a coward when we had to have Fugazi PTS-
it was my first time and she got ill so suddenly (the morning before
she was fine) the vet was worried that my upset would affect her so
what we did was I held her while the vet gave her a sedative and she
fell asleep in my arms while I told her what a good cat she was and
how we would miss her so she did the final injection and I handed her
to the vet still asleep and left the room- she wasn't conscious by the
second injection and the last thing she would have heard was me
telling her how lovely she was and the last thing she would have felt
was me stroking her and to this day I wonder if I did the right
thingeven now 10 years later I am wiping away the tears when I think
of it

You were there for the important part - to hold her and tell her you
loved her, which was the last thing she experienced on this earth. From
her point of view, that would be all that mattered.

I totally agree - you were there as her last memory to let her know
she was loved.

That's my biggest regret with Rocky's death. I know he hated being at
TED's, and I know he was alone in that strange and hated place when he
died. OTOH, I know that's not the same as his being PTS. When he died
everything that could be done was being done to help him recover - he
just lost the fight.
--
Steve Touchstone
Little Bit, Sammy, Spotty, Princess, Furby
and Rocky (RB)
Pix at http://tinyurl.com/22pfn8
Vids at http://tinyurl.com/4yb6nj

CatEyes wrote:

I think it's probably not a good idea to bring it up now since nothing will
change what happened, but definitely next time I would insist on being
there. I would strongly urge anyone with a cat at that point to look into
having a vet come to your home. I did with Bandit. I was surprised that it
only cost $80 - I would gladly have paid ten times that amount just to know
that she would be on her own bed, in her own house, and held and petted by
me as she breathed her last. It's a small enough favor to do for a being
that spends his or her whole life giving you unqualified love.

Hugs,

CatNipped

Since, in the U.S., it's generally impossible to get HUMAN doctors to
make "house calls", I'm not sure how successful that request would be -
although perhaps in rural areas, where vets are accustomed to visiting
their bovine and equine patients at home, it might be more likely.

Come to think of it, though, I do remember that when the first cat I had
in California was displaying a cat-bite abscess, the vet I phoned DID
come to the house to treat him. However, that was way back in 1954,
when things were different. Also, the vet I picked out of the phone
book turned out to be one who specialized in larger, more exotic animals
(including lions and tigers) used by the movie studios.

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote in message
m...


CatEyes wrote:

I think it's probably not a good idea to bring it up now since nothing
will change what happened, but definitely next time I would insist on
being there. I would strongly urge anyone with a cat at that point to
look into having a vet come to your home. I did with Bandit. I was
surprised that it only cost $80 - I would gladly have paid ten times that
amount just to know that she would be on her own bed, in her own house,
and held and petted by me as she breathed her last. It's a small enough
favor to do for a being that spends his or her whole life giving you
unqualified love.

Hugs,

CatNipped

Since, in the U.S., it's generally impossible to get HUMAN doctors to make
"house calls", I'm not sure how successful that request would be -
although perhaps in rural areas, where vets are accustomed to visiting
their bovine and equine patients at home, it might be more likely.

Come to think of it, though, I do remember that when the first cat I had
in California was displaying a cat-bite abscess, the vet I phoned DID come
to the house to treat him. However, that was way back in 1954, when
things were different. Also, the vet I picked out of the phone book
turned out to be one who specialized in larger, more exotic animals
(including lions and tigers) used by the movie studios.

A number of people on this NG have had experience with vets coming to their
home, and I have a friend who also used that option. My vet calls me
personally to check on my cats if any issues have been raised during exams,
and he has told me that he does occasionally go to people's homes. I do
live in a fairly small town, and I suspect that this option would be more
limited in large cities. By contrast, I think (as you said) that it would
be impossible to get a human doctor to come to a home. Of course, we are
talking about euthanasia here, and that would not be an issue with human
patients. Doctors claim that it is not useful to make housecalls because
equipment would not be available, but that avoids the issue of people who
are simply in such pain or disability that it is very difficult to go to a
doctor's office (such as when my mother was in a nursing home, and every
visit was somewhat traumatic for her--no need for "equipment").

MaryL