tigerangel
Warren Veteran
Today my OH and I have come to the decision to make an appointment for Sora to be PTS. She is 13(!), she has survived a liver lobe torsion 10 years ago, she has been on a slow decline for the last 2 years or so. Recently she has shown signs that she is ready to go, but her body keeps hanging on and won’t let her go. She is incontinent and her back legs are giving up, the combination of which means that husbandry to keep her back end clean has become impossible and I believe she is now suffering, so convincing my OH today with ‘the talk’ was not that difficult.
My issue is of course that she is part of a bonded pair, and I want to minimise the impact on her partner Smudge (who is 10.5 himself). They have been strongly bonded together for 10 years and I know that the recommended thing is to let him sniff her afterwards and when he moves away from her then he’s ‘accepted’ it, but he has already begun distancing himself from her so I am not sure how beneficial it would be to bring Sora back from the vets? She will likely smell of ‘the vets’ and not herself which I am not sure would be helpful. My heart says it would be kinder for him as he has already started to distance himself but as I’ve never been in this situation before then I’m not sure whether to trust myself or if I’m making a mistake?
My issue is of course that she is part of a bonded pair, and I want to minimise the impact on her partner Smudge (who is 10.5 himself). They have been strongly bonded together for 10 years and I know that the recommended thing is to let him sniff her afterwards and when he moves away from her then he’s ‘accepted’ it, but he has already begun distancing himself from her so I am not sure how beneficial it would be to bring Sora back from the vets? She will likely smell of ‘the vets’ and not herself which I am not sure would be helpful. My heart says it would be kinder for him as he has already started to distance himself but as I’ve never been in this situation before then I’m not sure whether to trust myself or if I’m making a mistake?