(please don’t tell me about how wrong it is to own pugs, he was a stray I adopted who was found on the street, not a breeder dog I bought. He has a lot of health problems and I’ve devoted a lot to keeping him well cared for).
My poor old puppy. The restlessness and spinning in circles, the staring off into space, the coughing fits. We are already treating the cough but started some dementia-type medicine and melatonin last night. I don’t want to do extensive interventions if he’s unhappy but I want to try to improve his quality of life and make his geriatric years as happy and peaceful as possible.
It’s so hard to make good decisions about elderly pets isn’t it? You want to do the right thing.
We just had our great Dane cross the rainbow bridge a week ago today, which was a super tough decision. He was still having good days, but the bad days were starting to outnumber them, so we made the decision before his entire existence was suffering.
At some point you have to take a hard look at things and decide whether you’re keeping them alive for them, or for you.
I’m not a vet, but an elderly dog with dementia isn’t going to understand why it’s unable to breath, so it might be good to talk with a vet who will give you a straight answer about what they’d do for their pet in the situation.