Show It was time for goodbye g gt wasn't it its R t I 7 t j Photo courtesy of Jonathan Yardley The author with his dachshunds Reggie right and Sophie Jonathan Yardley The Washington Post Reggie an year old dog whom I loved without reservation went to his reward three weeks ago on our veterinarians veterinarian's examining table Reggie had been diagnosed in early November with congestive heart failure and had hadnot hadnot hadnot not responded to the various medications prescribed for him His stomach had swollen to the size of a soccer ball he was hemorrhaging internally and sooner or later would bleed to death The decision to end his life was incredibly painful but not really all that difficult Our laws permit us to do unto our household animals what we weare weare weare are not permitted to do unto ourselves take them out of their misery let them die speedily when they are ready to die and grant them in the words of the most beautiful prayer that I know a safe lodging and a holy rest and peace at the last So while Reggie snuggled his head into the crook of my elbow v the veterinarian administered th the e final dose and after three deep sighs Reggie breathed his last Of course it wasn't easy Its It's never easy Ive I've now done it seven times Ive I've been Lord High Executioner to five dogs and two cats I did it each time with the deepest regrets and inevitably with tears Still the decision to put Reggie to sleep as the prevailing euphemism has it was the hardest of all not merely because he was the best dog I have ever known but be because ause the vastly increased sophistication and expense of veterinary medicine can make euthanasia a far more complicated and morally vexing choice than it had been in the not so distant past If you own a apet apet apet pet and odds are that you do since the latest estimate of the American population of dogs and cats is million soon sooner er or later you almost certainly are going to discover this for yourself Euthanasia was the last thing on our minds when Reggie joined our small household in the early fall of 2004 Two months earlier we had put dog down Jaeger a year old dachshund who had gone into convulsions and was on the verge of death he was a severely abused fraternity dog whom my wife had rescued a decade earlier and who with full measures of love and veterinary attention had become a hilariously mischievous companion Westill We Westill Westill still had Sophie a lovely little dachshund who was then 9 years year s old but two dachshunds are always better than one so we made inquiries to Dachshund Rescue of North America submitted to its rigorous screening processes and were approved for adoption We chose Reggie He was 5 years old and had not had an w easy life His first owners had to give him up after their divorce he went to a foster home then to a family that had to let him go when a new baby proved allergic to him then to a second foster home We were soon to learn that he was a bundle of insecurities but when I picked him up in New Jersey he was all enthusiasm and joy On the drive back to Washington he clambered up front There inthe in inthe inthe the shotgun seat he immediately staged what we came to call trick He sat up on his hind quarters more like a penguin than a dog and looked eagerly out the window What a piece of work he was At 28 pounds he was the biggest dachshund Id I'd ever seen and my family's dachshund history goes back more than half a century H He didn't have a very big brain but he had an enormous heart and everyone who met him sensed this immediately Moreover for all his insecurity he proved remarkably adaptable a year ago when he and Sophie went to Peru with us for more than four months he made himself right at home and barked barke d in impeccable Spanish Wed We'd known when we committed ourselves to him that he had a heart murmur but wed we'd shrugged it off Id I'd had a heart murmur as a boy and it simply had disappeared as human heart murmurs often do But when he paid his introductory visit to our vet we learned that heart murmurs in dogs are more serious than they are in humans If he starts to cough we were told bring him in The coughing began in October Hed He'd always hacked after gulping down water so at first I took little notice of it Then he began to cough in his bed as though he was trying to bring something up When our veterinarians veterinarian's associate examined him she said that his heart murmur almost certainly had progressed to congestive heart failure and arranged an immediate appointment with a veterinary cardiologist This was our second encounter r with the new world of veterinary specialization In September 2006 a large growth was removed from Sophie's right hip It proved to be cancerous and she was sent to a veterinary oncologist because the mass had been so deep that our vet feared he had not gotten it all The likable oncologist recommended aggressive surgical therapy translation amputating her right leg and hip which we rejected as we also rejected radiation Instead we agreed to put her heron on a mild inflammatory anti-inflammatory drug that we were told is effective in 10 percent of veterinary cases Thus far it has been effective for Sophie for 16 months Whether she would still be alive without it is impossible to say Sophie's examination and treatment had not been unduly expensive about for forthe forthe forthe the visit to the oncologist and to date for the but Reggie's were something else He had a lot going on none of it good The diagnosis at the cardiology center was complex and scary recurrent mild congestive heart failure thickened valve with severe regurgitation tertiary rupture severe left heart enlargement All of a sudden that big heart of his was much too big and andin andin andin in hopes of preventing it from bursting he was vas was put on a potent drug cocktail two times a day a diuretic for high blood pressure and congestive heart failure and for degeneration of the heart valves The staff at the cardiology center and the cardiologist herself were uniformly wonderful but the price was steep A single minute five-minute cool and and- sonogram ran a v an overnight visit four days 1 ys later came to 1012 We paid all this readily just as we paid th the grand total of that Reggie's treatments and medicines ultimately cost Indeed we paid with gratitude for the availability of expert counsel and state-of- state the-art the equipment but the whole experience served to impress upon us that veterinary treatment now approaches human medicine in the opportunities and expenses it entails One of those opportunities is of course endless and endlessly expensive treatment undertaken simply because it itis itis itis is there Whether exploratory surgery would have prolonged Reggie's life is another question I cannot answer but now that highly advanced procedures and equipment are available for such emergencies as well as highly skilled practitioners to make use of them pet owners must confront emotional dilemmas and perhaps moral choices that rarely presented themselves in inthe inthe inthe the past I am as certain as I can be that I made the right choice for Reggie and I know that our veterinarian agrees but there will always be in the back of my mind that lingering nagging I doubt Did I really do the right thing or could the expenditure of a few thousand dollars more have brought him back from the abyss Money had nothing to do with my decision but as veterinary medicine becomes ever more state of the art and ever more costly inevitably it will be part of many peoples people's decisions The questions people must ask themselves as they start playing a r God do not lend themselves to easy answers How much is a petworth pet petworth petworth worth How much value can we assign to a creature who is both botha a dumb animal and a cherished friend and companion a family member whose importance in ones one's life is incalculable Jonathan Yardley is The Washington Posts Post's s book critic 1 tai |