Oops, Outlook Express changed the account, hence the different reply name

AKA Animal Luva

Oops, Outlook Express changed the account, hence the different reply name

AKA Animal Luva

Yes, it most definitely is.  Good luck with your kitty.  I'm very sorry to hear
Spot is so ill.

Lauren
________
See my cats:  http://community.webshots.com/album/56955940rWhxAe
Raw Diet Info: http://www.holisticat.com/drjletter.html
http://www.geocities.com/rawfeeders/ForCatsOnly.html
Declawing Info: http://www.wholecat.com/articles/claws.htm

Not interested in play, not interested in interaction, sleeps or hides
most of the time.  IME, working as a vet tech for a feline specialty
hospital, and with my own animals, you can see it in their eyes.  They
almost look at you like "let me go, please".  It's a certain look.

-L.

I'll echo what some have already posted - you'll know. You know your cat
and you want what's best. Spot will tell you when it's time. You seem to
be very focused on what's best for Spot, and that will help you know
what he's trying to tell you. I'm glad you've got more time with him.
Enjoy it, and good thoughts will continue your way from me and the
critters.

karen

Several years ago, the following was written and posted by a member of a
mailing list I was on. I have found this article to be very helpful when
one is in a situation such as yours and have read it myself several
times when faced with the same decision. Although it was written about
dogs, it equally applies to cats. I hope it helps you.

Megan

How Do You Know When It's Time? by Hilary Brown

I don't subscribe to the idea that dogs "will let us know when it's
time", at least not in any conscious sense on their part. For one thing,
I've found in my years of counseling folks who have ill pets and often
accompanying them through the euthanasia process, that this notion is
often interpreted in a way that puts a lot of pressure on people when
they're already stressed and grief-stricken. "What if I miss the signs?
He looked miserable yesterday but not today. What if I act too soon or
not soon enough?? How could he ever let on that he wants it to end?? But
maybe I'm deluding myself that he feels better than he does."

Dogs are not people. We lovingly anthropomorphize our dogs during our
time together and there's no harm in that, even quite a bit of reward
for both them and us. But the bottom line is that they are not people
and they don't think in the way people think. (Many of us would argue
that that speaks to the superiority of dogs.) These amazing beings love
us and trust us implicitly. It just isn't part of their awareness that
they should need to telegraph anything to us in order for their needs to
be met or their well-being ensured. They are quite sure that we, as
their pack leaders, operate only in their best interest at all times.
Emotional selfishness is not a concept in dogdom and they don't know how
hard we sometimes have to fight against it ourselves.

Dogs also have no mindset for emotional surrender or giving up. They
have no awareness of the inevitability of death as we do and they have
no fear of it. It is fear that so often influences and aggravates our
perceptions when we are sick or dying and it becomes impossible to
separate the fear out from the actual illness after a while. But that's
not the case with dogs. Whatever we observe to be wrong with our sick
dogs, it's all illness. And we don't even see the full impact of that
until it's at a very advanced point, because it's a dog's nature to
endure and to sustain the norm at all costs. If that includes pain, then
that's the way it is. Unlike us, they have never learned that letting
pain show, or reporting on it, may generate relief or aid. So they
endure, assuming in their deepest doggy subconscious that whatever we
abide for them is what is to be abided. If there is a "look in the eye",
or an indication of giving up, that we think we see from our beloved
dogs, it isn't a conscious attitude on their part or a decision to
communicate something to us. It's just an indication of how tired and
depleted they are. But they don't know there's any option other than
struggling on, so that's what they do.

We must assume that the discomfort we see is much less than the
discomfort they really feel. And we do know of other options and it is
entirely our obligation to always offer them the best option for that
moment, be it further intervention, or none, or the gift of rest. From
the moment we embrace these animals when they first grace our lives,
every day is one day closer to the day they must abandon their very
temporary and faulty bodies and return to the state of total perfection
and rapture they have always deserved. We march along one day at a time,
watching and weighing and continuing to embrace and respect each stage
as it comes. Today is a good day. Perhaps tomorrow will be, too, and
perhaps next week and the weeks or months after.

But there will eventually be a winding down. And we must not let that
part of the cycle become our enemy. When I am faced with the ultimate
decision about how I can best serve the animal I love so much, I try to
set aside all the complications and rationales of what I may or may not
understand medically and I try to clear my mind of any of the confusions
and ups and downs that are so much a part of caring for a terminally ill
pet. This is hard to do, because for months and often years we have been
in this mode of weighing hard data, labs, food, how many ounces did he
drink, should he have his rabies shot or not, etc. But at some point
it's time to put all of that in the academic folder and open the
spiritual folder instead.

At that point we are wise to ask ourselves the question: "Does he want
to be here today, to experience this day in this way, as much as I want
him to?" Remember, dogs are not afraid, they are not carrying anxiety
and fear of the unknown. So for them it's only about whether this day
holds enough companionship and ease and routine so that they would
choose to have those things more than anything else and that they are
able to focus on those things beyond any discomfort or pain or
frustration they may feel. How great is his burden of illness this day,
and does he want/need to live through this day with this burden of
illness as much as I want/need him to? If I honestly believe that his
condition is such, his pleasures sufficient, that he would choose to
persevere, then that's the answer and we press on. If, on the other
hand, I can look honestly and bravely at the situation and admit that
he, with none of the fear or sadness that cripples me, would choose
instead to rest, then my obligation is clear. Because he needs to know
in his giant heart, beyond any doubt, that I will have the courage to
make the hard decisions on his behalf, that I will always put his peace
before my own, and that I am able to love him as unselfishly as he has
loved me.

After many years, and so very many loved ones now living on joyously in
their forever home in my heart, this is the view I take. As my
veterinarian, who is a good and loving friend, injects my precious one
with that freedom elixir, I always place my hand on top of his hand that
holds the syringe. He has chosen a life of healing animals and I know
how terribly hard it is for him to give up on one. So I want to shoulder
that burden with him so he's not alone. The law of my state says the
veterinarian is the one licensed to administer the shot, not me. But a
much higher law says this is my ultimate gift to my dog and the
responsibility that I undertook on the day I welcomed that dog into my
life forever.