Tomorrow is three years since Mav's passing, and I wanna talk about the details behind his decline, the decisions I made, the reasoning behind them, and why I don't regret them. This is a heavy one but I'm hoping it helps others as they too have to make heavy decisions for their pets.
Mav had a degenerative spine injury that made his wobble, lose control of his back legs, and caused him pain. I'm not 100% positive on how he injured himself, but I think it was a bad wipe-out on an unsafe chase ability course in June 2022. He showed minor signs of pain on and off that whole summer and fall, started a painkiller trial in winter 2022/23, and started showing undeniable degeneration in April 2023.
The Initial Decline and Diagnostic Attempts
It's hard to pinpoint exactly when he started showing signs of pain because he was such a happy and stoic dog. I had a tracking spreadsheet (separate from my QOL tracker) but I deleted it after he passed so I couldn't obsess over it. My memory is a little fuzzy on that summer and fall, but he started refusing jumps in agility and I took it as a training issue. He got way cuddlier. He stopped asking for walks. He disengaged and put himself to bed all the time. I wrote it all off as him mellowing out as he aged. The more concerning signs including skin twitching esp when I touched his back or hips, back legs trembling, and a weird hesitation to scent roll on stuff.
In fall and winter 2022, I started looking for professional opinions even though I felt like I was being insane - the signs of pain were that subtle. I went to his regular vet (a field golden breeder, no answers), a sport's physio vet (confirmed moderate hind end weakness, gave me physio exercises), his regular vet again (got an rx for gabapentin), did OFA hips, spine, and elbows (hips excellent, mild dysplasia in one elbow, mild LTV in his spine, neither clinical), and got a referral a neurologist in early 2023.
(As a side note, pet insurance in Canada is not super accessible. I have a credit card I keep empty for dog emergencies but don't have insurance on my pets. It is what it is. All my dog expenses are out of pocket.)
We got in with the neuro for a consult in early 2023. They were able to immediately confirm it was a neuro issue and confirmed, using my tracking spreadsheet and the vet appointment notes, that it was degenerative. We talked options for further diagnostics and surgery and it was clear Mav wasn't a good candidate for spine surgery due to lifestyle. I was referred for an MRI with the caveat that while it could provide a diagnosis, it wouldn't change the outcome. We increased Mav's gabapentin and tried him on metacam, which caused a really unpleasant allergic reaction (painful blisters all over his body). I opted against the MRI, largely for financial reasons, but also because I knew a diagnosis wouldn't change how I felt about the outcome.
(Another note that we also discussed a trial 8-week crate rest to see if it alleviated any signs - think IVDD. With the confirmation that his injury was degenerative and knowing that we didn't have infinite time left together, I personally decided not to subject him to such a long crate rest, where he would've had to be sedated. That was not how I wanted him to spend his now-numbered days. Could it have bought him more time? Perhaps. I don't regret the choice though.)
The Decision
After the neuro consult and discussions with Mav's breeder, I decided to keep Mav on painkillers and let him live his best life for as long as he could with dignity and no signs of pain. This meant that I personally did not make any significant changes his lifestyle besides retiring him from sports and sports-related training. He completed his last rally and scent detection trials in April 2023. He was so happy performing that the decision felt premature.
April 8, 2023, Mav and I were on a short hike along the edge of a small forest cliff. Mav hit a patch of ice, lost control of his back legs, and fell over the edge. He was on leash and I got him back up, but it was an extremely scary moment. I started tracking his quality of life and physical decline the following day.
This is the QOL tracking chart I made, and I tracked each criterion at the end of each day with a colour. I've shared this on the blog before.
I decided that when he lost three criteria, I would make the appointment, and I also decided that I would make the appointment early if he lost the ability to run without pain. (This is a decision I made specifically because of Maverick and the brittany spirit. Mav choosing not to run off-leash is too big of a sign of pain to ignore.)
While making my QOL tracking sheet, I also decided (loosely) what I wanted Mav's last day to look like. I wanted him to enjoy a short walk in the swamp with minimal pain, I wanted him to be able to walk into the vet for his appointment on his own, and I wanted him to have enough of an appetite to eat some chicken nugs. In short, I wanted him to die with the dignity he deserved.
In late April, I took Mav on a roadtrip through the prairies and mountains. I wanted more memories with him.
In May 2023, I got home from work one day, took Mav for a short walk around the block, and got home just in time for Mav to start having some sort of fit. Trembling, not able to stand, just super out of it - looked like a seizure in my unprofessional opinion. We went to the vet within the hour, but there was a cat in the waiting room and the adrenaline fixed him right up. They tested for tick-borne diseases (neg), checked blood and urine for THC (neg), and sent us home. We visited his regular vet again in the following days, but the test results showed nothing and he was back to normal by then. We boosted his gabapentin dosage again.
(At this point, his body was struggling to heal small wounds. He had a small chemical burn on his mustache that lasted well over two months and his metacam blister scabs took weeks to heal.)
After his weird fit, I started having nightmares that I would come home from work to find him paralyzed. I obsessed over the thought of having to say goodbye amid the chaos of an emergency vet and it undid me. I started leaning way too heavily into weed in the evenings, which prevented any dreams at all, and locked down any emotions I had about the situation, which was very easy to do because I do most of my processing while walking or hiking and I was doing way less of that. Overall not my best time.
I cut his walks way down and planned a weekend trip out to the sand dunes with our bffs. We visited his breeder at a dog show. Twice, he lost control of his back legs on walks around the block and I sat on the sidewalk with him while he recovered. After the second time, I made the appointment. It had only been 10 weeks since I started tracking his QOL.
On Euthanizing an Outwardly Healthy Dog
Mav was stoic in a way that a lot of people aren't familiar with - it's hard to understand how much an animal can mask pain until you see it. He hit green QOL indicators every day on our last sand dunes trip. He trotted, he rolled, he dug holes, he showed interest in everything we did. I deliberated hard but ultimately kept his appointment.
His last day was exactly what I wanted for him. We did a tiny swamp walk (less than a kilometre, he ran wild), he got a bath, he ate a 10-piece nugs, and he waltzed into that vet appointment like he was visiting his long-lost friends. I had printed his medical record spreadsheet (showing all the diagnostic attempts), his QOL tracker, and his physical decline tracker. I was terrified they were going to push back on my decision because outwardly and in the context of New Places New Friends, he looked like a healthy, happy dog.
Luckily, if you want to call it lucky, they didn't push back. His appointment was peaceful and full of cookies. It wasn't the chaos of an e-vet, and for that reason alone, I will never regret my decision. He passed with the dignity he deserved.
On Regret and Selfish Decisions
I want to be really clear: my decision to euthanize Mav when I did was mostly a selfish decision. Mav could've undoubtedly lived more happy months, maybe even more happy years. It would've looked very different to my preferred lifestyle but he could've had lots more good moments. Still, it was (relatively) an easy choice to make the call because:
1. I suspected his painkillers weren't cutting it, and high doses of gaba have a sedative effect. I felt he was both still in pain and also not fully present, which is a yucky middle ground to be in.
1 caveat. This was hard to come to terms with, because there was no one who could provide a second opinion on whether Mav was in pain. His pain was so subtle and hard to pinpoint even for me and Miles, and we saw and interacted with Mav every single day
2. I was undone from constantly monitoring him and dreading coming home in case the worst had happened.
3. I only have one life to live, too. <- this is the selfish one, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a factor contributing to my decision.
4. I was so determined not to say goodbye at the e-vet. I so badly wanted that dignified end for him.
After his appointment, I dissected my emotions about the decision. This was my first time making that call for any dog - let alone a dog that had just barely turned 5 - and I thought I'd feel regret or maybe relief. I felt neither. All I felt was grief.
Now, Three Years Later
There's still grief, and still no regret or relief. If I knew then what I know now, I definitely wouldn't have let him run the course that felt unsafe, but I don't drown in it or anything. You don't know until you know, and you can't hate yourself for not knowing. I don't do chase ability or frequent that club anymore, and I think they've improved anyway.
I could've pushed harder for diagnostics, but I can't overstate how subtle his signs of pain were. I feel good for noticing what I noticed and getting him retired from sports and painkillered up as soon as I did.
I could've done the 8-week crate rest and cut his activity to give him (maybe years!) of quiet, more sedentary life. But that's not what I wanted and - this is anthropomorphic - I don't think that's what Mav would've wanted either.
One thing I might've done differently: I could've asked for help from my irl dog friends more. I spent so much time gaslighting myself about whether Mav was actually in pain that I didn't share details with any of my friends until I had already made my decisions (and even then, details were high-level and cursory at best). It probably wouldn't have changed the outcome but it would've felt less isolating, maybe. The whole situation was unfair to other people who also loved Mav and didn't have all the information or time to prepare; I probably could've handled that better.
Ultimately there's no right or wrong choice. You hear "when they have more bad days than good" thrown around a lot, but it brings me a lot of comfort to know that Mav had very few bad days at all.
He got to have a good beginning, a good end, and a lot of good stuff in between. Five years wasn't long enough, but a hundred years wouldn't have been long enough either.
If you've read this far and want my takeaway from this whole experience: As much as you possibly can, make the most of every day with your pet. Take them on an adventure, or even just an extra walk. Go out of your way to give them that extra smooch. You'll remember those extra efforts and be grateful you did them, one day hopefully long in the future.
