Saying goodbye: quality of life, and what the day actually involves

Almost nobody feels ready. The two sentences I hear most in that room are "am I doing this too soon?" and, afterwards, "I wish I hadn't waited so long." If you're reading this at midnight with an old dog asleep beside you, you are not a bad owner. You're a paying-attention one.

Quality-of-life scales exist to move the decision out of the fog. Most ask you to score the same things week by week: pain, appetite, hydration, hygiene — can they stay clean, or are they lying in it — mobility, and the one people underrate: whether any happiness is left, whether they still greet you at the door. Score each out of ten and watch the trend, because one day's number means little and the direction over three weeks means everything.

The simplest test is also a real one. Keep a calendar and mark each day good or bad — one mark, no essays. Define "good" before you start, in their terms and not yours: ate willingly, got up without help, wanted to be near us, didn't tremble. When the bad days start outnumbering the good, and the good ones stop coming back, you have your answer in your own handwriting.

Fear of the unknown makes the day worse than it needs to be, so here is the day. Usually a small catheter is placed in a leg vein, often after a sedative injection that leaves your animal deeply sleepy and comfortable — many fall asleep in your arms before anything else happens. Then an overdose of an anaesthetic agent goes into the vein; the heart usually stops within a minute or two, and they don't feel it. Afterwards, and this is what frightens people nobody warned: the eyes stay open, there may be a last breath or a muscle twitch, and the bladder or bowels may empty. That is reflex, not distress. You can hold them the whole time. You can also step out — nobody is keeping score.

You get more say than you think. Home visits are widely available, many animals do better on their own sofa, and you choose who is in the room, whether you keep a paw print, and what happens afterwards — cremation, or burial where local rules allow. Ask about all of it on the phone, in advance, while you can still speak.

Tell children the truth in short words. "Died", and "we helped him die because he was hurting and couldn't get better" — not "put to sleep", which makes bedtime frightening, and not "went away", which makes them wait. Let them choose whether to be there; being excluded is often what they remember. Let them make something: a drawing, a box with the collar and photos.

Surviving animals grieve too. Some go off their food for a few days, call, search the house, sleep in the wrong room. Letting them see the body seems to help some of them, and it costs nothing to allow. Keep their routine steady — and see your vet if a cat hasn't eaten for 24 hours, because in cats that is a medical problem, not only a sad one.

And you. Grief for an animal is real grief and it is allowed to be big. The one thing worth hearing tonight: this decision is never made alone, and it isn't made from an article. Ring your vet, describe the last two weeks honestly, and ask them straight — "if this were your animal, what would you do?" They will tell you.