I've been thru the end stage with several pets. It's not easy as you know.
If the dog is fairly young and the illness is sudden, then it's proper to take some measures to save them.
If the dog is pretty old, then you have to weigh that decision against how much time they have left. Books on dog breeds can give you an idea of life span. Mutts are a bit trickier to figure out.
You can't prevent the inevitable. But a diagnosis as to what is really wrong is imperative to decision making.
Saving pets is strictly for the benefit of people. A dog doesn't really "want" to live. So how self indulgent do you want to be? That's the hard question.
When my dog got ran over by a car, the initial estimate was $3800 to put him back together. At that point, I said no, put him down. My sister was watching the dog (I was out of town) and she said no. The bill ended up at $6500. Was it worth it? The dog suffered 2 surguries and 6 months of convalencence in his crate. He's fine now and runs around like nothing ever happened. He's 3 and will probably live to be 8-9 at the most. I think that it was very self-indulgent of us to put the dog thru all that, never mind the money.
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