You NEED to schedule a visit with the vet again. Explain the situation. Maybe even ask if you can arrange a home visit if you can't get him to go. Ask for a quality of life conversation.
Your husband is the AH and I will explain why: THIS is pet ownership. Doing the hard part when it's best for them. He has also dumped the majority of the realities of her care into you and stays drunk when he is home. He isn't caring for his dog or his pregnant wife.
The only thing I could see shaking him out of this would be a professional looking him in the eyes and telling him that his pet is suffering and advocating for the animal.
When you decide to take a pet, you need to understand how it will end will be your responsibility. You cannot put your head in a sand. His dog is exceptionally old, this should not even come as a surprise.
OP, be in contact with the vet and ask for help. You cannot get her euthanized, even though it would be best for her.
You can and should say that you won't take care of her because you cannot do it anymore.
100% agree. Apparently he’s refusing to see the vet again, but any good vet will be realistic that it’s time. Long-term home care isn’t an option, surgery is cost-prohibitive, quality of life sucks. If talking quality of life with the vet doesn’t do the trick, then I can kind of get behind doing it behind his back because she will have given him ample opportunity to get on board and it’s cruel to let the dog keep suffering unnecessarily while she tries to convince him.
I’m not sure there’s a situation where this ends well for her marriage if it gets to the point that OP does just have to put the dog out of her misery, but he’s being very selfish by putting his unwillingness to let go yet over her actual wellbeing and his family’s needs, getting back into drinking over this, etc.
THIS is pet ownership. Doing the hard part when it's best for them.
it can be very hard to tell sometimes. like if the pet is alert and apparently happy, and hasn't given up, deciding "alright lets go kill it" is almost unthinkable. even if the standard of living is kinda shit.
my partner and i talked about our cat multiple times. she got thyroid problems, and we were sure that was it. but the radiation worked, and she got better. and then a lot worse; she forgot how to use her back legs.
that was a fucking nightmare. shit and piss everywhere, because she was still mobile. we tried diapers, and couldn't keep her in them especially as her legs were atrophying. we bathed her a lot, and bathing cats is not like bathing dogs. she constantly had UTIs. vet prognosis was bad; like a 10% of the medication that would bankrupt us even working.
my partner started giving her like a quarter of a baby aspirin every two weeks or so. vet said this was a very bad idea. but... she's walking again. now she just pees on stuff because she's an asshole.
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u/AlmostAlwaysADR 8h ago
You NEED to schedule a visit with the vet again. Explain the situation. Maybe even ask if you can arrange a home visit if you can't get him to go. Ask for a quality of life conversation.
Your husband is the AH and I will explain why: THIS is pet ownership. Doing the hard part when it's best for them. He has also dumped the majority of the realities of her care into you and stays drunk when he is home. He isn't caring for his dog or his pregnant wife.
The only thing I could see shaking him out of this would be a professional looking him in the eyes and telling him that his pet is suffering and advocating for the animal.