TL;DR The dog dies

>>16608254

Stop investing emotions into your subservient quadruped

I think you should do it sooner rather than later.

Sounds like he's on his way out, might as well do it before he's in more pain & while you can hold his paw during the procedure. He won't care if he dies sooner, he'll be off doing dog things (or not existing, whatever). But if you leave him alive too long you'll live with the guilt of making him suffer so that YOU could have just a little more time with the qtpi because you don't want to lose him.

Ask the vet's opinion, then decide. I am sorry for both you and the dog OP, I know I would not be able to handle the pain.

If he's still eating, moving around, having happy moments, don't put him to sleep. I don't understand why people are so obsessed with playing God with their pets. Unless he is just constantly miserable and wracked with pain, you should just let him die naturally. It's not meant to be up to you when it happens. If your dog could speak for himself, I'm pretty sure he'd decline the lethal injection. In most cases, humans and animals alike will pretty much hold onto life as long as they possibly can.

This is proving to be a very hard post to write. I had to put my own buddy down recently. It was a similar situation -- also cancer, and I was also under pretty severe time pressure. I got the diagnosis and knew he'd have to be put down and I was scheduled to leave the country in a few weeks. In the end it didn't come to that; it was very, very clear when it was time for him to go, something I'll be thankful for forever, but I still wrestled with that decision for weeks.

Here's my question to you. Working dogs of his type often form very close bonds with their owners. How tightly bonded to you is that dog? I had family to take care of mine, but he always made it very clear that he was a one-person dog; he acted very differently when I wasn't around. Is your dog like that, or does he also love your family a lot? (Your first instinct might be to say "I'm his favorite" but that's not really what I'm asking; of course you are, I'm just asking if he's more of a happy-go-lucky type who loves lots of people or if he's more reserved.) I decided in the end that it would be cruel to leave my dog to slowly suffer and get weaker and weaker without the one person he trusted to help him through the process, and that if I had to leave, I'd have to put him down first. Your situation might be similar, or not.

As I'm sure you realize, you have to put your dog first. This isn't about you or your feelings. You shouldn't end his life just because you'll regret not being there when it has to be done. You should if you believe that he's actively suffering now (or will suffer from your departure) and that his suffering outweighs whatever enjoyment he's still getting out of life.

I have to be pretty close to the length limit so I'm going to finish up in another post. I have a little bit more to write.

>>16608254
>It almost looks like he's beating back the disease
no, he's not

anon, your dog is dying. late stage liver failure is something that a dog really cannot come back from. your dog may superficially seem fine at this moment, but in all likelihood (I couldn't say for sure since I haven't been involved in his medical care) he is still declining. it is not going to get better. if anything, it might be more of a reason to do it now. if you know the dog is going to die very very soon, do it before he ends up in even more terrible pain and confusion

>>16608318
>Unless he is just constantly miserable and wracked with pain, you should just let him die naturally
in all likelihood, the dog still is in pain. animals are extremely good at hiding their pain as a basic survival skill. and for a dog with this type of disease, "dying natural" would be extremely unpleasant. just because the dog isn't yelping or limping doesn't mean they aren't in pain or have a majorly declining quality of life

and if what op said about the dog's symptoms is true, his dog is living on borrowed time and the improvement he's seeing could easily be played up in his mind. I see it happen with owners all the time. no one wants their pet to die, and everyone wants to believe they can still get better

>If your dog could speak for himself, I'm pretty sure he'd decline the lethal injection
this is meaningless anthropomorphized bullshit, considering dogs cannot understand the concepts of euthanasia or even dying. major organ failure isn't something you should just wait and see. it's the sign of a dog that is about to die the extremely unpleasant "natural" way or by euthanasia. they are so domesticated that concept of dying "naturally" doesn't even matter

>humans and animals alike will pretty much hold onto life as long as they possibly can
for animals, it's that they literally do not understand what dying is. as for humans, many terminally ill ones would disagree with your statement

I don't have much more practical advice to help you with the decision. Unfortunately it has to be yours and yours alone and I don't envy you it. I'm very sorry this happened to your puppy. But maybe this will clear your head and help you come to terms just a little bit with the inevitable (whenever it does come.)

One, please understand that very few animals, and virtually no dogs, reach old age in the wild. Despite his domestication, he's still running mostly on instinct, and none of his instincts are geared at helping him deal with old age (or cancer.) He'd be dead by this point if not for human care. Humans have the advantage that as we age and grow weaker, we at least know what's happening to us on an intellectual level, even if our instincts are screaming at us. Dogs don't have that. When we take on pets and allow them to stay so much longer than they normally would, we become obligated to ensure them an eventual humane death.

Two, similarly, please remember that dogs don't fear death. They don't even know what death is. They absolutely do know what pain is, and loneliness, and they do fear both of them. I won't elaborate on this; you know where I'm going with it (Though on a lighter note that I still very much mean, I will say that if he's a German Shepherd mix, the little fucker probably wouldn't fear death even if he knew what it was. They're some of the bravest creatures I've met.)

I want to be clear that I'm not trying to push you one way or the other, just writing things that I had to remind myself when I had to make a similar decision. I hope this post was relatively coherent (I'm fairly choked up) and helped at least a little. I wish you and your buddy only the best for however long remains. Good luck.