My cat's time is up...
October 23, 2018 3:04 PM Subscribe
My cat is not terribly old, he's 12-13 years or so. But he has health issues that make our quality of life pretty bad. How do I explain to my children, ten and seven, that keeping him has become unsustainable?
I've been waiting for his health to take a serious turn for the worse the last couple years. He has chronic life-threatening constipation that is being held in check by medication and diet. But the result is extremely vile defecation that is never in the litter box. He has sufficiently weak hind legs that he simply can't tolerate using it for that. In the last year he has gotten into the habit of lying down to drink his water. His stool is so loose he needs to be wiped after he poops. He and the house almost always smell like cat poop - cleaning him doesn't help, the smell is coming from inside of him. We're spending thousands of dollars a year to keep alive a cat that the we and the kids, while conflicted, don't generally like to be around that much, because of his cleanliness issues. He still is extremely affectionate and it's heartbreaking, but I can't imagine him getting adopted by anyone, even someone who takes care of high needs animals. And imagining him in a shelter wondering where we are is even worse.
How do I explain to the kids that even though he doesn't seem to be "worse" we have simply gotten to the point where we can't take care of him and also have a home that is clean and safe? I am generally against lying to the kids, but this seems like a situation where claiming he has an urgent and unaddressable need may be the best way. I don't want it to be about the money we spend (though that is part of it) and I definitely don't want them to think if they were more appreciative of him we wouldn't have come to the conclusion that we need to put him down.
I've been waiting for his health to take a serious turn for the worse the last couple years. He has chronic life-threatening constipation that is being held in check by medication and diet. But the result is extremely vile defecation that is never in the litter box. He has sufficiently weak hind legs that he simply can't tolerate using it for that. In the last year he has gotten into the habit of lying down to drink his water. His stool is so loose he needs to be wiped after he poops. He and the house almost always smell like cat poop - cleaning him doesn't help, the smell is coming from inside of him. We're spending thousands of dollars a year to keep alive a cat that the we and the kids, while conflicted, don't generally like to be around that much, because of his cleanliness issues. He still is extremely affectionate and it's heartbreaking, but I can't imagine him getting adopted by anyone, even someone who takes care of high needs animals. And imagining him in a shelter wondering where we are is even worse.
How do I explain to the kids that even though he doesn't seem to be "worse" we have simply gotten to the point where we can't take care of him and also have a home that is clean and safe? I am generally against lying to the kids, but this seems like a situation where claiming he has an urgent and unaddressable need may be the best way. I don't want it to be about the money we spend (though that is part of it) and I definitely don't want them to think if they were more appreciative of him we wouldn't have come to the conclusion that we need to put him down.
Issue 1 -is it okay to put the cat down? Yes. It doesn't sound like she is enjoying life. I know that it feels selfish to focus on her making your life harder and costing money, but think about the cat. If you're spending thousands, this isn't maintaining her life with thyroid pills. It sounds far more serious. And the cat isn't going to get better. And she doesn't have the intellectual capacity to know that tomorrow might be better than today. I give you internet permission to put her down.
Issue 2 - kids. We had to put our cat down when my son was 8 or so. He absolutely had no trouble understanding that the cat was not having a good life because of her health. We had conversations about this often through the process. Honestly, my child wasn't really sad at all about it. I was way more worked up. But death is part of life and learning this through pets is a good thing.
Hugs.
posted by k8t at 3:17 PM on October 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
Issue 2 - kids. We had to put our cat down when my son was 8 or so. He absolutely had no trouble understanding that the cat was not having a good life because of her health. We had conversations about this often through the process. Honestly, my child wasn't really sad at all about it. I was way more worked up. But death is part of life and learning this through pets is a good thing.
Hugs.
posted by k8t at 3:17 PM on October 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
You have the responsibility to be kind to your animals. Explain to the kids that keeping Kitty alive while he is suffering is not kind. He deserves dignity.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 3:33 PM on October 23, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by Midnight Skulker at 3:33 PM on October 23, 2018 [7 favorites]
At that age, I think I still wouldn't have wanted a justification for your decision so much as your help grappling with the feelings it brought up. What you need to "explain" to your kids might not be "Here's a detailed rationale for why we're doing it" but rather "Hey, this is happening now, and you might have a bunch of messy feelings about it, and we do too, and that's okay."
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:34 PM on October 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:34 PM on October 23, 2018 [6 favorites]
The angle is that now is the time to make the difficult but humane choice that is part of owning a pet, which is recognizing when their quality of life has ended. You don’t have to bring in the money aspect or the cleanliness as if those are shameful reasons to do this because they aren’t. Cats are clean by instinct so the fact that he can’t keep himself clean anymore or go in the litter box is probably agonizing. Everyone who owns a pet has to learn how to recognize when the time has come.
posted by bleep at 3:34 PM on October 23, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by bleep at 3:34 PM on October 23, 2018 [11 favorites]
I'd tell them that you're doing it for his sake, because his quality of life has deteriorated. It sounds like you may be hesitant to tell them that because you don't consider that to be 100% true (for example, if he had a different condition that didn't negatively affect you, you might not). But here's your permission to (a) better perceive his poor quality of life, and (b) shade the truth a bit for the sake of your kids, if you see it that way.
posted by metasarah at 3:38 PM on October 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by metasarah at 3:38 PM on October 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
How do I explain to the kids that even though he doesn't seem to be "worse" we have simply gotten to the point where we can't take care of him and also have a home that is clean and safe?
I think a reasonable tactic here might be: He's a cat. Cats are naturally very clean. He wants to be clean, and making these messes is very unhappy for him. Not that I think your home being clean and safe isn't also a good thing, but I think it'll make more sense to frame it in terms of, "He didn't get worse, but we didn't know before that he was not going to get better. Now, sadly, we have done everything we could, and we know this is not temporary." The current state of his life is something that was okay to put him through temporarily, but not for years. I'm in favor of honesty here just because if you're all animal lovers, they're going to have to keep seeing decisions like this made, and they'll eventually have to make calls like this themselves.
posted by Sequence at 3:52 PM on October 23, 2018 [19 favorites]
I think a reasonable tactic here might be: He's a cat. Cats are naturally very clean. He wants to be clean, and making these messes is very unhappy for him. Not that I think your home being clean and safe isn't also a good thing, but I think it'll make more sense to frame it in terms of, "He didn't get worse, but we didn't know before that he was not going to get better. Now, sadly, we have done everything we could, and we know this is not temporary." The current state of his life is something that was okay to put him through temporarily, but not for years. I'm in favor of honesty here just because if you're all animal lovers, they're going to have to keep seeing decisions like this made, and they'll eventually have to make calls like this themselves.
posted by Sequence at 3:52 PM on October 23, 2018 [19 favorites]
I agree with the previous comments, and you have to take care of yourself and your family. I won't condemn you for making this decision.
However, in order to make sure you have no regrets, and that you're sure you're doing the right thing, and that your kids see and remember that you did what you could, and that you can explain this well and answer their questions well and talk about it without shame when they're older:
I know you've probably already been through all these ideas, but juuuust to check: have you tried titrating down the medication? Getting a second vet's opinion? Using some kind of ramp system to make it easier for the cat to get into and out of the litter box? Changing foods to ones that generally make less smelly poops? Getting creative solutions from others?
OK, sorry, I couldn't not bring this stuff up just in case you are in a similar situation to my family growing up: they just didn't know this kind of stuff was an option. Best wishes to you.
posted by amtho at 4:41 PM on October 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
However, in order to make sure you have no regrets, and that you're sure you're doing the right thing, and that your kids see and remember that you did what you could, and that you can explain this well and answer their questions well and talk about it without shame when they're older:
I know you've probably already been through all these ideas, but juuuust to check: have you tried titrating down the medication? Getting a second vet's opinion? Using some kind of ramp system to make it easier for the cat to get into and out of the litter box? Changing foods to ones that generally make less smelly poops? Getting creative solutions from others?
OK, sorry, I couldn't not bring this stuff up just in case you are in a similar situation to my family growing up: they just didn't know this kind of stuff was an option. Best wishes to you.
posted by amtho at 4:41 PM on October 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
The poop is bad enough for an animal that has a strong drive to groom and be clean. But, lying down to drink water? That sounds like the cat is in distress. Animals are not great reporters of distress and can be in significant amounts of discomfort and pain without making dramatic indications. The fact that he's affectionate is also him finding comfort in his contact with you, but I don't think that you can take it as an indicator that he's happy and feeling good.
Your kids are old enough to understand compassion and that you all have tried everything that the vet has recommended, but that the loving thing to do now is let your cat go so that his suffering is minimized.
posted by quince at 4:59 PM on October 23, 2018 [9 favorites]
Your kids are old enough to understand compassion and that you all have tried everything that the vet has recommended, but that the loving thing to do now is let your cat go so that his suffering is minimized.
posted by quince at 4:59 PM on October 23, 2018 [9 favorites]
My cat is not terribly old, he's 12-13 years or so
For a cat that’s the equivalent of being almost 70. He’s old, and very sick in a way that is surely making him unhappy every day, he doesn’t understand what’s happening to him, and he isn’t ever going to get better. I think you can explain that to your kids and have them understand that you’re doing him a kindness.
posted by Secret Sparrow at 5:58 PM on October 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
For a cat that’s the equivalent of being almost 70. He’s old, and very sick in a way that is surely making him unhappy every day, he doesn’t understand what’s happening to him, and he isn’t ever going to get better. I think you can explain that to your kids and have them understand that you’re doing him a kindness.
posted by Secret Sparrow at 5:58 PM on October 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
"I've been talking to the vet, and the vet says Kitty isn't really living a good life anymore, and maybe we even waited too long because sometimes we hope that it will get better when it probably won't. So we're going to have one last week/weekend/day with Kitty to say goodbye and then let her go."
posted by Lyn Never at 8:02 PM on October 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Lyn Never at 8:02 PM on October 23, 2018 [4 favorites]
Working out when it's time to put down an old pet who is deteriorating slowly enough that you don't really see much change from day to day is really, really hard. We just recently went through it with our old dog, and it was heartbreaking.
I asked our vet point blank what she would do if this were her own dog, and when she said she'd be putting her down within weeks, not months, that helped put things back in perspective. But the single piece of advice she gave that finally made it possible for me to stop dithering and actually fix a date was that it's better to go a week too early than a day too late.
Teach your kids that principle and I think you've done their future pets a service.
Condolences on your ongoing loss.
posted by flabdablet at 9:59 PM on October 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
I asked our vet point blank what she would do if this were her own dog, and when she said she'd be putting her down within weeks, not months, that helped put things back in perspective. But the single piece of advice she gave that finally made it possible for me to stop dithering and actually fix a date was that it's better to go a week too early than a day too late.
Teach your kids that principle and I think you've done their future pets a service.
Condolences on your ongoing loss.
posted by flabdablet at 9:59 PM on October 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
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13 years old is old for a cat.
What does the Vet say about the condition of the cat?
I have been through that 4 times with 2 cats and 2 dogs. And it is very difficult. I got through it by knowing the pet would no longer suffer from its malady. And just is the nature of things. I feel your anxiety over it. Good luck.
posted by JayRwv at 3:10 PM on October 23, 2018 [1 favorite]