Life and Death

When Is It the Right Thing to Euthanize Your Pet

   Today's a sad day. When I went to clean out Scarlet's mouth this morning, I realized she has to be suffering. Scarlet is our snow corn snake, for those of you who may not have read my last post. She's had a respiratory infection this spring and more recently mouth rot, and though those two things have seemed to have gotten better with the care of a vet, special treatment, and medicine, she still seems like she's getting worse. 

   Her condition got me to thinking about what my husband's been trying to tell me he thinks we need to do. Until this morning, I couldn't even think about euthanizing our pet. I admit, I am one for the lame duckling - I am one who holds out hope until I see that there's no hope left - but at what point is it the right thing to do? 

   I know people euthanize their pets all the time. I know animals at the pound get "put to sleep" when they become too burdensome or whatever. But what determines when to let go and end a pet's suffering, especially when you can't be 100% positive that they are suffering? Is it when the pet has cost too much money, more than they are worth? Is it when the owner thinks they cannot be saved even with vets and special treatments and medicine? Is it when their medical care is too expensive for the owner? Is it when they are thought to already be on the brink of death? What conditions have to be met for it to be the right thing to do? Does it only depend on the person who's caring for the animal?

   Scarlet may be a snake, but she's our pet. I don't know how my husband feels about our pets, but I feel like I'm a kind of mother to them. I love them. I love Scarlet. But she's lost color in her eyes and tongue, which have both become duller or more whitish. She's lost her healthy shape and has a few concerning lumps on the second half of her - though I've considered these lumps may be unfertilized eggs that she can't let go of and I've tried techniques that would help her pass them, these lumps are darker in color than I think eggs would be. She's become pretty lethargic and feels light and limp when I pick her up to care for her. The last time we fed her, she threw up everything and hasn't eaten since. 

   She has cost us more in medical bills than we could get two new snakes for, but I don't want to trade her for two new snakes. I want her to get better and be healthy again, though I know her chances are becoming slimmer by the day. I want to take her back to the vet, but there were so many unanswered questions the last time I took her, that I think maybe the underlying cause of her recent illnesses is a mystery even to our vet. I don't think the vet can help her any more than she already has. 

   So, I'm asking you, you who are reading this: at what point should I let go and admit that it's her time? When is "putting a pet to sleep" the right thing to do?

Exotic Pet Care

Scarlet, a Sick Snake Sneezing
Say that five times fast - I sure got tongue-tied trying to tell the vet that.

Autumn

Turbo

   My husband and I have multiple exotic pets. We have Autumn, who's a red-foot tortoise (pictured left); she's about four years old and has had colds and hookworms. We are currently watching a female red-eared slider named Turbo (pictured right); her shell's about three inches in diameter and we are only pet-sitting her until her owners acquire a more sizable aquarium to house her. We have Uro, an adult male Saharan uromastyx or spiny-tailed lizard. We have an adult Pueblan milk snake named Hannibal. And we have the corn snakes: Diamond who's a corn/rat snake hybrid (the orange one), Sagan who's an anerythristic corn (the gray one), and Scarlet who's a snow corn.

Uro

Hannibal

   Hannibal, who we're pretty sure is male, has never been sick while we've had him and he's never refused food, though he's quite a scaredy snake and likes to thrash around when being held. Diamond and Sagan, both of whom I am quite sure are also male, have never been sick as long as we've had them, though they both went on food strike for a few months a while back (whether because they were too close to Scarlet or because they didn't like the mice, we're not sure, but they're better now). 

   Scarlet, on the other hand, has been sick lately. First, it was sneezing. We read about it, turned up the heat on her, and when she didn't get better on her own, we took her to our exotic pet vet. We determined she needed a bigger water bowl that she couldn't spill like she did the one she had. The vet set us up with a few medicine/vitamin mixture injections, we got her a better water bowl, separated her from the other snakes, and after a week or two it seemed she was doing better for the most part. And the other snakes haven't gotten sick.