Rodney

This is what a good vet will tell you. As somebody else said, take the pet to the vet and see what the vet says. If there are some easy, non-invasive things to be done that can make the pet's life easier, the vet will know. But the key is, does the pet have any _quality living_ left? Or will you keep it alive at an increasing cost to its happiness and mental well-being.

We learned the hard way. My wife's cat came down with cancer. My wife didn't want to give up on the cat, and the vet -- not a great vet -- said, well, this is the protocol to follow to keep the cat alive. And it did keep the cat alive, but after a few weeks of pills and special food the cat was back to the low quality of life it had been at, as the cancer progressed. In the end, we were force-feeding it. Finally, in its pain, it went off to hide and die on its own. Its last two months were nothing but sickness and debilitation.

Flash forward. Another cat, my cat, came down with a kidney problem at the age of 14. The vet, a different vet, said, you can keep this cat alive if you give it 100 cc of XYZ solution in its neck, with a needle and IV bag, every two days. And we did that for three years. Frankly, both we and the cat came to dread those sessions; but they were only five minutes long, every two days. And he got a nice reward every time, which he looked forward to. Except for those five minutes, his quality of life was fine.

He entered a slow, comfortable decline which lasted three years. At the end, he was sleeping most of the time. Then he stopped eating. I took him to the vet, a different vet, who said, "Cancer," again. But this vet said, "This is the end of his quality life. Anything we do to prolong his life _will not make it quality life._" And after the last time, I was ready to listen. The cat and I had some time together, and then the vet put him down later in the day. I was there, of course, as any pet owner should be. Though it's hard.