Did I do the right thing?

Miss_Mario

I apologise if this comes across as daft but I'm being racked with guilt about it

Very late Saturday night we noticed our hamster Luna had a very wet back end, from experience we knew it was wettail and that treating it would be stressful for her and us and unlikely to make her better.

By nature she's a jumpy, unsocialable hamster and even though the vet said there's no definitive way to tell; I'm pretty sure she's inbred (strange shaped nose, strange shaped body, some kind of breathing issue). We think she's about 16 months, but could be 18 months.

Keeping all this in mind my other half and I decided that if she was going to pass on we wanted her to be comfortable and stress-free so we fed her some porridge, gave her more fluffy bedding and left her to sleep.
She slept all day Sunday, waking up once for a drink. She could barely open her eyes, her back end was even worse and she wasn't walking properly (losing balance). We fed her some more porridge because she couldn't seem to manage anything solid.

Monday comes and she's still hanging on but still very poorly so we took her to the vet first thing.
He said she was a very poorly hammy, very dehydrated (he said if she were a dog or cat they'd put her on a drip) and definately severe wet tail. He said we could try antibiotics or we could have her put to sleep.
We decided to have her put to sleep, knowing from previous experience that trying to medicate a hamster is very stressful for them and unlikely to work.

But the thing that's killing me is that she was still wandering around, sniffing everything while the vet examined her and as he took her away she had both her eyes open and seemed very alert. Literally a minute before the vet called us in she was eating some porridge that we'd left in her cage. But, she looked sad and poorly.

So did I do the right thing? Should I have stressed her out and tried to medicate her? Should I have gone to the vet on Sunday? Should I have just left her at home to go peacefully?

bugslet

It's a judgement call and we all have to make it at some point with out pets.

I had a dog with haemangio sarcoma ( multiple tumours ) and having an operation on the multiple sites would have left him very ill and probably not done more than extend his life by a few months, so we opted to keep him comfy, which he was. The way that he was expected to die was by internal bleeding, not very nice. One evening about 6 weeks after diagnosis, the tumour on his shoulder leaked for a while and then the following morning, when he had a poo, it was black, in other words there was blood mixed in there. In himself he looked OK, not the best, but OK. I chose to take him to the vet and PTS because my judgement call was that he was probably going to suffer if he lived much longer.

I may have been wrong, I may have been right. I can never know. What I'm sure of, is that if you do something for the right reason, then you need to not stress. If Luna was going to be more stressed and poorly because of the treatment, then maybe it was for the best. You acted out of care and concern, try not to let it worry you any further.

Fosterdog

There's no right or wrong answer to that, you knew your hamster best so know that you did what was right for her.

I've had to make the same call several times with my rats. As a general rule if they were under 18 months I would always opt for treatment, if they were over 2 1/2 years I would almost always go for PTS and for the year in between it would depend on the individual rat.

They have short lives anyway and unless I knew it would be a short recovery time and a high chance of not just survival but having a good quality of life afterwards I don't see the point in making them hold on for longer in pain just for my benefit.

The same with my dogs, they are both 6-7 years old now, if he got ill I would almost certainly opt for treatment (obviously depending on what was wrong), he has arthritis and is sometimes in pain and has low mobility but it is being managed well with medication and he could have a good life for another 6 years.

My girl has CDRM which is advancing by the day, we've recently got her a doggy wheelchair to give her enough support to be able to walk and which will allow us to eventually strap her back legs up as she gets worse. She is unlikely to still be with us in two years time and may not make it that far if her decline continues at the rate it is now. If she developed another illness now (again not including say a minor infection that just needs a week of ABs) if it was something that would lower her quality of life even more then we would let her go. I hate to think about it but it's something we've already discussed around how far we'll let the CDRM develop before we make the decision, we don't want to keep her alive but suffering just for us.

bertiewhite

I had a similar experience with a horse that had severe perferation of the stomach lining due to worms. He was only a year and a half old and the vet said despite us worming him the infestation was probably due to him not being wormed at all before we had him.

Anyway we had him full of drugs for a month or so and whilst he was listless and full of diaorhia for along time a couple of days before he died he seemed to perk up. I told myself he'd recovered but it must have been either the drugs or a final "euphoria" as he just gave up. I still to this day wonder if I kept him alive for my own selfish reasons.

Maybe your hamster had a final bid for life but for what it's worth I think you made the right decision.