If you are an animal lover, your pet is probably one of your best friends. When that best friend is facing the end, it’s tough to say goodbye.  In this NBC29 Special Report, we look at the difficulty of deciding when it is time to say goodbye and your options afterward.

When animal lovers adopt a pet, they make a commitment to care for them, even when they’re sick and close to death. Most humans will outlive their companions, and the end of life for pets can bring deep grief and raise a load of questions.  When that happens, we humans get very emotional.

When dealing with a pet with a terminal condition, people often have a difficult time deciding whether to euthanize, or when the time is right to end their companion’s suffering.

John Dove has two cats, Krogie and Mocha, and cherishes the friendship he has with them. “I don’t have any children, but if I had children, I don’t think I could love them any more than I love my animals, they’re my kids essentially.”

Dove recently experienced the profound pain of losing an animal when his 12-year-old cat Scamper had a stroke.

“And then all of a sudden, he let out a yelp and I looked around at him and he was hyperventilating very heavily, so it looked like something was really wrong,” he said.

A quick trip to an emergency veterinarian divulged the dilemma a lot of pet owners face. “So at that point I had to make that very painful decision.”

Dr. John Andersen deals with clients who face euthanizing their beloved pet. “We’re in control and there’s a time we just have to make that really hard decision.”

Dr. Andersen is not only a pet owner, he is also a veterinarian in Albemarle County and says he understands the deep human-animal bond. “They’re a best friend, they’re kind of a confidante, they’re an explorer with you, they provide a lot of things.”

Only last year, his dog Kaya died after a prolonged battle with cancer. “When we had our dog, I was not married, just a bachelor. She took me through that and getting married and having kids,” he stated.

After 30 years of practicing in a clinic, Dr. Liz Palmer decided to start a mobile veterinarian service specializing in end of life care for pets.  So when a pet goes from having good and bad days to bad and worse days, she can help with in-home euthanasia.

“When an animal gets very, very old, it can be very stressful to bring them to a clinic. They can get very nervous or confused,” she stated. “I hear an awful lot, that ‘I would prefer my animal to die naturally’…barring a heart attack in their sleep, I think dying naturally is overrated.”

Dr. Andersen says some people have such a tough time letting go, they often put off the inevitable. “If I hear regrets from people, it’s often because people feel like they waited a little bit too long and when they look back, they have this image of their animal suffering.”

After Dove decided to end his cat Scamper’s suffering, he took his buddy’s body to the Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA for cremation.

The SPCA offers private cremation for $130.00 and a variety of decorative tins for people to choose.  “You leave your animal in their care and a day or two later, they call you and tell you the ashes are ready,” Dove said.  Dove has Scamper’s picture and tin displayed at his home in memory of his beloved companion.

Paws and Remember is a company that offers everything from jewelry stamped with paw prints, key chains that carry ashes, to tiny caskets.  The Staunton company also provides cremation, most packages start at about $150.00 and go up from there.

But some pet owners can’t afford any extras.  Paws and Remember general manager Todd Dean says “If they don’t want their pet’s cremains back, then we will place them in one of these gardens here.”

The company has above ground crypts and a place where people can visit and leave flowers or pictures of their pets.

Since the death of Kaya, Dr. Andersen has adopted a new playmate for his other dog Boon. She’s an 8-week-old black lab named Ruby.  Dove did the same for his other little cat Krogie. He adopted a playful 3-year-old named Mocha from the SPCA. The new addition to the family gives Krogie a friend, but can never replace Scamper.

When he thinks back on the loss, Dove says “Love your animal as much and as often as you possibly can because you never know. I mean it almost doesn’t seem fair in a way that they don’t live longer than they do.”

For people who are struggling with the decision of whether to end their pet’s suffering, Dr. Andersen says the meaning of the word euthanize might help:  it means “good death”.

From LiveScience and the AVMA:

Want to trick a dog? It’s all in the body language, a new study finds.

When given a choice between a big serving of food and a small one, dogs almost always go for the bigger option. But when a person makes a fuss over the small amount, particularly by handling it, dogs can be tricked into picking the less-hearty portion.

The study, published Wednesday (April 25) in the journal PLoS ONE, highlights dogs’ ability to follow human social cues, a tendency which has likely served them well over thousands of years of domestication.

Researchers recruited 149 dog owners to bring their ordinary household pets into the psychology laboratory at the University of Milan, Italy. There, study leader Sarah Marshall-Pescini and her colleagues set up a series of experiments in which dogs had a choice between two plates, one with a single piece of food on it and one with six pieces. Other experiments had dogs choosing between equal-size portions.

The researchers mixed and matched these various conditions. For example, in some conditions the person merely looked at the dog and then at one of the plates. In others, the person might walk up to the food, pick up a piece and say, “Oh wow, this is good, this is so good!” while looking at the dog.

When left to their own devices, 73 percent of the dogs made a beeline for the bigger portion of food in the majority of trials. But when people started to get involved, the dogs were more often swayed to make the worse choice, going for the smaller food portion. The most powerful gesture for tricking dogs into making this choice turned out to be a hand-to-mouth action by the person. [What Your Dog’s Breed Says About You]

Dogs in two experimental conditions were significantly more likely to make a dash for the small plate, the researchers reported. In one, the person approached the food, picked up a piece and held it to her mouth for five seconds before putting it down and retreating. In the second, the researcher did the same thing, except she also talked to the dog and looked at it as she held the food. When food was lifted and dropped with utensils from behind a curtain — so dogs couldn’t see that a person was involved — the dogs were no more likely to pick that plate, suggesting that the animals are cueing in to human actions.

Dogs may see the handling of food as an explicit invitation to come chow down, the researchers wrote. Or it may be that seeing a person grasp a piece of food makes dogs want to do the same, much in the same way that babies imitate their parents’ expressions and gestures. Earlier research has suggested that dogs are at least as receptive to human communication as are pre-verbal babies.

The study also highlights that imitation is not always the best strategy for learning, the researchers reported.

“The current study adds to a small but growing literature showing that social learning is not necessarily always the best strategy and provides an experimental paradigm which may potentially be used to explore when an animal will rely on private vs. social information,” they wrote.

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

When brachycephalic breeds have difficulty breathing, cosmetic surgery is therapeutic, and owners should not worry about the change in the dog’s appearance, but instead focus on the improved health aspects of the procedure, writes veterinarian John De Jong. Born with long soft palates and pushed-in nares, brachycephalic breeds often suffer from respiratory problems; surgery to shorten the soft palate and increase the diameter of the nares can improve their quality of life.

This is common with bulldogs and all short-faced breeds including pugs, boxers, Pekingese, Lhasa apsos and Shih Tzus. These brachycephalic (short-faced) dogs have been designed with these pushed-in faces and short muzzles. The two most common congenital defects are collapsed nostrils (stenotic nares) and elongated soft palates in which the roof of the mouth is too long and catches on the epiglottis. The second condition may also cause occasional gagging noises.

Both conditions are surgically repairable. For the nose, a section of cartilage is removed. In the soft palate, a wedge of tissue is removed from the back of the mouth. While one is cosmetically visible, both relieve the dog of difficulty breathing and stop the snoring as well. In veterinary medicine we do perform some procedures that are cosmetic, but in this case your dog may be well-relieved by the ability to breathe more easily.

Don’t worry about the way he looks but rather about how he breathes. If necessary, go ahead with the surgery. You can always seek a second opinion in person as well.

John de Jong, D.V.M., is the owner/operator of Boston Mobile Veterinary Clinic and CEO/director at Boston Animal Hospital.

By Carrie Harrington
Marin Humane Society

As the number of Americans who are overweight has grown, studies show that the same statistics apply to our companion animals. About half of all dogs and cats in American homes are overweight or obese, up slightly from 2010, according to a recent study by the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention.

And although owners may think their pudgy dog or cat is cute, all that extra weight spells trouble the some 85 million U.S. pets who are considered overweight.

And many pet owners are finding that the extra pounds on a pudgy cat or dog can lead to severe secondary health problems. Just as diabetes, joint problems, and heart disease are more common in people who are obese, these diseases also are more common in overweight animals. The average cost of veterinary care for a diabetic dog or cat in 2011 was more than $900, according one pet insurance company. Treatment for arthritis and cruciate ligament tears in dogs, which can be caused by the strain of an overweight frame that weakens joints, cost pet owners an average of $2,000.

Last week, an interesting article the cost of pet obesity was published in the Wellness section of the New York Times. To read the complete article, entitled “Paying the Price of a Fat Pet,” click this link.

From Dr. Mark Peterson’s Animal Endocrine Clinic Blog

Who can resist those big puppy-dog eyes, floppy ears and fluffy tail? In a new study to be released by the ASPCA, “physical appearance” is the top reason given for picking a particular puppy at an animal shelter.

With cats, it’s a different story: “Behavior with people” was what convinced most adopters to choose a particular adult cat.

The research, conducted by the animal-advocacy organization from January through May of 2011, involved five shelters across the country. About 1,500 adopters filled out questionnaires explaining how they knew the cat or dog was “the one.”

By understanding why people choose the pets they do, the ASPCA hopes to increase adoption rates and ensure adopters go home with a perfect match. It’s particularly useful for shelter workers to know that appearance is often a deciding factor. They can then counsel adopters about behavior and other traits that might be overlooked.

“As an animal behaviorist, it was interesting to get inside the human animal’s head,” says Emily Weiss, vice president of shelter research and development with the ASPCA.

The study supported findings from previous research showing that animals that approach the front of the cage when a visitor nears have a much greater chance of being placed in a new home. In the new study, many of the adopters who were asked, “What did this pet do when you first met him/her?” specified a social interaction, such as an approach, a meow, a lick or even jumping on the visitor.

“That interaction is important for the human animal—not just entertainment, but in choosing their next friend,” Dr. Weiss says.

—Beth DeCarbo

Reasons Given for Picking a Pet

Note: Respondents were able to pick multiple reasons.

A version of this article appeared April 18, 2012, on page D3 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: BIG CHOICES | Selecting a Pet.

While ligament tears can cause serious setbacks in an athlete’s career, a similar injury can mean surgery and rehabilitation for your frisky kitty or romping Rover.

According to Dr. Sharon Kerwin, professor at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears or cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) injuries, as they are referred to in animals, occur almost as often as they do in humans.

“Cats and dogs have the same ligaments that we have in our knees,” says Kerwin. “The cruciate ligament stabilizes your femur and your tibia so you don’t get too much motion between those two bones.”

CCL tears in cats often occur the same way ACL tears occur in humans. Often, there is some traumatic injury that occurs as a result of jumping from high places, playing or getting the animal’s leg caught in something.

“It takes a fair bit of force to rupture a cruciate ligament, and it tends to occur more often in overweight cats,” says Kerwin.

However, in dogs, this injury is often the result of a chronic degeneration of the ligament and occurs much more frequently than it does in cats.

“In dogs, we think the injury may be related to weight and body structure, meaning that some large breeds such as Rottweilers, Labradors and Chow Chows, may be predisposed to CCL injuries,” said Kerwin. “In some cases, we think it’s either the shape of their tibia or the shape of their femur that predisposes them to this injury.”

A ruptured ligament is usually characterized by limping or inactivity. In cats, they will not want to play the way they used to, and dogs will often appear lame and sit awkwardly with their leg sticking out, signaling a possible knee problem.

Kerwin says if your pet shows signs of an injured leg, schedule an appointment with your veterinarian who will conduct a lameness exam in order to diagnose the problem.

The injury is often treated in cats with medical management by placing overweight cats on a strict diet with exercise restriction for three to six weeks, followed by a check-up measuring progress. If the injury fails to heal, surgery is often recommended to explore and stabilize the joint.

But when dogs are afflicted with CCL injuries, many times the best option is surgery as quickly as possible.

“Dogs often don’t do well with medical management, the injury will often worsen over time as the arthritis in the knee builds,” explains Kerwin.

Dogs often require 8-12 weeks of recovery including strict rest and rehabilitation

Once your pet has undergone the recommended period of exercise restriction, it is important to encourage it to exercise its leg with slow leash walks or through playtime activities.

“The biggest way to prevent CCL tears is to keep your pet at a proper weight,” Kerwin says.

It is very easy for animals to gain weight, especially if they spend most of their time indoors, because they do not get the same level of exercise. Your veterinarian can advise you on the proper weight for your dog or cat.

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Pet Talk is a service of the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University.

What Your Dog’s Breed Says About You