This is my guinea pig Ripley. Unfortunately she is dying. She has cancer. The last few months have been hard on my wife and I as well as Ripley. She is happy and acts normally about 95% of the time which makes us happy but the other 5% is unpleasant. The cancer metastasized from her ovaries though out her body and has begun to affect her urinary tract and intestines. Every time she has to pee or poo it causes her discomfort. Sometimes it seems very painful. To top it off we have to give her antibiotic shots three times a week to hold off infections brought on by the caner invading her system.
So what do we do? Do we look at it as she’s mostly happy and do the best we can to make her remaining time as enjoyable as possible or do we say that she shouldn’t suffer and that she should be put to sleep?
When is the discomfort too much? Deciding the fate of a poor innocent and unaware animal seems wrong but if we don’t who will? The thought of her dying in agony is unacceptable yet I don’t want to shorten the bright points. I really don’t want to make this decision and yet I don’t know of anyone I would trust to pass this responsibility on to.