Should I Put My Dog Down?

My dog’s name is Izzi, pronounced “Ithee” for those with no teeth. We got her as a sweet, energetic, loving wiener dog puppy when I was in first grade. She was your classic childhood dog, playing with the children constantly, accompanying us on every adventure, always wanting to be around people. However, 19 years later that description of Izzi no longer applies. At 133 years of age, Izzi has changed drastically, almost into something unrecognizable. Izzi now sleeps 23 hours a day, having approximately one hour of consciousness where she fits in her meals and bathroom breaks. Once a valiant speed racer, she now walks sub-one mile per hour. She doesn't like to be bothered and wants as little disturbances or interactions as possible. So how does this…

Turn into this?

Well, to tell you the truth, we don't know. It happened right before our eyes. We just started getting comments like “why does your dog look like that?”, “why does your dog smell like that?”, and “ew." So, let me take you through the timeline of Izzi's evolution.

April 2020, age 17

Izzi contracted fleas. My mother does not believe in veterinary medicine and tries more homeopathic measures. She devises a contraption, a doggy diaper of sorts, to prevent Izzi from itching and ripping the fur off her butt. The device is ultimately unsuccessful. However, Izzi miraculously recovers from the fleas.

June 2020, age 17

Izzi contracts fleas again. We employ more modern methods, a neck pillow/floatation device to prevent her from itching. My mom also lathers her body in coconut oil to suffocate the fleas. However, this is Summertime in North Carolina. So, as I take Izzi for her walks, the oil begins to melt off her coat. At this time local child, Quan (age 5), asks if he can pet my dog. I oblige to Quan's request. He swipes his hand down Izzi's long back. Quan's palm is now covered in Coconut oil. As he holds his hand in the air with disgust, he has the audacity to ask, "why's your dog so greasy?" This hurts Izzi's pride and was a shot to her confidence.

May 2021, age 18

At the age of 126, she seems to be doing very well. Shown below she is still extremely active as she enjoys a dip in the Neuse River. She exhibits virtually no signs of aging.

July 2021, age 18

All of a sudden, she begins to look like this. We don't know why or how she looks like that. Out of nowhere her appearance begins to take a sharp and sudden decline.

September 2021, age 18

She begins to put on massive amounts of weight. Her diet consists of bacon grease and leftover stew. We think she begins to develop diabetes, because she pees constantly and without warning. Many have fallen victim to stepping in the puddles she would leave behind on the kitchen floor. We begin to have to take her out every 1-2 hours. And even then, she pees and poos on the floor 2-5 times a day.

November 2021, Age 18

Nobody is around to take care of Izzi on Thanksgiving, so I have to bring her with me to my boyfriend's house. I didn't know if she would survive the hour car ride. She was exhibiting many signs of passing away. Izzi was almost met with a gruesome death on Thanksgiving Day when a large full-sized Pitbull was frightened by Izzi's body and face. Within seconds of being around her, he took her entire head in his mouth. As the force of his bite began to squish Izzi's head in, she shat upon the outside concrete slab. My boyfriend was able to eventually pry Izzi's head out of the Pitbull's jaw and hosed down the poopy smear. Shockingly, Izzi came out of that attack with not a scratch on her.

March 2022, age 18

Again, nobody can watch Izzi due to her excessive needs of toileting, negative vibes, and unsightly appearance. Thus, we are forced to bring her to my sister's wedding in Georgia. At the wedding, the photographer was so captivated by her old charm and unmatched will to live that he ended up taking more photos of her than of the actual wedding. Everyone was amazed at how majestic she looked in the photos. Izzi actually almost met her death again when we were leaving the wedding. She was in the trunk of the car, and we drove off with the trunk wide open. We all kept on wondering what the car was alarming for, and we made it quite a few miles at a decent speed before we realized Izzi was in grave danger. Amazingly, Izzi survived once more.

May 2022, age 18

Izzi begins to lose several of her teeth, only a few remain at this point. She can no longer chew properly, and her snout frequently swells up with intermittent mouth infections. It was at this time that other dogs began to shun her. Even big dogs, dogs five-six times the size of Izzi, were frightened by her. They didn't know what she was, species-wise, but they knew if they attacked her that they would most likely die from infection. At this time, Izzi's body began to parallel rotten meat. Similar to a Komodo dragon, one drop of her saliva would be enough to poison an entire school of fish.

August 2022, age 18

Izzi now moves so slowly, and she barely gets out of her bed. One night she stealthily snuck up on me. I didn't know her head was poked into the refrigerator. Upon closing the fridge door, Izzi's head was still inside the door frame. I accidentally slammed her head in. She was a bit shaken, but ultimately recovered. Unfortunately, she came out of the accident looking like this:

October 2022, age 19

Izzi turns 133 years old. She also only now has one tooth remaining, and it forms a warthog-like tusk. At this point her insides begin to completely fester and her breath is absolutely putrid. Every time she opens her mouth to yawn or tries to get some remaining food out of her gums, bystanders moan in disgust and protest in horror. We take her to the vet to see if we could just get the last tooth pulled. The vet said Izzi is far too old for anesthesia, she would never survive it. However, the vet says there is absolutely nothing wrong with her physically and gives Izzi a clean bill of health.

November 2022, age 19

Izzi comes close to death once more. My mom feeds her a bread cube, which Izzi's one tooth cannot handle. Witness accounts say Izzi began to choke and foam at the mouth, but she was eventually able to swallow the bread chunk whole without too much residual damage. The same month she coughs up an unidentifiable object. Some thought it was a chunk of her lung or her liver, but whatever it was it could not have been good...

December 2022, age 19

Izzi's life becomes quite controversial. People make comments like it is not just or humane to keep her alive. But, with no physical evidence of her deterioration we are having a hard time deciding what to do. When people say her quality of life is beyond poor or she has a negative zest for life, it simply isn't true. She still enjoys frolicking through the grass on her bathroom outages, and she quite literally skips with vigor for her breakfast every day. Nonetheless, comments like the one below still make us wonder... are we doing the right thing?

February 2023, present day, Age 19

For the longest time, we couldn't figure out why Izzi stunk to the literal highest of heavens. We finally found out. This may be the final straw. What do you think?

So, there it is folks. That's how Ithee came to be the way she is. I will say this, although she barely interacts with us, she creates exponentially more work for us peeing and pooping in the house on average of four times a day, and her smell makes you wish you were never born, she is still loved. She was an amazing dog back in the day. Despite her being a shell of her former self, the loving memories of her live on. We still love her and care for her, and it is hard to justify putting her down when she does not have any diagnosed ailments. So, what would you do?