Deep sympathies with you Antiq as I had to have one of my dogs euthanased yesterday as well. Didn't post that yesterday as I had a very busy and potentially stressful day ahead of me with a Patient Group meeting at our local surgery (I'm the Chair so couldn't get out of it) and after I'd left Xena at the vets (at that stage for an X-ray and stabilising meds) I managed to lock myself out of the car with the keys in the ignition.
Poor little dog has had a really bad cough for a number of week and every time we thought we'd nailed it and she rallied it came back worse than ever. Tuesday night I had her in the bedroom with me and she was coughing over 50% of the time and then falling asleep with exhaustion and so instead of waiting until the afternoon to take her to the vets for yet another antibiotic shot I took her in first thing and we basically decided that we needed to get her X-rayed and then review the meds if there was anything to be done. As she was a rescue dog we didn't know for certain but she was at least 8 and probably older than that as she wasn't very active and very small for her breed. Anyway after I'd got back into the car and gone home we got the results of the X-ray and basically one lung had completed packed up and wasn't functioning and her trachea was very swollen so the vet put her in an oxygen tent and dosed her with broncho-dilators.
Vet thought it was probably cancer at the root of it but any investigative procedures she could do would have finished Xena just with the anaesthetic so it was a relative no-brainer as to what to do next, though really sad of course. We decided to see how she responded to the tent and meds and then make a final decision if she did rally, but after having a sleep for half an hour she was coughing again so we gave the go ahead so she wasn't in distress any longer. So a blessed release in essence as it was distressing all around for her and us (and Toby our other dog).
Feeling reasonably OK as a result, but I was really knackered after a disturbed night where I got very little sleep as well and hyped up over the anticipated row I was convinced I was going to have at the patient group. As it happens the meeting went really well and I got a much-needed vote of confidence from the committee and the discussion on the presentation I was doing (on the new clinical commissioning group in Cornwall) was mainly very positive and people were generally constructive about it all. So probably feeling a lot stronger than I expected to be today. Went out onto the moor for a very 'invigorating' ball chasing run with Toby this morning (talk about Wuthering Heights!
), so life goes on etc and Xena is finally at peace after a wonderful loving 6 months with us in a happy comfortable home after the terrible life she'd had before.
We're feeling OK about it really because she really was suffering and we'd exhausted all the other options and if she'd responded better to the broncho-dilators we'd only have kept her going for days or weeks and really we just couldn't see her go through any more drawn out lingering with little quality of life. She always came back from the vets really perky and affectionate and when I took her in yesterday she actually wagged her tail as we went into the surgery, so I think she knew we were trying to make her feel better so really it was for the best all round. Sort of like Terry's glass of brandy in the garden or the library with some great music playing you out. 
