Good to see you back, Mark. Been awfully quiet since you been gone.

I had nearly the exact same situation with my German Shepherd Gretchen. She was quite the dog. Held out until she 17 and looked/acted like a pup for 16 of those years. I honestly thought she would outlive me, vets often thought I was lying when I told them her age. And it was as if one night something happened - all of a sudden she was senile and having a rough time getting around (exactly as you describe). On several days I'd gotten together the nerve to load her in the car for the "final" trip to the vet - and she would miraculously recover from her ailments - including the day when I actually made the final trip. I could not stay - it was way too painful for me to watch...

The pup we replaced Gretchen with was a Rottweiller-Boxer mix. Her name was Orion, but I called her "Doahhh". She was not the brightest dog I ever had. Love able as she could be, just not very bright. About 6 years in she developed Lupus. At first it was not bad - she just had a hot patch here and there. She developed some size able cancer rumors we had to have removed. Little by little it just ate away at her. We saw Orion every day, so we did not much notice the significant degradation. It did, though, finally get to the point that her skin was falling off in clumps. We kept bathing her with medicated shampoos, but it just keep getting worse and worse.

Orion never complained about any pain. We saw her with all of her fur missing and opened sore, but because she never complained we just kept treating her the best we could. There was finally a day where she showed she was having trouble getting around. And it came out of the clear blue. Within 2 weeks we realized her time was up.

My daughter (now an adult, but grew up with Orion)was very closely connected to Orion. This was her dog. She came to me a lot the last 2 weeks to talk about what we should do. I think we both knew it was time, but just did not want to let go. She finally asked me to take her and Orion to the vet. I was hoping I could just sit in the waiting room while doc did his thing. But, no - my daughter needed me to be with her with Orion while she went to sleep.

Mark - I'm with you on where you are at. In retrospect - I hated every second of Orion's final moments and hated to watch her slip away - but I am incredibly grateful I was there for it. It was a very spiritual moment.