Hard decision to euthanize our dog due to age/medical and severe anxiety.

I'm posting this here in case anyone else is in the same situation so they can get insight from my experience. Also, looking to hear from anyone who went through this same thing so I can get some relief from my grief. I'm sure there will be a majority of the posts calling me a monster or something to that effect.

We made the difficult decision to have Rover euthanized due to moderate age issues and extreme separation anxiety.

Trying to be as brief as possible with a story that spans 10 years. In short this is a very sweet dog who loved humans, disliked other dogs and needed to be with a human 24/7 or she would destroy and escape from wherever she was at.

We dropped Rover off on Friday morning at a Pet Resort for a two night stay with a pickup on Sunday between 3-5pm. We put her in there so we could enjoy 48 hours of escape during our vacation to visit out grandchildren. Rover is 13.5 years old and has severe separation anxiety. Her anxiety has increased over the past five years to the point that my wife and I have been tag teaming with each other so someone is always with her. We have had success with this particular Pet Resort however we have only been leaving her there for day care and/or one night on the weekend. This was our first attempt at two nights in a row. During the day with humans around she is fine. At night they put the dogs in rooms in groups of two so they have a "buddy" and don't feel alone. Rover is only interested in human company.

We got a call from the Pet Resort early Sunday morning. They told us that Saturday night she tore through two wooden doors (those cheap ones what are a frame with 1/4 inch panel on each side), opened several other doors, opened a sliding glass door that no other dog has ever opened and got herself caught up in a chain link fence. They found her inside Sunday morning with blood everywhere. The fence tore a 1" hole in her hind leg that was pretty deep. They were going to take her to an emergency vet (only place open on a Sunday) and asked us to meet them there. When we got there Rover was laying on the floor on a blanket and would not get up. In addition to the leg wound she also had a huge hot spot on the side of her face where she had apparently been scratching non stop for hours. She looked like a prisoner of war. She looked like she had just given up and just wanted to sleep/rest/etc. The Resort owner felt really bad for the damage Rover had done to herself. We comforted her and told her it was not her fault. Rover loves it there... she just freaks out when humans leave and will kill herself trying to get back to a human.

My wife and I have been watching Rover over the past several years as she entered the "old dog" phase. She is covered in fatty lumps (no issue), she sleeps ALL THE TIME, she has minor incontinance. She is on meds for arthritis and should probably be on pain pills and anxiety meds too. We tried anxiety meds a few months back and it was horrible. I know there are other meds out there we should try, but we don't believe in giving a dog multiple drugs a day just so they can not enjoy life but at least be breathing. What kind of life is it if you are loopy from drugs and you just lay around and sleep all day? We have had three dogs before Rover and we have had to put down dogs for old age in the past. Our normal situation is to wait TOO LONG because we can't make the decision at the right time. We've prolonged a dogs suffering before and told ourselves we would not do it again.

So - our options this past Sunday were to either to make the hard decision to euthanize her OR we could get her x-rayed, put under for minor surgery/stitches on her leg, then pain killers and other medications for infections... a cone on her head until she healed. She had hot spots a few months back and we know she has to wear a cone until she is 100% healed or she will chew up every scab/sore until she is bleeding in less than 2 minutes. So, we knew that getting her stitched up and healed was going to be many weeks of wearing a cone and being under constant supervision. Then, after all that she is still an elder dog who probably has another 2-10 months of life left before she will have even more symptoms that warrent being euthanized. We feel that is a lot to put a dog through when (a) they have enjoyed 90% of their live and are close to the end (b) their quality of life is already low.

I think most of my guilt comes from the fact that anyone looking at Rover would think she is five years younger and has lots of life left in her. It actually shows her extreme her anxiety is that she can go from a dog that does nothing but sleep all day to a beast capable of going through wooden doors and tearing plywood away just to escape. We have also put our life on hold for over 2 years just to make sure that she is safe and comfortable. Also, it's not fair to people like this Pet Resort owner to have a dog visit who literally destroys her facility.