I'm not posting this thread for sympathy, as I need none of it.

I have a dog, Doberman Rottweiler, whom has been with me for the past seven years of my life. He was taken in from some rather poor conditions, such as living in a crate, being given two-by-fours for toys, and being extremely underfed to the point where we could see his ribs poking out when we first got him. All of this combined with the fact that he is a very big dog, even for his type, leads to the conclusion that his life was never going to be as long as other dogs.

As it stands, that life seems to be nearing the end. He's starting to show signs of it, the main one being his back-end starting to give out. Just before posting this, I had to help coax him down the stairs and to the backyard. The guy can't even go on walks as of yesterday, which was the thing in the day he would always be most excited for. He's not at the point where he's completely suffering yet, but I imagine it won't be long. A week to a month is my guess.

All of that being said, I intend to make sure he goes out good. I give him no signs of grief as of yet, for there is nothing to grieve over at this point. As long as he is happy, I will be happy. I'm expecting we will know it's time for him to go when it gets to the point where he can either barely or no longer walk.

Which leads me to my first question: What's a good way to carry a big dog such as him with two people, when it gets to that point? My first thought is to roll him onto a blanket and then carry him with it, but I imagine that might be a bit unstable. Any ideas on that will be appreciated.

Second Question: What's the best way to keep him calm/happy when the time comes to end it? I don't want him going out in a panic. I don't want him to know what's coming, if possible. My first idea was to just have treats on hand for him as the vets do their work, but I'm not sure if that'll work. Again, any thoughts on that would also be appreciated.

And one more time, I don't want any sympathy, so save me the obligatory "I'm sorry for your loss" messages. This thread is for helping me get him through in as good a way as possible. All I want is input on how I can do that.

When my dog was dying, we had to use a blanket to carry her, we couldn't just pick her up because like your dog she had really bad legs and it would have just been more painful, so just lay a flat blanket underneath your dog an lift it up (you'll need two people definitely). If he is too big though you may need something more rigid although I can't offer advice on that as I have no experience.

Regarding keeping him calm there isn't really much you can do, the best you can do is be there to comfort him and pet him and generally make sure he is loved and just make it as normal as possible.

There's nothing you can really do to prepare emotionally for losing your dog, it's going to be hard but time will make it easier.

Went through this with my 90lb. German Shepard

Towards the end the only way to pick him up with minimum pain was to wrap the blanket under his mid section and pick up from front and back end. We just couldn't get him sturdy enough laying completely on a blanket and picking up.


Luckily my brother in law is a vet and we had him come out and put him to sleep in a comfortable environment for him, I'm also fairly certain you can find a company/veterinarian that does home calls if you haven't already. We gave him his favorite treat to mellow him out, big glob of peanut butter.

And I know you didn't want it but I'm sorry to hear your dog is getting to that stage, I just recently put down my 19 year old 40lb. Mutt, might be animals but still family.

movie reference

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338135/?ref_=sr_5

you can narrow it down to elephant man if you want but a different movie