Apologies for the heartless-sounding topic, but I think it'll make sense once you read this. And there's a bit of backstory here too; apologies again if this is a bit long-winded. Right now I've got three fuzzies. Sprinkles (who was almost killed a year and a half ago by a distemper shot; see the anonymous submission in digest #2000-2957) is my eldest child and is about six years old. Bubo is the middle kid, going into her fourth year. And Snippet is the baby of the family, about a year and a half old. There were two other ferrets in my life, Bandit and Rascal, sisters adopted from a family that didn't want them any more. Bandit passed away right before Christmas 1994 due to an adrenal tumor. Bandit passed away about a year and a half ago due to extreme complications involving the surgical removal of about a dozen tumors throughout her body. Both Bandit and Rascal died at the vet's office. Bandit died while laying unconscious inside of an oxygen tent -- intensive care from the adrenal tumor (I was sadly unfamiliar with the warning signs of adrenal cancer at the time and took her to the vet too late). Rascal died while healing from the surgery; she was home for about a week or two then started passing blood in her stool. I took her back to the vet and she died the next day while in the intensive care ward. I took both deaths really hard. I was only able to recover Rascal's body (the vet had mistakenly sent Bandit's body for "disposal") so in my back yard there's a small grave for Rascal and a memorial for Bandit. With Bandit I had no idea her situation was so severe. When the vet asked me if I wanted to put her down I couldn't make myself say yes, even though I knew it would prolong her pain. (As it turned out, Bandit passed away while I was on the phone with the vet.) But with Rascal I knew her time was coming. She was an older ferret (over eight years old) who was always tiny and somewhat frail. I knew that the surgery was particularly involved and that her chances were slim. And when I saw her passing blood and I picked her up and she reacted like a barely conscious rag doll I KNEW, deep down inside, that she wasn't going to make it. (I think the other ferrets did too. As I was holding Rascal, Bubo and Sprinkles approached and licked her face until the taxi came to drive us to the vet. I'd never seen them do that for so long, and when the car came Sprinkles wouldn't let go so I had to bring both of them to the vet's office.) With all that in mind, I'm looking at Sprinkles now and wondering when her time is going to come and how I'm going to handle it. If I see her going down and that same "she's not going to make it" feeling comes up, do I take her to a cold and sterile vet's office? Part of me says yes; her condition may be treatable and she's got a better chance at the vet's office than she does at home. But part of me says no; if I were in her place I would want to go surrounded by comfortable things and friends and family. It's a very difficult decision that nobody wants to think about, but I want to do the right thing. I'm not looking for justification or "the right path", I just want to know how others react to this sort of situation. I'd feel terrible if I decided to keep my ferret at home when popular wisdom says take her to the vet, but I think I'd feel worse if I had to drop off my ferret in some alien environment so she could die. If you were in my position, what would YOU do? [Posted in FML issue 3536]