Is it unethical that my moms considering putting her dog to sleep instead of driving 16 hours to the vet?

[Nicholas1302]

Her dog is 13 1/2. He has arthritis, and can't walk very well. He gets injections every two weeks for it. He's also very skinny so the vet thinks might have cancer because he still eats a lot. They haven't confirmed cancer though. So anyways, yesterday the left side of his face swelled really bad. No vet near us would take him, so we had to drive 6 hours round trip to an emergency vet, and they determined he has a tooth abcess, or however you spell it. So they gave him some medication of a 10 day supply that will take the pain away, but they said to see if our primary vet here will extract the tooth. If if not then the only vet that will do it is 8 hours away, so 16 hours round trip. My mom said that if our local vet can't do it, then she might have him put to sleep. Is that wrong? I think her line if thinking is that he's old and likely won't live much longer but I think we might be able to get a few more years.

[Kori1236]

The dog already doesn’t have a good quality of life it’s better to let the dog go peacefully as opposed to drawing it out. My roommates dog is skin and bones, barely eats, is blind and deaf and she can barely walk it is long past her time he is keeping her around for him. Your mom is aware that goodbye may be near and doing the best thing for the dog.

[Massageman]

No vet within an eight hour drive? That's about 450-500 miles. (We drove 6 hours to get our current dog). The emergency vet should be able to handle an extraction. Other possibility is to track down a local animal shelter and find out the vet that THEY use at the shelter. (Some of these vets fly under the radar, so to speak)

[purplepoppy]

What's the point of keeping him alive if he can't be a dog? To me it looks like you're more concerned with your own needs than his welfare. I'd also question why it's so hard for you to get a local vet to help with such every day matters.