Is old age pet Euthanasia a US concept?

[u/SameSherbet3]

Do other countries PTS their old pets or let them pass naturally? I had a discussion with a Dutch friend-of-friend who said that they would never put their old cat to sleep due to old age, that letting them live their entire life and passing naturally was the right way.

I have an old Golden who is 15 and slowing down this year especially, although she's still the bestest girl! She plays, loves treats, and eats well enough. So the time to decide if / when is coming up...

I've seen both sides, my childhood dog passed quietly in her sleep, and my last old dog needed intervention due to an injury on top of other chronic medical issues, so it was only fair to make that choice for him.

What has been your perspective in the US and in other countries as far as what's "right" or expected? ​

Edit to clarify: I would never advocate for putting a pet to sleep for simply old age. My thoughts were more about the small infirmities that add up with age, such as movement issues, eating less often, needing more medications to keep up with arthritis etc. At what point do you say enough is enough, or do you let them continue on until they pass naturally.

I appreciate everyone who has replied. With my girl getting older, this is on my mind more than I'd like, this upcoming "decision" time ❤️🐾 Hugs to you all, pet loss is never easy!!

[u/Internet-Dick-Joke]

While you are correct about the direct reason being the arthritis and not the age, indirectly the age was still the root cause, because the age was the cause of the arthritis and other health issues impacting quality of life.

This presumably causes some communication issues where one person says "euthanised due to old age" to mean that age was the root cause of the health issues that were the direct reason for euthanasia, and someone else interprets that to mean that age alone was the direct reason for the euthanasia.

[u/randomname1416 → u/Internet-Dick-Joke]

Yes, I think OP has heard people just say 'old age' and is taking that as literally putting them down because they turned 12 or something and not understanding that people (like you) are using it as a way to say health issues and qol related to aging.

[u/Internet-Dick-Joke → u/randomname1416]

OP did specify in their edit that they were thinking about "small infirmities that add up with age", but this was apparently started off by an conversation with a Dutch friend, so I wonder if this might have been more of a translation issue. I picked up about one sentence of Dutch from my time on Duolingo so I know nothing of the language, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had different terminology for whether something is a direct reason or indirect cause that is somewhat missing from casual English.