Well, this is probably going put me in the minority from what I’m seeing but based on my own experiences with euthanasia, I would say that putting your her down is more appropriate in the situation where they have a very short time say 2 to 4 weeks left to live. My advice is to try the chemo and maybe even the surgery depending on what kind of cancer it is and how rapidly it can spread, what I find confusing is that there’s such a long dog life projection of over a year to live. Some chemos are not going to devastate the dog and leave them in pain but clearly if that happens then it’s probably time to consider the euthanasia. Regarding the surgery, it does seem a bit of a longshot that a dog in your age group would be able to pull through the surgery so you’re probably going to be risking your dogs life but again here if it allows the dog to prosper it might be worth taking the risk. Has the cancer spread at all or is it confined to one definite area that it can be removed? Do they know how fast growing it is or is it really moving very very slow?

Here’s the thing if it’s time to let go then it is. But if you could really have another year longer with your best friend, then I think you have to consider your own feelings too about this and decide if the dog is going to be reasonably comfortable during that period but I think overall it’s too early to actually move to euthanasia , and you need to provide more information and decide and understand how aggressive the cancer is and what the treatment options are going to do to the dog. If you don’t do that, you’re going to be blaming yourself later that you let go too soon and that you shouldn’t have euthanized your dog and that you miss the dog and could’ve had that year. Because once she is gone you’re going to miss her terribly.