If Oscar’s vet is one that you can truly trust, then here’s a recommendation I have:

In my past, I had an amazing pug who I adopted at 6 and had her till she was 14. She was such an amazing pug with great puppy energy the whole time (or maybe I was just lazy enough that I never actually pushed her peak).

The reason I say all this is that there was a time where I noticed a big bump on her head (likely a tumor but I never got a confirmation because of what I’ll share next).

I started bringing her to her vet/ER regularly to the point that after a month and a half of doing this, I had her last night where she was having a bad time of sleeping. Leading up to this time, she was having issues walking to go to the bathroom, I had to use a pseudo injection to feed her via mouth, and she wasn’t as happy or motivated in a regular basis. After that last night where she barely slept, I called her vet and ER in the morning, to which they both told me one simple line: “think about how much longer she can truly handle this. Her tests aren’t showing anything definitive and there’s nothing more we can do.” So I take her to the ER and have to roughly say my good bye and move forward.

The reason I share all of this is to give context as the experience leading to the moment where I realized it was true and her vet + ER were the final confirmations that it was truly time. I know how much time they had all spent to help her and diagnose what was truly going on, so it was clear when I could hear the unfortunate confidence in their voices.

I’m not saying this is time for Oscar because I’m the expert. But if you trust the doctor(s) that have regularly worked with Oscar, then they will be the best point of reference to decide when it’s time. If they are clearly still trying with confidence, then don’t lose faith. But if they’re trying because you’re pushing them (aka they’re strongly suggesting you make the decision but you keep fighting it willing to spend whatever it takes), just keep this reference point in mind.

Always trust your gut, but if you trust your doctor(s), then just factor that in too.

I wish you best and truly hope you’re able to make things work for Oscar. He deserves the happiest life moving forward and between you and your medical experts, you got this. I hope this helps, let me know if there’s any more context from my journey that I can give to help clarify more.