Euthanasia

My heart goes out to you both. I'd always advocate that too early is far better than a day too late. Our last Basset went down so quickly in 48 hours from a healthy elderly boy, to shivering & distressed, bloods showed no infection or organ concerns. Deterioration was so quick & due to his age, decision had been made not to subject him to any further investigation & on day three he was P.T.S at home, he even struggled to get up to say hello at the sound of the door bell. Heart breaking & two years on it hurts like hell but, I've no regrets. Our remaining boy coming up to 12 in a couple of days, was never due to huge problems expected to get this far & lays at my feet now in front of the AGA. Our vet is coming to see him this afternoon in his own environment rather than yet another visit to the surgery (probably has seen a vet for every month of his life), she's known him for years & as she hasn't seen him for a while we agree that it would be a good idea for her too check him over. My input with him is huge, sleep with him (actually since Lucas left us!), keeping his ears, eyes, skin, flippers of feet & a lot more takes time, he's comfortable, still enjoys life, runs for his ball (although blind), has amazing spirit & as yet he doesn't tell me 'enough' but I'm fully aware with more & more input could have lost sight of what I'm actually doing!
Doubt if we have much more time together, but the greatest love you can show is to let a dog go. Remember hounds & a lot of dogs are amazingly stoic, & it's about them & not us.

So sorry for your situation of course. Our final hound developed oral cancer, a small mass found at the back of his mouth. Our then vet took it off and hoped he'd taken all the necessary perameters. He was fine for a while but another much more aggressive tumor appeared further forward. Neither affected the bone in his jaw which was a plus, but the second grew far faster and started bleeding, a lot. That morning I took him back to my vet he'd seen the second tumor already, and both of us felt there was not going to be a way back from this second one so we let him go. He was in his 13th year but clearly had had enough. So hard as he was the last of my home-breds. And it was only a year since we lost his sister.

All I can say is each hound is different - we had one with lymphoma and he had 6 months of 'perfectly normal' life, no treatment as he too was elderly, before his system just suddenly shut down.

I suggest you can only be guided by what your vet may or may not have to offer, and more importantly, by your knowledge of your hound. We don't have to allow lingering.