Ask the dog, Dammit.

   I read this week that an elderly, emaciated, tumor-afflicted dog  that had been abandoned in South Carolina has been transported all the way up here to receive medical treatment and surgery in hopes that the poor thing can eventually be adopted into the home of a loving family who will care for him in the time he has left.  The dog's age is estimated at 10 -13 years, and the surgery to remove and treat his tumor, and the procedures to treat his skeleton-like frame will be intensive and certain to provide only a brief increase in his life span at an enormous financial cost.
      One of the first questions hospital patients are asked, at least those patients of a certain age, is whether they have a DNR.  A valid option, it would seem, as long as it's not misinterpreted.
    But why should it be deemed acceptable that the elderly be questioned about end of life choices with the implication being that there is a right time to die when all-out efforts are made to save an ailing old dog .  The dog was abandoned, we read, so public outrage is directed at whoever allowed that to happen, and the cry is for someone to pay for this atrocity.   Maybe a hard-hearted owner cast the dog out after 10 years or so.  Or it could be that the dog, sick and unable to eat, went away to die: its own decision  that it had suffered enough and knew the time had come  to let go.
  Dogs, not being human, do not have access to a DNR.  It may be that they are smart enough to do the right thing without the need to consult an outside source.