Home euthanasia scheduled-scared & second guessing our decision

Our 8 (nearly 9) year old Bernese mountain dog is scheduled to be put to sleep at our home next week.

It started right about a month ago (5 weeks I guess) when he peed right in front of us (and guests lol) a couple times a random Saturday evening. He had not had a urine accident since he was a very young dog so I was immediately sure he had a UTI. I took him to the emergency vet in the morning, they said it seemed likely from his urine sample, got antibiotics, he got better.

As soon as the course finished, symptoms came back, so two weeks after the initial vet visit we went back and they took another sample. He said there were some bladder wall lining cells in the sample which can be bad UTI, or maybe bladder cancer. So he did an ultrasound which wasn’t conclusive, showed some bladder wall thickening, he gave us antibiotics and said come back in two weeks to recheck.

Initially he got better but then he got worse. He was sleeping through the night but he was straining to pee and his stream was just trickling. So two weeks later I was pretty ready to hear it was cancer. The ultrasound this time showed a pretty obvious mass. They did a dye study to make sure it wasn’t a stone (surgically treatable) and determined it was not. We discussed options, none realistic, all buying very little time with probably a lot of stress/pain for my boy. So the vet told us he would probably last days to weeks, at any time he would become completely obstructed and would need to be put down.

That was one week ago. We set an appointment for home euthanasia in one more week. We weren’t sure he would make it that long but wanted to set an appointment for the long end of the estimate.

My problem (my blessing) is he’s doing so great. He’s so happy right now. We’ve been spoiling him a lot food wise, I’ve been taking him to parks every day and he’s got a bounce in his step and he’s as energetic as he ever is-moreso, even. He definitely strains to pee, takes a long time but has been holding steady for a bit. He’s gotten used to it. We have a vacation planned for 2 weeks from now-so I’m feeling shitty and conflicted, he isn’t likely to make it much longer according to our vet but now I’m starting to feel like I’m killing a happy dog for my convenience. I guess that’s the rock in my gut. I’m not going to leave him for a 2 week vacation and have him pass while I’m gone.

I’ve always been of the opinion that it’s way better to euthanize days/even weeks early than it is even an hour too late, to save them pain/discomfort. But I’m finding it really really hard to follow that right now. I also just really don’t want him to go at all. We were told ~16 months ago when he was diagnosed with mast cell tumors (he now has probably a dozen) that the average lifespan after that diagnosis is a year and he obviously is well past that, but I guess I’ve been anxious and waiting for the slightest hint of illness the entire time. I feel like we have had so much time with him we might not have gotten but also he’s only 8. I wasn’t ready, even with all this warning. And I’m not sure it’s right to let him go while he’s feeling so good. But if we don’t, we might not be able to do it at home, might not be able to let our other dogs see him…

Yeah anyway, I guess this was therapeutic for me even if nobody answers. But let me know if anyone made it this far and has thoughts anyway.