Our cat suddenly got Feline Aortic Thromboembolism in the middle of the night and we rushed her to an emergency vet as it looked like she was in a lot of pain.
At the vet she was given the heaviest painkillers. On their advice, we opted to euthanize her as this condition is extremely painful and operation often makes things worse.
The vet first administered 2 full syringes into her I.V. which should have killed her in about a minute. But several minutes later was still breathing. The vet then administered another 2 full injections into her I.V. and again she was still breathing and even looking around a bit several minutes later. The vet said that it was taking so long because her heart wasn't pumping properly.
The vet then administered a syringe directly into her kidney and we waited and she had to do it again. The whole process took I believe at least 30 minutes for a total of 6 injections before she died.
I believed the vet's explanation that it was because her heart wasn't working properly, but my father now thinks we made a bad decision because he perceives it that it took so much to kill her because she must have been in such good health and doesn't trust what the vet says.
I've tried Googling for cases of where a lot more injections are required to euthanize a pet with heart problems but I can't find anything.
Does anyone know if this kind of things happens with pets with heart problems?