Need some FOG insight with our Dog

[BHalbrooks]

Well, as some of you know, we have 2 Huskies. One of them is 11ish (We got him from a shelter, and they weren't sure on the age), and 1.

Our older Huskey, Echo, has been sick since September of '12. He's got really severe allergies. He'll lay on the ground and just weeze. He looks f'in miserable. You guys know when your Dog just looks sad... That's how he will look. He'll just walk up to me and just stare at me, and he looks awful. We've had it checked out by a couple Vets, and they said there's not much we can do. The only option is a $3,000 to $4,000 surgery that has a 50-50% of actually helping.

He also has really bad arthritis. He was an outside Dog (Chained to a tree) for 8 years, and you can tell. If you put your hand on his hips you can feel his hips popping with each step. We have since stopping taking the stairs (It was only 2 sets of stairs), and take the elevator down. He's been struggling more and more with it. He's gotten almost hostile at times with our younger Husky when he tries to play with him. Sometimes when he lays down or gets up you can see his legs shaking.

The Vet said they have medication to lubricate his joints, and ease the pain a bit. None of this seems fair to him, doping him enough to keep him around for our selfishness. I really struggle with the idea to keep him around, but in pain. He's "my" dog, so my Wife is letting me make the call... But we've never had to deal with this before. All of our other dogs have died of Cancer, etc.

My question for you fine gentlemen is at what point do we put him down? Is where I'm coming from off base in that it's not fair to keep him going for my own sake? I wouldn't want to live life doped up, how can I make that choice for him? I'm just torn on this I guess.

Any and all insight is appreciated.