You will know which decisions to make in advance so that nothing has to be chosen in a corridor, and what to ask the clinic before the time is fixed.
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The day nobody wants to talk about is also a day that needs organising. Whatever was not decided beforehand gets decided standing up, badly, between two doors.
People usually weigh the comfort of home against the competence of the clinic. The criterion that matters more is this one: where is your animal least frightened, and where will you yourself stay upright.
A cat that panics in a carrier has everything to gain from staying home. A very large dog that will have to be carried afterwards raises a practical question best looked at in advance.
Not every practice makes home visits, and those that do have limited slots. This is a question for weeks ahead, not for that morning.
Almost everyone discovers the procedure as it begins. It usually has two stages: a sedative that puts the animal to sleep, then the injection. Knowing that in advance saves you from flinching.
Ask what you will see and what you will hear. A body letting go does things that startle people who were not warned, and that mean nothing like what they seem to mean.
Ask as well how long you may stay afterwards. The answer varies a great deal and nobody offers it unprompted.
Staying is not compulsory and leaving is not abandonment. Someone breaking down badly enough to frighten the animal is not helping it by staying.
For children, settle the question at home, calmly, not in the car park. A child who has had it explained and chooses to come through lives something different from a child brought along without words.
If nobody can stay, ask for a member of the team to do it. It can be asked, and it is done.
This is the hardest line in the piece, and it is the one that hits you at the worst possible moment if it was left open. Individual cremation with ashes returned, communal cremation with no return, burial where local law allows it: three different roads.
Prices and timescales vary, burial rules vary, and none of it can be guessed. One phone call a week earlier settles all of it.
Write your choice on a piece of paper and hand it to someone. You will not want to say it out loud on the day.
Many owners let the surviving companion see the body, and the practice is common. What an animal understands from it is not something this piece can claim to know.
What can be observed is that a sudden absence changes the house: appetite, sleep, searching from room to room. Those weeks call for patience and a little more presence.
Do not rearrange everything on the first day. Leave the familiar landmarks in place while the survivor adjusts.
Asking to settle up in advance, or by phone the day before, spares you a moment of pointless ugliness: pulling out a bank card in tears in front of a queue.
Most practices agree without any fuss when asked. Nobody offers it because nobody thinks of it.
The same goes for forms and paperwork: filled in beforehand, they are not waiting for you on the way out.
Driving straight afterwards is hard and nobody warns you. If someone can come with you, this is the time to ask.
Plan the hour that follows as well. Walking into a silent house with nothing arranged is the part people are still talking about long after.
Put the bowl and the bed away when you have decided to, not because a relative thinks it would be better.