Our Husky was 10 when he passed away in 2023. We had always joked that his middle name was "pizza thief" because he was very good at stealing pizza when you weren't looking. easily at least a dozen times in his life he nabbed pizza from right next to you, from the counter, or sometimes even from your lap. For one of his last meals, we got a pizza and specifically left some out for him to "steal" for the last time. I will cherish that moment forever. Celebrating his life spent with us, and the quirks that made him who he was, was the only way we could let him go.
We had an old foster who stuck with us and eventually Louise became ours. We had her for 2 years before her kidneys quit on her. With her appointment for the next day, we ran to every pet store we could and asked for the best treats they had. One store asked what we meant by best and we said "most unhealthy, best tasting dog junk food we can get."
They had immediate suspicions, "What do you mean unhealthy?"
"Our dog is going to be put down tomorrow and we want to give her the best going away feast she can handle."
The lady understood and ran to the back and returned with two more people. They knew the assignment. The five of us combed the entire store for bacon and steak and stuffed treats the likes of which Louise had never seen. She went out full and as happy as she could be.
Those end of life meals make a big difference to everyone involved. It's celebrating their life.
When I had to put our golden retriever down (15 years old, cancer) we called an in-home vet to do it since my dog hated the vet with a vengeance. She would get anxious in the car if we even took the vet's freeway exit. We cooked her an entire pack of bacon, and sat there feeding it to her while the vet did their thing. It's a tough thing to go through, but the assurance that my dog wasn't scared on her way out was worth it
I choose to believe the dog is alive and well. I think they wrote “last meal for our dog” as an indication of order (e.g. the last item on the list) to ensure that the cook took extra care to make sure there is no seasonings and so it could be prepped rarer than one would typically make for human consumption.
We picked up ours a beef sandwich and had it baptized. We were not sure if she would eat it because she was not eating anything but it was a nice day and we went to the forest preserve and she managed to eat the whole thing over a bit of time.
If I ever need to euthanise my baby girl kitty, I will make her SO much vegemite toast for her final meal. She loves it. I don't give her much though, because I don't imagine that vegemite is the healthiest thing a cat can eat.