Revisiting Your Decision Later

Nineteen percent of people who made life-support decisions for a loved one in intensive care reported moderate to strong regret six months later. More than half felt at least some regret at all. In chronic pain clinics, that number climbs: 84% of patients say they regret at least one major treatment decision; half say that regret is significant enough to really matter in their lives.[1][2]

Regret, in other words, is not a sign that you “did it wrong.”It’s a near-automatic human response to hard choices in uncertain situations.

When we bring that lens into dog care—especially decisions about chronic illness, aggressive treatments, or euthanasia—it explains something many owners quietly carry: the way a decision can feel settled one month, and then suddenly open again six months later, like a book you thought you’d finished.

This article is about that moment of reopening.The late-night what-ifs.The “I was so sure… why am I not sure now?”And, very specifically, how revisiting your decision can change when you have a clearer map of what regret actually is.

What “decision regret” really is (and what it isn’t)

Researchers use a term for this emotional aftermath: decision regret.

At its core, decision regret is not just “feeling bad.” It has two intertwined parts:[3][6]

• Emotional: distress, sadness, remorse, grief

• Cognitive: mental comparisons (“What if we’d tried X?”), self-blame, replaying the decision

A widely used tool called the Decision Regret Scale (DRS) quantifies this. It asks people to rate statements like “It was the right decision” or “The choice did me a lot of harm” and converts them into a score from 0 (no regret) to 100 (strong regret).[4][6]

Why does that matter to you?

Because if scientists can measure regret in ICU surrogates, cancer patients, and people living with chronic pain—and consistently find that it’s common and predictable—then the regret you feel about your dog’s treatment or euthanasia decision is:

• Normal, not a personal failing

• Patterned, not random chaos

• Influenced by known factors, many of which were outside your control

Regret isn’t a verdict on your love for your dog or your worth as their person. It’s a psychological echo of having had to choose under uncertainty.

When the past feels different later: why regret shows up months (or years) after

One of the most unsettling parts of revisiting a decision is the time gap. You might think:

• “I felt so clear that day. Why do I feel unsure now?”

• “If I’m doubting it now, does that mean I secretly knew it was wrong then?”

The research gives a calmer explanation.

1. Outcomes change — and regret tracks outcomes

Across medical studies, regret is significantly higher when outcomes are poor or worse than expected.[1][3]

• ICU surrogates were more likely to regret decisions when the patient died or deteriorated.[1]

• Breast cancer patients reported more regret when their quality of life after treatment didn’t match what they’d hoped.[3]

In dog care, that translates to:

• Your dog worsened after a surgery you approved.

• A treatment caused side effects that felt worse than the original problem.

• Euthanasia happened on a day that later felt “too early” or “too late” as you learned more about the disease.

Your brain does something very human: it back-projects the current outcome into the past decision, as if you should have known. But at the time, you were working with a different set of facts and predictions.

The decision hasn’t changed.The story around it has.

2. New information arrives — but only after the choice

Regret often spikes when new information appears:

• A vet later mentions a treatment you didn’t know was an option.

• You read about another dog with the same condition who did well on a different protocol.

• A friend says, “Oh, our vet always does X first.”

This is brutally unfair timing. Medicine—human or veterinary—is full of uncertainty, evolving options, and probabilities. No one, including your vet, had access to “future you” or “future research” at the time.

Still, the mind tends to compare:

Past you (limited information)vs.Imagined you (who somehow knew everything and made the flawless choice)

That imagined version is a fantasy standard. No real person could match it.

3. Your role in the decision affects how you feel later

A consistent finding in human medicine: regret is higher when people’s actual role in the decision doesn’t match the role they wanted.[3]

• Some patients want to be very involved and feel sidelined.

• Others want clear recommendations and feel forced to “decide” alone.

In breast cancer treatment decisions, patients whose role matched their preference—whether active, shared, or more passive—reported less regret later on.[3]

With your dog, think back:

• Did you want a shared decision with your vet, but felt rushed or overwhelmed?

• Did you want a clear recommendation, but only heard, “It’s up to you”?

• Did you feel you had to push for or against something you weren’t fully comfortable with?

If your role felt misaligned, your later regret may be more about the process than the outcome.

Personality, perfectionism, and the “maximizer” trap

Not all minds relate to decisions the same way.

Researchers describe two broad styles:[7]

• Maximizers: try to find the absolute best choice; compare many options; keep searching for more information.

• Satisficers: aim for a choice that is clearly “good enough”; once it meets their criteria, they stop searching.

In large studies of general life decisions, maximizers report more regret, especially when decisions are complex or high-stakes.[7] They also tend to:

• Ruminate more about “what might have been”

• Feel less satisfied even with objectively good outcomes

• Experience more stress around choices

If you recognize yourself here—endlessly researching, reading every forum thread, feeling that there must be a “right” answer—you’re not being difficult. You’re running a mental operating system that is extremely thorough and extremely hard on you.

In dog health decisions, maximizers often:

• Seek multiple opinions

• Feel intense responsibility to “not miss anything”

• Later replay every branch they didn’t take

This isn’t a flaw. But it does mean your baseline risk for regret is higher, simply because your mind is built to compare and critique.

The emotional layers: regret, guilt, grief, and anxiety

Decision regret rarely shows up alone. It tends to braid together with:

• Guilt: “I failed my dog”

• Grief: sadness and longing after loss or decline

• Anxiety: fear of making another “wrong” choice in the future

Studies in chronic pain patients show that high decision regret is associated with worse psychological well-being, including more stress and depressive symptoms.[2][7] It’s not that regret causes depression directly, but the constant mental replay and self-blame can wear you down.

For dog owners, this can look like:

• Avoiding follow-up appointments because you feel ashamed of a past choice

• Struggling to trust new recommendations

• Feeling undeserving of another dog, or of support from others

• Rewriting your entire time with your dog through the lens of one decision

If this is you, it isn’t “overreacting.” It’s a recognized pattern in people who’ve had to make hard health decisions under pressure.

Anticipated regret: the fear that freezes you

There’s another kind of regret that matters here: anticipated regret—the fear of how you’ll feel later.

Research shows that anticipating regret can shape decisions powerfully, sometimes leading to paralysis.[6] People think:

• “If I try treatment and it goes badly, I’ll never forgive myself.”

• “If I don’t try everything, I’ll regret not having done more.”

This is especially sharp around euthanasia and major interventions for dogs:

• You may delay a needed euthanasia because you fear regretting it.

• You may authorize a burdensome surgery because you fear regretting “giving up.”

Anticipated regret is trying to protect you, in its way. But it’s working with a false promise: that there is a path where you will feel no regret at all.

The research reality is gentler and more honest: in serious health contexts, some level of regret is common no matter what people choose.[1][2][3]

That doesn’t mean decisions don’t matter. It means you can stop chasing the fantasy of a regret-proof path and instead ask a different question:

“Given that future-me may feel some regret either way,which choice best matches my dog’s needs and my values today?”

How the vet relationship shapes regret

You don’t make these decisions in a vacuum. The way you and your vet work together can either:

• Soften regret later, or

• Sharpen it into something much more painful

Studies in human medicine highlight shared decision-making—where clinician and patient discuss options, evidence, and preferences together—as a key factor in lower regret.[3] When people feel:

• Informed

• Heard

• Involved to the degree they want

…they’re less likely to experience high regret, even if outcomes are difficult.

By contrast, regret is higher when there’s:

• Poor communication

• Time pressure

• Confusing or overwhelming information

• A sense of being pushed or abandoned with the choice[1][2][3]

In veterinary care, similar patterns show up anecdotally:

• Owners who felt “cornered” into euthanasia or aggressive treatment often carry heavier regret.

• Owners who felt their vet truly saw their dog, their bond, and their limits—even when making the same decision—tend to feel more settled later.

This doesn’t mean every vet conversation must be perfect. It does mean that if your regret is tangled up with how the decision was made, you’re not imagining that connection. The process matters as much as the decision itself.

Common triggers when you revisit a decision

Certain moments tend to reopen old decisions:

• Anniversaries: of diagnosis, surgery, or euthanasia

• Seeing similar dogs: a dog of the same breed or condition doing well on a different treatment

• New information: an article, a study, or a vet comment that mentions another option

• Life changes: new job, more money, less stress—making you think, “If only I’d had this then”

• Quiet evenings: when grief is loudest and distractions are few

None of these mean your original decision was wrong. They just mean your brain has found fresh material to fold into the story.

A different way to revisit your decision

Revisiting a decision isn’t inherently bad. Done gently, it can actually:

• Clarify what matters to you

• Improve future conversations with vets

• Help you integrate your dog’s story into your life story

The key is how you revisit it.

1. Separate “then” from “now”

One practical mental move is to explicitly separate:

• Then: What you knew, felt, and could do at the time

• Now: What you know, feel, and can see with hindsight

You might even write it out:

• “Then, we knew…”

• “Then, the vet said the chances were…”

• “Then, my financial/emotional capacity was…”

• “Now, I know that the outcome was…”

This makes it harder for hindsight to pretend it was foresight.

2. Notice where the regret is actually pointing

Regret is rarely about everything. It often points to something specific:

• “I regret how rushed it felt.”

• “I regret not asking more about side effects.”

• “I regret ignoring my gut about their quality of life.”

Once you name the specific piece, you can:

• Use it as a guide for future decisions (“Next time I’ll schedule a longer consult” or “Next time I’ll ask for a quality-of-life scale”)

• Soften the global self-blame (“I didn’t fail at everything; there’s just one part I wish had been different.”)

3. If you journaled, let past-you speak

Many people find that reading their notes or journal entries from the time of the decision is deeply grounding. It can be startling to see, in your own handwriting:

• How hard you were trying

• How much you loved your dog

• How carefully you weighed things

For some, that’s the moment captured in the OG title:“I second-guessed myself — until I read my journal.”

If you didn’t journal then, you can still write now:

• A letter from present-you to past-you, acknowledging what they were carrying

• A letter to your dog, describing what you were hoping for when you chose as you did

The point isn’t to erase regret. It’s to widen the frame so regret is one voice in the story, not the only narrator.

Talking with your vet after the fact

Many owners avoid bringing up regret with their vet, worried it will sound like blame. But in chronic or ongoing care, your vet actually needs to understand how you feel about past decisions to support you well now.

You might say:

• “I keep wondering if we should have done X instead. Can we talk through what we knew then and what we know now?”

• “I’m finding it hard to trust my judgment after last time. How can we make this decision together in a way that feels clearer?”

• “I regret how rushed I felt with the euthanasia decision. For the future, can we talk earlier about what signs we’ll use?”

These aren’t accusations. They’re invitations to shared decision-making—the very thing research suggests can reduce future regret.[3]

A good vet will:

• Acknowledge the difficulty of the past decision

• Help you distinguish hindsight from what was knowable then

• Work with you to create more spacious, collaborative decision processes going forward

When regret becomes heavy

It’s one thing to have passing what-ifs. It’s another when regret becomes:

• Persistent, intrusive, and daily

• Accompanied by strong self-hatred or hopelessness

• Interfering with sleep, work, or relationships

• Making you feel you don’t deserve another dog, or joy in general

At that point, we’re not just talking about regret; we’re talking about your mental health.

Human studies link high decision regret with increased risk of depression and poorer quality of life.[2][7] That doesn’t mean you’re broken; it means your mind has been through something it’s struggling to integrate.

Support that might help:

• A therapist or counselor (especially one familiar with grief or medical decision-making)

• Pet loss support groups, where others have grappled with similar decisions

• Writing, ritual, or memorial practices to give your dog’s story—and your decision—a place to rest

Seeking support isn’t an admission that your decision was wrong. It’s an acknowledgment that it was hard enough to hurt you, and you deserve care too.

What science can and can’t tell you

Researchers are clear on some points:

Well-established:[1][2][3][6][7][8]

• Decision regret is common after serious health decisions.

• It can be measured (with tools like the DRS).

• Regret is more intense when:

  • Outcomes are poor or worse than expected

  • People’s role in the decision doesn’t match what they wanted

  • There’s high decisional conflict and low support

  • Personality traits like maximization and perfectionism are strong

• High regret is linked with worse psychological well-being.

Still uncertain, especially in veterinary contexts:  

• Exact rates of regret among dog owners, and how it changes over time

• Which specific communication strategies from human medicine translate best to vet care

• How culture, religion, and personal values shape regret patterns in pet owners

• When regret leads to adaptive changes (better future decisions, more clarity) versus maladaptive distress

What this means for you:

• If you’re revisiting a decision and feeling regret, you fit a pattern that has been seen and studied—not an anomaly to be fixed.

• There may never be a scientific answer to “Was it the right decision?”

  But there is a growing science of how to live with the decisions we had to make.

Living with the decision you made

You made choices for your dog in a landscape of uncertainty, love, and limits—medical, emotional, financial, or all three. That’s true whether the decision was:

• To pursue an invasive surgery

• To stop a treatment that was making them miserable

• To schedule euthanasia

• To wait one more day

Revisiting that decision later is not a betrayal of your dog or of your past self. It’s your mind trying to make sense of something that mattered dearly.

The research tells us that regret is:

• Common, not exceptional

• Complex, not binary

• Influenced by factors you couldn’t possibly control

What you can influence now is how you relate to that regret:

• As a permanent indictment, or

• As one thread in a much larger, much more loving story

You and your dog lived that story together. The decision you’re revisiting now was one moment in it—important, yes, but not the only proof of your care.

If anything, the fact that you are still thinking about it, still trying to understand, is its own quiet evidence: you were, and are, the kind of person who tried hard for them.

That counts for more than your regret will ever admit.

References

1. Wendler D, Rid A. Prevalence of long-term decision regret and associated risk factors among surrogate decision makers after life support decisions. Critical Care Medicine. 2023. Available from: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9933411/

2. O’Connor E, et al. People Living with Chronic Pain Experience a High Prevalence of Decision Regret in Canada. Journal of Clinical Medicine. 2024. Available from: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11992647/

3. Li M, et al. The relationship between decision regret, quality of life, and mindfulness among breast cancer patients. Supportive Care in Cancer. 2024. Available from: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11931387/

4. Brehaut JC, et al. Decision Regret Scale – Evaluation Measures. Ottawa Hospital Research Institute; 2003. Available from: https://decisionaid.ohri.ca/eval_regret.html

5. Roese NJ, Summerville A. What We Regret Most … and Why. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 2005;31(9):1273–1285. Available from: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2394712/

6. Gilovich T, Medvec VH, Kahneman D, et al. The use of the Decision Regret Scale in non-clinical contexts. Frontiers in Psychology. 2022. Available from: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.945669/full

7. Diab DL, Gillespie MA, Highhouse S. The price of gaining: maximization in decision-making, regret and life satisfaction. Judgment and Decision Making. 2008;3(5):323–331. Available from: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decision-making/article/price-of-gaining-maximization-in-decisionmaking-regret-and-life-satisfaction/C3CB62F3EB5B7E8A9B428D78819A1BCB

8. Lam WWT, et al. Decision regret about treatment among women with early breast cancer: A systematic review. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 2023;79(6):2190–2210. Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jan.16767