I was going to post a comment about growing up on a farm in the north woods during the summer. I was going to explain what life was like before there was an ASPCA or professional services that handled animals, including the ubiquitous barn cats that could get terminally ill or threaten epidemics among the other cats and human babies on the farm.
But this thread isn't going the way I thought it would so I won't post that.
Except I will point out that probably half of the people on this thread know darn well that they've had a cherished pet put down as the pet reached old age.
This woman clearly put her pets down sooner than she would have otherwise...which is what the ethical problem is all about...but even then I would say that a lot of people here aren't owning up to what they did themselves along those lines.
Putting a dying pet to sleep because you don't want her/him to suffer further pain is a LOT different than putting a perfectly healthy pet to sleep because he/she is an inconvenience.
I guess the key here is "sooner than she would have otherwise"...