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No advice, but I'm so sorry you're dealing with this.

We also did this in the fall. LO was 3. She did not go with us to the appointment. My MIL watched her. We talked about how our pet was old and he died. We are atheists so we did not discuss Heaven etc. We said we were all very sad and we could talk about him and look at pictures of him whenever we wanted. We also took a "goodbye" photo with him and LO although we did not tell her that's what it was. We did not tell her anything until after we came home. We needed a bit of time to grieve ourselves.

Anticipating the event was far worse than going through it. Our vet was so comforting and it was really the best decision for our dog's health and comfort.

I'm so sorry you're losing your pet. We didn't have to put our dog down, but he was hit by a car and died right away. My husband and I left our son (he was 2.5) with family to take our dog to the funeral home & he didn't know what had happened. It was pretty devastating and I don't think we did the best job explaining it to our son. Looking back, I wish we had been more honest sooner (it took us several weeks to talk about it with him and many months before we explained what happened). I did some reading and found that honest, simple explanations are best, as well as lots of open talk of feelings and processing. Kids know something has happened and the parents are so sad and the pet is gone, but if no one says anything it becomes a fearful thing for them.
I don't think personally I'd bring my child to the vet, but maybe some special time before to all day good-bye with the kids understanding your pet won't return home ("Pet is very sick/old/etc and the vet is going to help Pet be comfortable. Pet will be dead, so we won't see/play with Pet anymore, but it's what is best for Pet.")
Again, I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm crying right now thinking about how hard this is for your family. Something that helped us grieve was making a photo book for our dog. I emailed family and friends and asked for pictures and stories/memories from them. I took all those and combed through our photos and created a Blurb Book out of it all. Our son loves looking at it, it was a postitive framework for talking about & processing our loss, and I hope it will help my son remember his first pet.

I haven't gone through this myself but we dread the day we do. I'm very sorry for the loss of your family member and wish you peace as you deal with this. You are right to give consideration to your child's experience since it is so different from ours.

We just had to let our old dog go last month. LO1 is 3.5 and LO2 is 14 months. The vet came to our house and both boys were there when it happened. We were able to have lots of little talks in the weeks leading up to it about how he was old and that he would die soon because his body would stop working. I then explained that sometimes animals need help dying and that's what the vet was going to do. It all went well and wasn't traumatizing. I think a key part was that while I knew I would cry, I also knew I wouldn't lose it and would be able to keep it together for the boys. We wanted to be honest about death and up front that it's ok to be sad. Also, LO1 liked this dog but wasn't in love with him as he has only known him when he was old and he was never really a playmate.

Sorry you have to do this!

We had to put our dog down in September. I didn't think our girl was that attached to the dog, but she was. There were SO many questions and she really had a hard time understanding the concept of "dead". One day she asked where the dog was and I told her AGAIN, she's dead. "Yes but where IS she!?!" She asked. She needed to know lots of details.

Be prepared for some really hurtful seeming questions/comments. One day she asked very bluntly if I was sad about the dog...