Were we correct in declining ER diagnostics?

Hello, while my family was out of the country, our dog boarding facility took my 12 year old dog to the ER because she had stopped eating and became lethargic. We took a call from them at 3am in Europe (missed some calls due to being asleep) and called the ER vet who said that they needed us to agree to pay $6000 for testing to find out what was wrong (fyi this is NYC but still…) The situation sounded dire, but we felt like we were being put on the spot to make this decision to either do all the testing or release her. The ER vet said that she had abdominal fluid but didn’t say how much.

We decided to discharge her and she went to the home of the dog boarding facility owner. We were told she was alert, some tail wagging, drinking water but still no eating food. We cut our trip short to come home and made an appointment with our home vet.

At the vet, she was given some wet dog food (much better than her usual), and she ate it all immediately. They did some blood work and I have to bring back urine and stool samples today. Our vet said that there could be abdominal fluid but that if there were more it would have been noted differently in the ER records.

We now have her home and she is definitely lethargic, and we’re planning to continue to get answers from our home vet.

I guess if I needed to ask only one question, it would be: did we make the right decision? The testing was so expensive and she is 12 years old. At 3am it was difficult to know what the right thing to do was and I feel guilt over it even though she is at home resting now. Maybe another question is: how do we use the right language with veterinarians to not over treat a geriatric dog? It felt like a cash grab that wouldn’t even necessarily help my dog, and I also feel like I was being put on the side of letting my dog die if I didn’t continue with this emergency treatment. I don’t ever want her to suffer, and she is at the stage in her life where we may have to make difficult decisions.

I would love to hear any advice or similar anecdotes to aid our decision making going forward.