Positions to Be Put In

Just last month, there was an article in Veterinary Practice News about "convenience euthanasia". It actually mentioned that as a private practice vet, if you are uncomfortable with the reasons for a euthanasia given by a client, you should refer them to a local SPCA or humane organization. Hi. That's me.

Thankfully, even we have standards and will not put animals down just for shits 'n' giggles or out and out "convenience." I have to sleep at night. It's nothing taken lightly. But I suppose I have done, or participated in doing, plenty of them that a private vet may not have done. For example, our "clientele" tends to be that of the lowest income bracket. People who cannot afford extensive supportive care for a degenerative disease. People who are not capable of proper treatment for something as manageable as, say, diabetes. People who cannot afford possibly pointless chemotherapy for cancer...or even expensive NSAIDs for advanced ortho problems. In the scheme of things, having come from private practice, it does bother me. But, this is their pet...their family member. Suffering is directly around the bend. I feel okay with having a hand in preventing that suffering by euthanasia.

Same with aggression. I respect the courage it takes to undertake the responsibility of deciding such a thing when human safety is at risk. Lesser people dump it on a shelter and let us be the "bad guys." These cases are hard and sad. But in the scheme of things, it, too is preventing suffering.

Then there are the nebulous ones. Case in point: a couple owns two teenaged cats. Neither is in ill health, particularly. Foreclosure, going into assisted living, whatever...but cannot keep the cats. What are the possibilities? Put them in the shelter where they will be overlooked and miserable, ripped from their known lives of over a decade to be put into a cage to compete with kittens? To be put in the path of the upper respiratory infection that we are never free of, the catching of which is directly related to stress? Will some miracle person fall out of heaven and come into our shelter wanting not a kitten, not a young cat, not a pretty cat, but coincidentally two nondescript, teenaged cats possibly on the brink of costly degenerative health issues? Is it fair, for them, to force them to endure a hellish existence on the off chance that monkeys might fly out of my butt? Add onto that the fact that we are full, and in order to undertake this doubleforcing of hell onto two older cats, some others will have to go? These are the sticky, judgement call situations that happen in every shelter. It sucks. And I am the one who has to carry it out and go home at night. I know, I feel, I did the right thing. It was gentle and peaceful and dignified and number one, it was the choice, the responsible choice, in the given circumstances, of the legal owner of the cats. It was the best that could be done for them. Until you are willing to go to your local shelter and adopt two teenaged, un-special, nondecsript cats yourself, then you shouldn't say a thing. It was the best thing for them in the circumstances. They would've been stressed and confused and frightened and lonely otherwise. Death cannot be worse than that. Yet, it tore me up. Know that should it come to this in your life and with your animals...that there will be someone aching at the task they must perform for your convenience. I do it because someone must...someone who cares. Someone must be gentle and apologize to them for you...must tell them they are beautiful and special and that things will be better for them on the other side. But it sucks. And it eats my soul. I can only hope that upon my own death, I am not met with a mob of angry animals.





There I am, right in the dead eye. She was a pretty cat, to me.

The Why and How

This work is certainly a nebulous, everchanging thing... in the way of how one deals with it.
The esteemed Doug Fakkema sums it all up.

Any thinking person, when faced with the same issues every day, is always trying to come to terms with the big Why. In our case, Why must we contend with the same problems day in and day out?

My idea of Why changes from time to time.

My current Why, the reason why animal sheltering is necessary, is simple:
Puppy and Kitten Addiction.

It's more complex than that, but that's it in a nutshell. That mentality is reflected in lots of areas in society, really. New is better. Pretty is better. Exciting is better. NOW is better. Fewer people are of the mindset of investing time and work into anything, whether it be relationships, cars, homes, work situations, education. Pets are no exception. And something about the face of a baby anything makes many people stupid and shortsighted. When I am in a room with a needle and syringe in my hand, putting to sleep a stereotypical big, strong, undisciplined, dominant 2-4 year old unneutered male dog who has indicated a distinct tendency to maul the hand that feeds, this is what I think about and feel anger about. I know that there was a point when that dog was a cute little puppy, and someone was impulsive in their sea of "AWWWWW!!"s, in their puppy lust. I know they goo gooed and bought large amounts of toys and treats for the first several months. I know also that they never took the time for good socialization and training, nor made the effort to discipline. I know it came time to neuter and they chose not to spend the money, just as they chose to remain passive in discipline. Fast forward a couple years, Baby Huey has become a monster and gee, the owner is "moving." Here I am cleaning up the "mess." We can't risk our 130-something years' existence, our function of helping thousands, just for this one individual...this giant, walking bite risk. One skilled lawsuit would eradicate us. So here I am, needle in hand. It eats at me. And what I also know is that the person who turned the dog in is sleeping soundly at night, ignorantly believing that there are people out there who are not consumed by reckless puppy lust, who would be willing to put their family and neighbors at risk by adopting a big, macho, grown up time bomb, people game to put in the exhaustive work to rehabilitate it....and that these mythological, benevolent and capable people will happen to walk into our shelter some sunny Saturday and "fall in love" with the drooling snarl of the beast in Run #11. This belief is stored in the brain next to the one that so many have...that there is some magical "Farm" where all animals go and live and romp forever in harmony. And no doubt the turner-inner is already dreaming of their next cute wittle puppy. And several Saturdays have come and gone, with 60%, easy, of visitors leaving after a cursory stroll to see if we have any small-breed puppies kicking around somewhere. We don't. The dog in #14 was a small-breed puppy, fresh from Hunte Corp. three years ago....too bad now he's a dominant little shit with balls like walnuts, ready to take your toddler's face off over a dropped Cheerio. Er, uh...or should I say, his owners were "moving." So many people start edging out when they hear there are no puppies here. A friendly mention of some nice young adults we have brings a glaze to their eyes.

I see the same when I stand in the cat room. Each face...each 5 year old given up for "moving", and who will sit here for months, meowing for their food in the morning, while kitten after kitten gets adopted.....they were once a kitten, too. I imagine them, adult face morphed into baby face, rewind 5 years....tiny face peeking out of a box at a flea market, or even from the cage bars of our own shelter...the soundtrack is always the same: "AWWWWWW!" (the sound of Hell itself). And now, the face not even worth a glance to most people. How short the distance between the cuteness of kittenhood...the fun of making your own lolcat .gifs, the glee of buying toys...to adult cathood. I prefer the latter, and thankfully some others do, or else we'd never get our adults out. But still...each time I look at a shelter cat's face here, now, waiting, given up...I only see a kitten, once worshipped. Now fallen.

Thankfully, we rarely must resort to euthanasia of our own animals. Thankfully, once in a while and sometimes in wondrous spurts, folks do come along and see something special in an adult animal. Thankfully, too, conscientious people come in to adopt a puppy or kitten with the well-thought-out intention of committing for life. That is as good as anything...each kitten in a lifetime home is one less adult cat ending up in the shelter system in the future.

What is the Answer? Spay/neuter seems to be. Obviously. But, I ask: if society is leaning more and more towards a sense of individual entitlement and instant self-gratification (can anyone deny this?), won't there continue to be a demand for cutewittle puppies and kittens? A reduction in population but an increase in demand....how will that work? Hopefully I am wrong.

Skeletal Pathos

This has happened twice in the past few weeks. Both times were pit bulls, coincidentally. Euthanasia, I feel, is the most important part of my job, hands down. Fortunately, we are a private shelter and not a pound, which means that when we are full, we have the luxury of saying so. The euthanasia of our own animals is not frequent and is soley based on physical or mental suffering or bite risk/liability. That explanation is for another day.

On any given afternoon, euthanasias generally are what we call DPOs, or "Down Per Owner", as opposed to DPS, "Down Per Shelter." I am it for euthanasia- the only one there now who can do it or prepare for it. I am the one who talks to the owner, if they want to be present. It varies, just like people's emotional displays vary. It can be draining, the counseling part. I explain, give the sedative, prepare them and their pet...and then our director, a former equine vet, comes in for the injection. That's just a formality. He'd be the first to tell you that I am the better shot. But it looks better to have the whole nurse/doctor thing going. If they drop-off (which I never understand), then it's all me. And in a way, it's better like that. It's a private thing, and other than the owner, I'd rather it just be me and the animal.

The reasons are generally warranted. Almost always illness and old age. End stage cancer. Sometimes aggression. Those are hard. That is a hard decision to come to. It is very courageous and responsible to step up and make this decision rather than dump a dog at a shelter without full disclosure and put not only other people and other animals at risk...but an entire shelter at risk for future liability...and the dog in question at risk for a life of misery. Sometimes we are wrangled into euthanasias that are seemingly more for convenience. The lines are blurry. Nothing is black and white. But, that is for another time.

Recently, though, have come two very upsetting situations involving pit bulls, spaced by a couple weeks. Both were very well-loved. Too loved, in fact. Both made it to a ridiculous age...16 and 17. Both would easily have been prosecutable cruelty cases had we come upon them in other circumstances...like if a concerned neighbor had called us. Both arrived comatose and absolutely, horrifically emaciated and dehydrated, attended by owners who were in such a state of hysteria that everyone was uncomfortable. Both were scheduled as "routine" DPOs....old dogs whose time had come. In each case, when the paperwork had been done, and the dog was brought into the exam room, jaws dropped. I have never seen anything so skeletal, alive. How to speak to the owners? You are, on one hand, so cognizant of the human-animal bond...I mean, it is our life's work. You can understand how people can love their pets and have difficulty letting them go. But on the other hand, here in front of you is blatant neglect in the fullest definition. "How long has he been like this?" "Did you take him to a vet?" Both situations yielded disturbing answers. If you love something so much that you are in hysterics...and mind you, this is not a traumatic, acute situation but a progressive one....how can you let things go so far?? A.) You've had several more years with this animal that most people get with theirs, since most dogs make it to 13 or 14, max. B.) You have to have seen the dog melting away like an ice cube for the past few weeks. It should not come as some insurmountable shock that death was near.
Perhaps I speak from a more pragmatic point of view, since this process of letting go is so familiar to me.
But I cannot fathom letting my animals or my loved ones get to the point of looking like Auchwitz victims in a coma and not doing something.
It's an odd point of balance in the moment, to gently make a point to the person about being more proactive in the future, yet still remain compassionate. They should know that this is not acceptable, yet they still deserve our kindness at this dark moment in their life.
These are hard. We have prosecuted people for allowing a dog to get even remotely to that state without intervention. The only difference is that the owners of these two pit bulls came to us, and we were not called out to them.

I can still feel the washboard of ribs under her dry coat, the hip bones like carved cups. Thick, yellow mucus filled her eye sockets under sunken, glazed eyes. She must've once weighed 50-something pounds but was now 20, according to the husband. Occasional breaths were the only clue that "life" was still within. It was horrible. For all they give us, we owe them a dignified end. To keep them medically comfortable when illness and age set in, and to let them go when suffering begins. This was not dignity. It was pathetic. The wife was outside having a breakdown. The husband left the room. My boss, one of the kennel girls, and I looked at each other, still incredulous and sickened. Then I set this poor dog free. I kissed her cheek as I injected. It was like kissing a bare skull.

I hope I never see a dog so thin ever again. Or if I do, it will be in "Evidence" photos.