This gave me a flashback to when I was 14 and interning for a week at the local vet.
Super eventful week where I got to observe operations on animals with everything from handball sized tumors to cysts and even one or two castrations.
Got to go with the vet to slaughterhouses and farms and all that jazz.
I also got to assist in euthanizing a dog and I think that was what made me second guess a career as a vet.
I still think I would have loved that type of work, but in my naive little mind, I thought that euthanasia would be done only out of mercy and necessity. If the animal was too old, too sick or too injured to save.
But I was wrong. It was an 8 month old puppy. I don’t know the breed, but a smaller dog. Very energetic. He was so happy and excited. The owner came and dropped him off and didn’t make eyecontact with either the vet or me. He left, almost ashamed.
I asked the vet what was wrong with the dog and either the vet didn’t give me an answer or I have forgotten what he said.
To my 14 year old self, that dog looked completely healthy and normal. Why were we putting him down? I kept asking if we really had to do it. Couldn’t we figure out a way to let him live and the vet let me know that euthanasia was what was going to happen today.
He asked me to hold the dog. He was such a happy puppy. I held him and he was very hyper. First the vet gave him sedatives. “Then he won’t feel anything.”
The puppy calmed down in my arms and I hugged his warm little body. I didn’t want it to happen, but I was 14 and had no rights to the dog.
The vet filled a syringe with a neon purple liquid and I will never forget that because I didn’t expect it to have a color like that. As an adult, I’m sure the color was to distinguish it from other fluids so that the vet would never accidentally push that shit into an animal that came for shots or sedation. But 14 year old me didn’t know that. Just looked at that purple syringe as he pushed it into the dog and the dog became heavy in my arms.
I didn’t cry because I grew up in the countryside and had already seen my fair share of births and deaths which are both brutal experiences, so I had an emotionally distanced approach to these things.
But I gotta say that it left a deep impact on me that I had helped killing a dog that looked so healthy and happy. I didn’t think I could do that for a career. There was no mercy in killing an animal that had barely gotten to live and was so happy to exist. And maybe there was something wrong with him that I was just too young to understand or not allowed to know. Maybe he just looked healthy but was actually really sick. Maybe the owner didn’t leave so much in shame as he left out of grief.
I’ll never know. But from my perspective at the time, it was just so wrong to kill something just for the sake of it.
It’s over 20 years ago now and I still remember the warmth in the dog’s body and how heavy he became in my arms. He was brown and white. He was such a happy little guy. I don’t even know what his name was, but I’ll never forget.
If I had to guess that sounds like a parvovirus case.
Thanks for sharing , heart breaking stuff. I always like to assume good intent, and vets generally do their jobs because they love animals. So, I’m guessing parvo - super contagious and fatal.
Sad stuff though.
I slept next to a Parvovirus infected puppy to make sure it survives, and it did. I don’t see the reasoning.
Yeah, I could never say if you’re right or wrong, but yeah. I want there to be a reason and not for it to have been an owner who just wanted to get rid of their dog, so I’ll think it was parvo from now on.
As for the vets in that clinic, they were very nice people. The one who euthanized the dog was an incredibly nice and empathetic man and he took me under his wing all week while the other was a hardcore surgeon and he was utterly hilarious and very intimidating. Which is a great combo, I suppose. I have no doubt these guys cared about the animals they took care of.
My best experience was probably the big operation on an elderly dog with a huge tumor that grew out of the spleen. It legit looked like the tumor was a grey, smooth rock and the spleen was a shriveled slug sitting on top of it. It was incredible witnessing them work on the dog and it took such a long time. Afterwards the intimidating vet took me out to the sink and cut the tumor in half and left me look at it inside. It was one of the ugliest things I had seen. Just all grey and hard and alien and the smell of it was something I have never smelled since. I can best describe it as a cold smell. I dunno.
I was tasked with babysitting the dog after it woke up from surgery. He was so scared and confused and kept snuggling up into my arms despite being a fully grown lab. I made sure he ate some food and got something to drink, but he kept ending up snuggling up against me and wanting kisses and hugs. It felt like i was comforting a little child who was crying. He was such a sweet dog. He was 9 years old and was named Rico. The family that owned him had a bunch of kids and I understood why they had decided to spend all that money to save him instead of putting him down because he was too precious. He was so loved. That tumor was huge. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to carry that around in his body.
Anyways, I loved that dog even though I only got to spend a day with him where for most of it he was unconscious and split open like a hotdog, lol. I legit got to see all of his insides because the tumor was so big, they had to cut him open all the way. They poured water into him before closing him back up and holy shit, so many layers of tissue and skin to sow before calling it a job done. If it wasn’t for the euthanasia of the puppy, then the operation of Rico, would probably have convinced me to become a vet.
Usually, putting a dog down is mercy. We have a dog with Degenerative Myelopathy. He is happy but can barely keep his butt in the air. I’ve been pushing my wife to let him go, and give him release. She isn’t ready and she will never be truely ready. How could you be?
But a dog that can’t, run, jump, play or go on walks? The dog needs to go, he might be happy to see you of course…but will never be able to do what dogs love.
I put my girl down a year and a half ago. She was an eight year old rottie that loved life, Loved kids and loved me. She had cancer growing in her brain/snout that was making her angry, agitated and a danger to others. Could I have waited a month or two longer? Maybe, but she wasn’t happy anymore so it was time. I paid for an autopsy because I wanted to know, the cancer was everywhere in her skull/ muzzle taking up 1/5th the brain cavity.
Holding onto her for longer was unfair to the years of happiness she gave me. In the end I couldn’t be selfish and had to let her go. So maybe try that route with your wife? It was the hardest decision I ever made and I cried all the way to the vet and thought about turning around a couple of times.
Why is she smiling?
Someone used a stock photo of a dog getting a normal shot next to some text about euthanasia?
Oh that actually makes an amazing amount of sense
Fido has shit in her slippers for the last time!
It’s weird that we can do this for animals, but lethal injections for people are often painful and inherently unreliable.
The people who care about executions being humane are generally opposed to the death penalty. People who support the death penalty generally want suffering to be inherent to the process. Only limit is whatever the Supreme Court deems “unusual”. Cruelty is allowed by the Constitution as long as it is “usual” cruelty.
In states that have death penalty (and federal when we have a president who supports death penalty), it’s the pro-death penalty groups - the ones that want it to cause suffering - that get to pick the process.
It is absolutely possible to give a lethal injection without pain, eg in the case of euthanasia where it is allowed.
The people who are educated to do it properly are doctors, who refuse to do it against the will of the patient.
So those who do lethal injections for the death penalty don’t have the necessary education.
And the type of people who choose this job likely enjoy it when making people suffer, so they don’t even try to minimize it.Can confirm, my country has doctor assisted suicide (as in, they hand it to you to swallow, or you or someone you appointed picks it up from the pharmacy), and it’s very reliable and painless.
Up here in Canada a dr administered some sort of solution in a needle. Did it with my father.
Some half assed googling yielded this…
“there are significant differences between the way pets are euthanised and the way lethal injections are administered.
First of all, the typical three drug “cocktail” used in lethal injection is actually illegal to use on animals in most of the states that use it for executions because it is considered too inhumane. Almost all euthanasia by injection in the US is an overdose of barbiturate (sodium pentobarbital), which was originally used as an anesthetic agent. The animal being euthanised slips into unconsciousness very quickly, then the heart stops shortly thereafter. In humans, the 3 drug cocktail consists of some type of sedative followed by pancuronium (a curare derivative that causes paralysis but neither unconsciousness nor pain control) and finally a dose of potassium chloride to stop the heart.
Outlawing the use of barbiturates for lethal injection was a political decision made in the 1970s by politicians who did not want to be accused of treating human beings like animals. Disapproval of the use of curare derivatives for surgery or euthanasia in animals started in the late 1800s. But goodness, no one wants to be accused of treating a human being like an animal!”
Other reasons cited was that the human version is not produced on a mass or routine basis since demand is so low and the drugs can be old and may have lost potency…
I don’t know - just grab the horse version when it’s my time and send in the vet!
Here’s a quick video to add, giving the reasons for the 3 drugs. https://youtu.be/aP7rP6_OxKI
While it may not seem too bad on the surface, there is relatively high failure rate of 7.12%, which is pretty alarming as most of them were doses (of any of the drugs) that weren’t high enough. (Some may even have been intentional)
I don’t know shit about this, but my guess is because we are bigger than dogs (for example). I might be wrong though.
I am going to say there is probably a reason why we decided this kind of stuff should be a careful balance of just enough chems to kill you rather then a bottle of “overkill”
She’s smiling because of what the dog is doing with his tongue.
End of life peanut butter
What’s bad, dog?
Dogs recognizes emotions well. Some dogs can even tell emotions by smell alone. That is why they are good emotional support animals.
Or this is just an example of a terrible use of stock images being published out of context
Yeah the stock image was probably taken when the dog was getting a routine vaccine or something 😅
It is. All anesthetics used for euthanasia (mostly barbituates), that I know and recall, are either given via IV (in a vein) or IC (directly into heart). Nothing other than certain vaccines or just fluid are given subcutaneously.
Yea, the vet tech pointing the sharp end of the murder drug at his hand while he injects… esh.
That’s actually the correct technique for a subcutaneous injection. You have to tent the skin with 2-3 fingers so that the needle can get under the skin layer without going too deep.
Are you supposed to be injecting pentobarbital subcutaneously? Pretty sure I remember it being administered as an IV
The picture is of a vaccination though, not euthanasia. It’s a random stock image chosen by someone who doesn’t have any practical medical knowledge.
This would be a more apt image…
But, yeah barbituates are only IV or IC (intracardial; mainly for small animals like hamsters)
what If I identify as a dog? can I use it
