General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I hope everyone who thinks it's OK to "just breed her once" or "just buy one dog" reads this all the [View all]OwnedByCats
(805 posts)First one was back in 2005 because he was dying of acute liver failure and he was going to die anyway probably that day, so instead of just leaving him to die at the vet's office I chose to euthanize him. He was essentially in a coma, so it seemed, but just in case he was suffering I had it done.
The second was just last December. He had advanced stomach cancer, there was nothing the vet could do for him so when he began suffering, I had him euthanized. It was probably the hardest thing I ever did, and I have done some pretty hard things in my life, but that was the worst. With my first, he suddenly became ill and he was already at the vet when I made the decision. With this one, when I got the diagnosis, he wasn't suffering yet so I actually had to choose when it was the right time. Taking him to the vet knowing he wasn't coming home broke my heart in a million pieces. I'm still pretty sad about it, having a hard time figuring out the best way to grieve. I have at least stopped crying every day, but it's still incredibly painful for me.
Now I had read about things that can happen during the process, it's scary to read. Luckily for me and my two cats, it couldn't have gone better both times. First the sedation, then the barbiturate - both passed quickly and peacefully. No reactions from either and no loss of bowel or bladder.
I think some "no kill" shelters do contract out euthanasia. I once read an article, I believe it was Reader's Digest, it had asked different vets questions about things, and while I don't remember the question and why this was mentioned, but one vet said that some of these "no kill" shelters will ask vets to perform euthanasia, because they don't perform the euthanasia themselves they can call themselves a no kill shelter. That seems so very wrong to me. What difference does it make who does it? If they ask someone else to do it, does that not make them a kill shelter anyway?
I agree that we should adopt animals, at least until we can get the population under control - which God only knows when that will happen. I keep waiting for there to be enough responsible owners out there to change this problem, sadly it doesn't seem to be going away, even though in the US alone we euthanize millions of homeless a year. When are people going to learn?