Did I kill your dog? Or did you??
Euthansia….You know, it’s such a taboo word. It even sounds sooo ugly. It actually means "good death." I don’t know about that? It really depends on who’s doing the euthanizing. If I’m the one doing it I totally have to change my frame of mind. I think to myself******This is my dog and we are taking him to the vet to be put down. I hold him and comfort him. I talk to him and tell him everything is going to be ok. If it’s done right it doesn’t take long at all. A few seconds, maybe a minute. I spend my time holding that dog.*****I close my eyes and picture him running in a BEAUTIFUL field. I picture him meeting up with another dog he knows and they run off together. No more pain, no more rejection, no more hunger, did I mention..... NO MORE PAIN!
I think as humans we reflect are human feelings into these animals. I DON’T CARE!! I hope to always feel happiness when they get adopted or rescued and pain when they don’t. There are people…a lot of people who are totally desensitized. I hate being with them when it comes down to being in the euthanasia room!!! I understand that is their way to cope..I get THAT! I still feel and will always feel like we should set our pain and hurt to the side because in the end we are still alive and they are the ones that are dead…ya know?
So for all of you people who drop your dog off and think " Titus will get adopted." Ummm, he more then likely won’t! He will sit in that cage and wonder why the hell he is in here. He will hate us at first because he has no clue who we are. Then one of the few of us that care will try to work with him. He will still growl at first but after the second or third day he comes around. He will let that one person who decided to work with him take him out and he will start to trust her. Then the decision makers come through. They look at Titus and he won’t come up to them, he doesn’t wag his tail at them and since he seems scared he gets the big red "E" on this paperwork.
This "E" doesn’t stand for excellent. This "E" stands for euthanize! Because in their eyes he is just not adoptable and we don’t have the time, resources, or volunteers to make him adoptable.
Then his day comes and some other stranger comes to his cage. He has a leash in one hand and and a catch pole in another because he doesn't know if this particular dog is aggressive or not. He tries to get the leash on but Titus growls at him. So he puts the catch pole around his neck and pulls Titus out of the cage. Titus has NO idea where he is going but he walks with him with no more problems. Titus is then put on the scale and weighed. They bring him into the room and you better believe when I tell you that every dog knows what that room is. The smell of death is unmistakable to them.
He starts to get scared because NOW HE KNOWS! The workers procede to check him for a microchip just to make sure one wasn’t missed when he first came in. If that’s all clear, they muzzle him and put him on a stainless steal table. They grab his leg but he instinctively pulls it back. The worker grabs his leg again, a little harder this time and procedes to find a vein. The needle is put in and the blue juice is slowly put into his vein. His eyes get wider and he licks his lips because he is starting to taste it. Then the life leaves his eyes and he is gone forever.
IF YOU PEOPLE THINK IT DOESN’T EFFECT US….YOU"RE WRONG!! It must be nice to be moving in your "no pets allowed" apartment, or to give up your dog because "he got too big? or you have a new baby and the dog "just doesn’t seem happy anymore" or your house isn’t big enough!!!! Now I get to handle your responsibilty. I get to feel this huge guilt because I couldn’t convince anyone to give Titus a second chance…I couldn’t SAVE him!!
Then I go home and argue with my husband because he has no fucking clue what I’m going through or what I feel. I look at my dogs (all of whom I adopted from a shelter) and I think " Man! You could have easily been Titus and not made it." I can’t picture anything any one of my dogs could have done to justify their previous owners bringing them to that death camp!
Then I go to sleep and dream about Titus and I hope he understands that I tried and that I’ll miss walking him everyday and hope he's there to meet me at the Rainbow Bridge.
