Rollo's Food for Thought blog about animal cruelty got me annoyed at idiocy again.  I'm not an animal abuser and my family's pets are kind of like little furry retarded members of the family.  It does, however, freak me out about some people's ideas about animal cruelty.

The example I took exception to was shooting your animal would be considered cruelty.  I've never shot my own animal, but once I wish I had.

I had an australian shepherd that was a great pet.  I got her when I was a bachelor and lived alone so she was very well trained.  I had her totally trained with hand signals like the herding dog she was.  At 13 she developed a breathing problem from her nose.  I took her to the vet and he said she had some kind of blockage in her sinus.  We took X-rays and it turned out to be a huge tumor in her head. 

Now that she was 13, I was married and our daughter was about 4.  This was a beloved pet.  The vet said that they could do brain surgery on the dog and it had a fair chance of success.  Due to the size and placement of the tumor it would cost several thousand dollars for the surgery.  Beloved pet or not, several thousand dollars to prolong the life of a 13 year old dog by giving it a questionable quality of life for a short time didn't seem like a good deal to me.  The vet was shocked when I said, "absolutely not." When he brought up the idea of financing the operation due to my good credit, repeated, "absolutely not."  He looked at me like I was a monster.  The idea that I wouldn't invest that kind of cash in a dog that didn't have a lot of milage left in her was a horror to him.  I mean, fuck you, doc.  You think having an old arthritic dog with brain damage pissing all over itself in my living room is a good end to a good dog?  Fuck that.

I asked if it made sense to take her home or put her to sleep immediately.  Once again, he was repulsed.  She was alert and didn't seem to be suffering too much, just having some trouble breathing through her nose, so I took some medicine for her and brought her home.  She was still eating, going for walks, shitting in the yard, and being a pet so all was well for a while.

Less than a week after my visit, the tumor in her head burst.  She started sneezing uncontrollably and bleeding out of her nose, eyes, and ears; right in front of my 4 year old daughter.  Every sneeze was sending out a bright red spray of gore on my walls and carpet.  My first impulse was to shotgun her in the back yard.  BOOM!  off to a better place, puppy.  But I didn't do it.  I'd shotgunned a dog once before (topic for a future blog) and it makes a hell of a mess.  It's also impossible to bury an animal in central Texas without a backhoe or jackhammer.  So I put sheets down in my car and rushed her to the vet.  There was blood all in my hair, on the ceiling of the car, and the windshield by the time I got there.

I walked in and said I needed my dog euthanised.  They said they had to weigh her.  "Why?  Are you afraid you'll give her the wrong dose?  Give her the works, I'll pay extra."  I was told they charge by the pound to dispose of your dog's body.  I snapped my fingers and pointed at the scale and she hopped up, hemorraging and sneezing the whole way, well trained to the end.

I went in the room to hold her while she got her lethal injection.  The doctor shave her arm, put on a tourniquet, and gave her the shot.  He grunted, threw the syringe in the trash and walked out.  Now my dog starts trying to get up.  I'm trying to calm her down, but she's agitated and in pain still trying to get up.  After about 60 seconds of this I lose it.  "What the fuck?  I've got shit under my sink I could've shot her up with that would kill her quicker.  Pine-sol and bleach would've put her down in seconds."

The assistant says, "The doctor missed the vein, he's getting another shot."

He missed the vein and gave her a shot into her tissues where it apparently burns like lava.  Motherfucker.

He comes back in, shaves her other arm, puts on the tourniquet, and gives her the second shot.  She dies in seconds.  I either break a chair over his head and go berserk, or just walk out and never come back.  Those are my choices as I see them.  Since I'd already paid, I just left without a word.

For you literate guys out there, I felt like the old man in the bunkhouse in Of Mice and Men:  "A man ought to shoot his own dog."

I could've walked her outside and pumped a load of 00 buck in her head and it would've been lights out.  But instead I took her to the source of all dog anxiety (the vet) and had somebody botch her euthanasia.

Somebody explain this animal cruelty concept to me...