Enough Love

When I tell people where I work, at a humane society, the answer I get back is, “Oh I could never do that, I love animals too much.” The other answer I get is, “Oh what a fun job.”

Those that answer the first way, “I could never do that,” are most likely talking about the euthanasia. The other half ‘What a fun job,” will never have a clue.

Last week, I don’t recall which day; I put to sleep several dogs. I specifically recall two of them.

The first was so sweet. I don’t know what her name was and I don’t know what her breed was. What I do remember, was that even as she took her last breath, she was still kissing my face. Her paw was still in one of my hands. In my other hand, a syringe with the needle still in her vein. Her tongue was wet and she was so excited licking and licking. She didn’t even notice the prick in her arm. Within seconds she fell to the side in the arms of my assistant as he gently laid her on the floor. You see, she wasn’t a bad dog. She wasn’t an old dog. She wasn’t a sick dog. She wasn’t even an ugly dog. We simply had, and still have, more dogs than we have room for. More dogs than there are homes for. Are there more dogs than we have love for?

The second dog was a dog that had bitten. He had been in a kennel in our quarantine area for ten days. Serving his “bite hold” period, each day we would feed him and clean his kennel. We (by law) are not to handle the animal until the quarantine period is up. Each day he would sit in the back of his kennel and shake. He would cower when you walked past his kennel and curl his lips and growl when you would slide a dish of food in his cage through a cracked open door. To get him out we had to put him on a rabies pole. It’s a long stick with a noose on the end. It allows us to handle the dog without having to be close enough to get bitten.

Once we had him on the pole we gave him an injection in his muscle. It’s a sedative that will allow us to safely get closer.

After a few seconds the dog becomes groggy and his eyes turned red. He can’t stand on his own and he doesn’t seem to notice that we are taking the noose off his neck. He is now drugged enough that we can handle him with out any safety tools. My assistant holds the dog close to him to support the weight the dog can no longer hold. The first human touch he has felt in over ten days. Although drugged the dog is aware of what is happening to him. He looks at us and knows that it’s human voices talking to him, telling him he’s a good boy, rubbing behind his ears, kissing the top of his nose.

As we love on this dog for a few moments before we take his life I can’t help but wonder what made him the way he is. What sort of life did he have before he ended up here at the shelter? Was he ever loved as much as he was in this moment? Did he have a warm bed; did he have food and water? Had anyone ever told him he was a good boy?

When people say they love animals too much to work here, I don't blame them. They don’t know. It takes a lot more than love.

Amy Pierce