renovation

It's a discussion that's making veterinarians and pet lovers cringe: do-it-yourself animal euthanasia by owners.
The topic is being widely discussed on the Internet — one of those "networking capabilities, like bomb-making, that could have awful results," says the ASPCA's Stephen Zawistowski.

"It's not something people should do," he warns. "There's a reason veterinarians go to college for eight years." Anyone without that training doesn't understand "there's nuance and many details to consider" when putting an animal down peacefully, including age, size, condition and other matters. Furthermore, untrained people "have no secondary systems to fall back on" if something unexpected happens.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...e_N.htm?csp=15

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clutchy

i hit a baby raccoon once and i felt so awful. It was still alive and wheezing but i couldn't bare to run it over and finish the job so i left and ... well i cried a little. I felt horrible.

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Napoleon54

Well christ, that was a regular occurance in my formative years. I can think of at least three occasions when my father dispatched the family dog with a shotgun. All it took to earn that doom was to chew on something or another, be it a sneaker or a table leg.

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Daedalus

That's truly horrible. Suddenly your avatar is less surprising, if not less disturbing.

Prngr44

No way in hell I could do this.

Kind of along Nap's line, another friend who lived on a nearby farm had barn cats.... when his dad thought they'd reached the limit on barn cats, if any of the females had kittens, he'd toss 'em in a feed sack with a cinder block and chuck it into the lake.

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WhiskeyPapa

Dispatching critically ill or injured farm animals was quite common when I was a kid. While my dad never had to do that with a pet, it was not an unusual practice at the time.

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whitealexander

depends.. well i guess not... even if my pet is in deep pain.. only god can take life...

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eSDee

I doubt that putting an animal down via shotgun like Nap's dad used to is what renovation is really talking about. I think that the people who consider this as an option are people who love their pets, and want to put their animal down in the most loving way possible. Some vets already travel to the homes of pet owners to do euthanasia of a pet in a place that their pet is familiar with.

I have never done that myself, but I can see why people would do that. When my pup died last year she was in the hospital. I wish I could have been there when it happened, so I can see the benefit of doing it at home. I think the real question should Joe Sixpack be able to do it in his home after reading something the on the intarweb, and put their pet through terrible pain rather than alleviating it.

whitealexander, don't forget that vets have to put down animals daily. I hear what you're saying but I think that it's different with animals.

I guess I would suggest that trained professionals be required to do the euthanasia at home via injection only. No shotgun allowed Nap

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InfiniteNothing

Out of curiosity what do you do with rodent infestations?
Are you a strict vegetarian?

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MrGreg

Plants are alive, too, ya know. Maybe he's an oxygenarian.

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zenbooty

Molecule killer!

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InfiniteNothing

My next question was about antibiotics. Nutty people fascinate me

WhiskeyPapa

Since you brought that up - why do you suppose killing mice/rats is socially acceptable, but killing kittens and puppies is not? How about rabbits? I used to shoot at least a dozen rabbits every summer in our garden. They're fluffy and cute like kittens.

gwilks98

rumor has it my farm-raised grandfather dispatches squirrels by drowning them in a water filled trash can. Their crime: eating his garden tomatoes.

I think killing mice/rats is acceptable because it's viewed as an infestation, and killing is a necessary step in controlling the infestation.

And I don't think humans will ever be allowed to euthanize their pets using medication. Wouldn't the risk of abuse be too great? Could you imagine your kids getting a hold of it?

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