Tips to Putting a Dog to Sleep With Love and Feeling
October 17, 2007
The question of putting a dog to sleep or euthanasia whether for man or beast is a highly sensitive individual specific issue. On the one side there is non-interference with the workings of Nature but on the other if that were to hold true perhaps we would still be living in caves. Is it right to do away with the dog that is decrepit, old and no longer a bouncing ball of joy? The decision is entirely yours.
Once having taken the decision of putting dog to sleep simultaneously arrange about its home/cemetery burial or cremation. If you feel that the last hours of the dog will be stressed in an impersonal clinic, make arrangements for it to be done at home.
Putting your dog to sleep involves intravenously administering of an overdose of anesthetic (sodium pentobarbital) of purple or blue colour. This painless method has led to the phrase of – ‘putting the dog to sleep’. It works instantly. The colour has been added for reasons of safe identification. Even before withdrawal of syringe the dog becomes unconscious. Death follows soon after.
There may be some deviances because the reaction of one dog differs from another. Occasionally the twitching may continue for sometime before the body stops. It is not alarming as the brain of the dog has already stopped understanding and feeling. It is only the reactions of the body and the dog is definitely not fighting to stay alive.
Another method is injection of T-61 that blocks the muscles causing paralysis and pain. Most vets frown on it.
Shooting is an alternative of putting a dog to sleep but it raises many questions. It is inhumane and disrespectful to the pet. There might be accidents with the shot maiming but not killing the animal. The question of owning firearms arises. But why should a farmer pay an enormous sum to kill his dog when he can very well do so with one single shot on his own land?
One of the best alternatives will be to poison the favourite food of the dog so that last thing the animal knows is the heady smell of what he loved most in life.
The question of putting to sleep stray dogs that languish in shelters becomes a very costly and sensitive issue. Perhaps more dog shelters could be built with the money saved on putting it to sleep.
Thus no matter which method you decide upon to putting a dog to sleep, do make sure that is not inhuman or cruel!
Comments
Got something to say?
