Eulogy

This story was originally published on my vet school blog, “Wet Cleanup on Aisle 5.”

Mr. Bones was a wire-haired Vizsla, with a tuft of golden hair atop his head, expressive green eyes, and a whiskery beard that gave him the look of a wise old man.  He was a bit timid, but it didn’t take him long to warm up to you, and when he did, he would dole out tentative little dog kisses with his warm, wet tongue.

He spent his last two days on death row.

Mr. Bones’ only crime was having had one too many staph infections.  When his owner also came down with a life-threatening staph infection, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to jump to the conclusion that Mr. Bones might be the carrier of an horrific strain of bacteria.

It might have taken a rocket scientist, however, to convince Mr. Bones’ owner that Bones wasn’t necessarily the source of the harmful bug, seeing as how staphylococci lurk pretty much everywhere, and the types that like to live on people vs. dogs are often not the same.  Rather than jump to hasty conclusions, it would be wise to determine whether the strain of staph that Mr. Bones carried matched the strain of staph that almost cost the owner her leg, and her life.

Apparently the owner’s doctor didn’t see it that way.  He managed to convince her that Bones was a dangerously lethal germ-carrying machine, despite our attempts to prove otherwise.  So Mr. Bones was left with us, and our task was to euthanize an otherwise healthy 4 year-old dog.

His last two days with us were happy ones, filled with unexpected treats, rousing games of fetch, and lots of forbidden foods, including part of a chocolate cupcake.

As we took him to meet his end, he stopped when he saw our resident clinic cat.  Mr. Bones flopped onto his belly so as not to be intimidating, stretched his paws out in front, and wagged his whole body, wanting to play.  He was a good dog, and a few more treats found their way into his mouth before we let him go.

While I mourn the loss, and continue to question the morality of euthanizing healthy pets, I try to remind myself of three things.  One, if I were in the owner’s shoes, without a thorough understanding of staph, and relying on my physician to provide that knowledge to me, I might have come to the same conclusion she did.

Two, try as we might to change the owner’s mind, she was absolutely unfazed.  If we had refused to euthanize Mr. Bones, she would have taken him to a vet that would.  Better that he go surrounded by people that loved him.

And three, close to 10,000 homeless pets are euthanized every day, most for no good reason other than that our society still considers every species but one expendable.  At least Mr. Bones had a good four years, and at least he died a happy dog.

His ashes are under the big tree out back.