Foster doggie #4

Sophie. Cattle dog-samoyed mix.

She has a lot of fur.

And she attacks the television and hates blinkers.

Otherwise, she’s fairly normal.

Hopefully the title says enough to warn people but I will amend it to say that I plan to be fairly graphic and you have been warned, read at your own risk, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I have been putting this writing this off because a.) I wasn’t really ready to deal with it and b.) I didn’t want to post it on or before the one day that most people try to be all spreading of good cheer and stuff. I did decide against posting it protected because I think people should know that their actions have results and that sometimes, other people have to take responsibility for the actions of other people.

Enough moralizing.

We killed Gracie on Friday, December 21st at about 5pm. It was my second wedding anniversary.

I left work early (330pm) because I knew the Friday before Christmas would cause traffic to be the suck. It took me about an hour to get home and when I got there, Josh was already home and was getting ready to give Gracie the 5 sedative pills that would be necessary to get her to the vet and hopefully to allow the euthanasia to go as calmly and easily possible. The pills were placed in velveeta cheese – a delicious treat that Gracie had never had and absolutely loved. The first set were in one ball that she was tentative about taking but the second set she devored with more pleasure than I’d ever seen her take in her food.

That puts us at about 430pm already and as the drive the vet’s office is about 20 minutes or more depending on rush hour traffic on a holiday weekend, we kenneled Indiana and got Gracie ready to go. She was very nervous in the car – she always was and nothing really ever made her less nervous about it. She was yawning by the time we got to the vet but definitely not sedated. The vet expected her to be borderline unconscious but the sedative literally only took the edge off of Gracie’s utter terror at going to a new place. Josh and I managed to get her in the door to the vet’s by some shoving and some cajoling but she wasn’t happy – she was already scared. That fear was compounded by the family with the weiner dog standing in the entrance (off topic but the weiner dog had an enormous cock!). We went to the side and the front desk staff allowed us to go around to the room through the back as Gracie’s fear was clearly evident to any dog person – just from being in a new place and near new people.

We got her into the examining room and the vet assistant took a peek at Gracie and noted her extremely awake and agitated state. This necessitated two things a.) a muzzle for Gracie so she wouldn’t bite someone in her terrified state and b.) a muscle relaxant shot to make sure that we wouldn’t have to physically restrain her while she was being euthanized. Josh and I muzzled her, we backed her into a corner and the vet gave her a huge shot of sedative in the rump while Josh restrained her. The muscle relaxant was fairly horrible to watch. Her eyes were absolutely terrified but there was no muscle cooperation. I would estimate that within 30 seconds she had lost control of her tongue and within another 30 seconds, she was laying flat out on the floor, unable to move.

The vet laid out a towel on the examination table and picked her up and put her on the table. He and the vet assistant left to go get the barbiturates and the razor. Josh and I both stood there, petting her and trying to reassure her, but you could feel the terror emanating from her. Her hearts was racing and her lungs were laboring – but she couldn’t move or even blink. Her tongue was laying on the exam table.

The vet and the assistant returned fairly quickly and they shaved her leg, found a vein and warned us that the barbiturates sometimes cause dogs to lose bowel control, to shake or convulse or bark once or twice. Josh and I stood there, offering what comfort we could while the vet quickly injected the barbiturate into her leg vein. Her heart stopped within 10 seconds or so. The vet removed the needle and wrapped the injection site with medical tape to control the flow of blood from the wound.

As we left the office and even still, all I could think was that this was the most horrible thing that I had ever done.

There are people who do this every day. Multiple times a day. Vets, animal control officers, anyone who has worked for a large rescue group.

It’s hard enough when it is a physically ill or injured dog that is in pain and would likely die anyway but when it is a dog like Gracie, a good dog who had only bad breaks her whole fucking life? Can you imagine? I cannot.

And why do these people have to do it? Because, especially in cases like Gracie’s or the cases of other animals that show up at the pound and whatnot – someone didn’t do their job. Someone didn’t fulfill their earlier responsibility to Gracie.

She needed training and socialization from an early age – not an attempt after she was already 9+months old and already terrified of everything. Dogs need to be introduced to new things at an early age and as often as possible. They need to be treated like dogs – to be a part of a pack and to be trained in what is expected of them before they become a danger to themselves and to others.

Please, if you have a dog or know someone who has a dog, especially in this season where so many people want to get or give puppies – make sure they understand this. Make them read this or one of the multitude of heart-wrenching stories of what happens to puppies when no one works with them. Socialize them, train them and then love them.

Nothing at all.

On foster dog #3. She’s a monster. She appears to be a cattle dog/pointer mix. Possibly some Great Dane in there too, I’m not sure. She’s big, she’s awkward and she’s a mess. She has GREATLY improved in the three weeks or so that we have had her but she still needs a lot of work.

She did $25,000 worth of damage to an apartment complex when she was locked in a bathroom and broke a pipe, flooding the downstairs apartment.

She is also unsocialized to the point of terror at all new things – people, cats, dogs or ANYTHING that she hasn’t encountered before on the walks that I have been dragging her on. She was intially afraid of the sky, the grass, rocks, dirt, birds, the baby pool, garbage cans, sprinklers, lights that turn on when you walk past them…the list goes on and on and on….

Of course, aside from NOT bothering to socialize their dog and locking her in the bathroom, the people who surrendered her to our rescue also taught her NO manners. She is a nibbler, a jumper, a counter surfer and an all around spoiled dog. She is an 8 month old dog that behaves like an 8 week old puppy. No discipline and no rules!

We’ve improved the situation greatly but she still has a long way to go. I’m hoping that by February I will feel comfortable adopting her out…

Aside from the dog (Gracie is what we have decided to call her, her name was originally Beautiful which she is NOT, hence the change), not too much of interest.

Went to Vegas right before the dog came.
Work is busy.
Got a pedicure before Thanksgiving.
Going to Martinis and Manicures tonight – though no martini for me as the smell of alcohol makes me retch, still!

What of excitement is happening in the rest of the Xanga?

Weather is good though – 73 and sunny today!