Animal Lover Or Easy Solution - You Decide

The BBQ Pit
1

Here’s a scenario:

A husband and wife have a couple of kids and a dog. The dog is the wife’s property; the husband considers the dog to be “his wife’s.” The dog has a medical history of epileptic seizures. The dog is prescribed medication to treat his condition and that medicine seemed to help.

Over the course of a weekend, the dog suffers repeated small seizures. On the following Monday, while the wife is at work, the dog suffers grand mal seizures for 9 straight hours. The husband doesn’t take the dog to the vet during that time.

Once the dog does get to the vet, the vet gives the dog medication that knocks him out. The dog stays at the vet for 2 days. The husband repeatedly mentions that the dog will need to be euthanized if (a) the hospitalization continues or (b) the dog suffered brain damage.

The dog is released from the vet and brought home, where he continues to recover from the strong doses of medication. During this time, he’s kept in the basement, where he soils the carpet with his urine and feces.

Quite miraculously, the dog recovers. He begins to walk around and eat and shows signs of getting his mental capacity back.

In an apparent effort to help the dog “re-learn” his environment, the husband lets the dog out into the backyard of the house, which is not fenced. The backyard abuts a wooded area, which steeply declines to a rocky creek bed. To the husband’s amazement, the dog is able to get through the woods and then falls down to the creek bed below, where he is ultimately rescued by animal control. After the dog is rescued, the husband thinks to himself: “If there isn’t some dramatic improvement (such as him being able to go outside and go to the bathroom) in the next couple days, I’m going to have him put to sleep. My family and I can’t live our lives centered around caring for an incontinent, mostly invalid dog.”

Two days later, the wife reports to the husband that the dog is showing even more progress and is eating, running, jumping, etc. The dog is essentially back to normal. The husband comes home and decides to give him a bath. The husband puts the dog outside while he gathers the hose and soap. The dog goes into the woods, down in the creek bed, and disappears.

Here’s the poll:

Is the husband in our story:

a. An animal lover who is to be commended for doing everything he could to save this dog; or
b. Someone who is looking for an easy way out for a problem dog and conveniently manages to lose him in the woods a second time, quite possibly for good.

2

Seriously? Dude, the answer is b.

3

Here’s a link to the thread, for a bit more nuance.

4

What? It was B by the second paragraph. And in my book, B is pretty generous. The terms I would use to describe the husband would be a lot harsher.

5

You really need to read the thread. The OP here has put a bit of spin on it.

6

Good lord, I would say so.

Okay, to the OP, I feel tricked. I did just now read the other thread after Contrapuntal linked to it. While I still have some opinions and questions about the way the situation was handled, I would assume that if the poster who wrote the thread wanted my viewpoint, he would have asked for it. Instead, he was asking for some support, and I’m glad he got that in his thread.

7

Was the handling “ideal”? Maybe not but I think most people would have euthanized the dog after the first day. (Not saying that’s a bad thing–but probably a very common response.) I think for this dog, it would have been death or what happened in the thread. I suppose the OP could argue that death was definitely better than what happened, but I can’t blame the dog’s owner for wanting to do their best and exhaust all options before having to put their pet down.

8

Yeah, no shit. I think this thread would do better if moved to the pit.

9

Agreed.

10

So… anyone have a thread link to explain what axe the OP is grinding, or should I just chalk it up to petty malice?

11

See post #3.

12

Unless I missed something – or there’s sock puppetry involved – the OP never posted in the other thread.

13

Yes, he’s posting about the thread.

14

What’s the spin?

15

But he didn’t put the dog down. He allowed the dog (who was recovering from a near death experience and, apparently, was all better) to get away TWICE where he would presumably be allowed to die.

16

Sure, it sounds like FGIE made some errors in judgment when he let the dog roam, and it may seem to some that he was overly pessimistic (or even eager) about having Riley put down. Remember, though, that there are some serious emotions surrounding the impending death of a loved one.

When my mother fell down last December, she went in and out of the hospital several times in a few months; her blood pressure crashed, she had, at various times and in various combinations, pneumonia, C. dificile diarrhea, antibiotic diarrhea, urinary tract infection, yeast infection, and possibly septicemia. Her alertness and mental state varied enormously. Constantly in my mind were two things: she was very close to dying, and she was opposed to lifesaving procedures that would prolong suffering. I might very well have had to argue with my siblings and my father that it was time to refuse treatment, and I was constantly weighing her condition, her mental state, her express desires, and my own feelings. That doesn’t mean I’m a bad son. Nor does it make FGIE an unloving dog owner that he was mentally preparing himself to make the same decision for Riley.

Another emotional aspect of this situation is the unfairness and helplessness of it. When we are responsible for a problem that we did not create and cannot control, we sometimes focus on surrounding elements that we can control: we can’t stop Riley from soiling his bedding, but we can wash it. That focus on the peripheral can blind us to changes and possibilities in the center; we find that imagination fails us, that we don’t anticipate things like a semi-ambulatory dog wandering off. That we can predict this scenario does not prevent it from happening; nor does our comprehension prevent us from feeling like shit after the fact.

Nor, apparently, does it prevent heartless condemnation from some asshole in the cheap seats.

17

C. An asshole.

18

OK, now I just read the linked thread. Wow, way to distort the situation. :rolleyes: The example in your OP bears no relation to what **FoieGrasIsEvil **is going through.

19

Forget the whole letting the dog wander off thing, I went with C. Asshole way before we got there.

No animal lover–hell, no civilized human being-- would sit there and watch anything spend 9 hours in status epilepticus without trying to get some help. I mean, was he hoping the dog would seize itself to death and he wouldn’t have to bother with it?

20

Again, where is the distortion?