Even among the hardcore it doesn’t come up that often. 
Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?
She has my blessing to feel as disgusted as she’d like. As for trying to prohibit something just because she doesn’t like it and/or finds it disgusting, no blessing. Now where does ethics come into it?
I’ve done it to two cats. Both times the vet asked if he wanted me to do it or him. I took them home so that they could have proper burials. The involuntary muscle spasms were hard to watch but I don’t believe that either of them felt any pain.
Conceptually it’s not unethical, but potential errors could arise with the actual execution.
Just an FYI: some vets will make house calls for this purpose. If you can’t do the deed yourself, it may be worth looking into this if you see the time approaching. Also, you can ask for a separate sedative injection ahead of the lethal one.
It’s perfectly ethical, practical, and humane. I agree with **thelabdude **about this trend that everything must be done by a professional. I find it annoying that people are no longer even willing to attempt simple tasks by themselves anymore, even with instructions on how to do practically anything available on the internet. But I digress.
I actually admire your friend for having the strength to handle this task. That is one of the DIY things I don’t think I could personally manage, though. It’s just an image I don’t want with me for the rest of my life. If there was a clean way to do it without the actual blowing out of the brains, I do think I could and would home-euthanize my pets when necessary.
When I worked at an emergency animal hospital, we would occasionally get calls asking us how best to put down a pet. It pained me that a lot of these animals might have recovered if the owners could afford treatment (this was often the case for animals we put down as well), but it didn’t pain me that they were doing the euthanasia themselves.
pkbites, your sister-in-law is confusing ethics and squeamishness. If it is acceptable for a veternarian to kill the pet, it is ethical for your friend to do so in a similarly swift and relatively-painless manner. It’s silly to pretend otherwise.
What you call hardcore, I would call brave and admitting the truth of the situation to oneself rather than hiding behind euphemisms and the acts of others.
If pkbites’s friend were to take his old and ill dog to the vet to have it killed there, he would be just as responsible for its death as he is when doing it himself. The only difference is that he is not attempting to deny his responsibility or hide the ugliness from himself.
Why does that make him a less attractive friend?
I don’t think what the OP’s friend is doing is unethical.
I personally find it disturbing, but I acknowledge that I am a city slick and would probably find most ways of dealing with livestock on a working farm to be disturbing.
I would not be able to kill one of my companion animals unless it was an extreme situation as Vihaga described. It’s difficult to kill a living being that you love. I couldn’t do it unless I knew without a doubt that there was no hope of recovery and I was saving my animal from agony. Even then, I’d probably puke and cry for a week.
I don’t mean that it makes him a bad person. It’s just that this kind of person is probably from a very different world than I am. You know, a world where people hunt their own food and are the kind of rugged folk who built this country and all that. When I kill a bug half the time I’m too freaked out to dispose of the body. I’m sort of wussy/prissy about most things. I don’t think I’d be able to identify with someone from that way of life, is all.
Yes, we used this option for our dog because she was terrified of the vet. We didn’t want her last moments to be fear. The deed was done on her bed with us sitting next to her petting her. It was very, very hard, but worth it. It also cost about $125 extra.
With this dog, my husband had talked about doing it himself and in the end decided he just couldn’t bring himself to shoot his beloved dog. His dad did it to their family dog when he was a kid and his dad said it was one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
I’d only worry about getting a clean shot. I’ve heard horror stories about misses. One in particular stands out - the dog moved suddenly and the owner shot the dog’s lower jaw off instead. The dog was in pain and bleeding everywhere and the owner had to try and get it still so he could finish it off. That would traumatize any normal person, and is certainly not humane.
The next paragraph may sound insulting. I don’t mean it to be, but I can’t think of an entirely neutral phrasing, so I will just say that I’m not trying to mock you and apologize in advance if you find it offensive. Also, the questions I ask are not rhetorical; I am trying to gain information, not make a point?
Do you honestly think your squeamishness is a good thing? Do you think being “a wissy” or “prissy” makes you someone superior to those made of sterner stuff? If so, why? If not, why does that person’s non-squeamishness make it harder for you to identify with them?
I hope I don’t come off as condescending or overly-self-pleased with the above. I’m far from perfect. My oldest friend is a critical care nurse, a job I am entirely too squeamish to perform. But the fact that she is stronger than me in that way doesn’t make it hard fro me to identify with her; it makes me admire her.
I don’t think it makes me superior or inferior. It’s just who I am. I mean, I’m sure a lot of those rugged types who kill their own supper and put their animals down would probably not want to be friends with me.
I guess it’s kind of like that episode of Sex and the City where Carrie has doubts about dating her Russian boyfriend because he is a lot more hardcore than she is–he can kill a mouse with a frying pan! He’s OK with death! (Talking about how Samantha might die when she gets breast cancer.) Etc.! I just need someone who will be able to better identify with my…squeamishness.
Plus, I don’t think I even live somewhere where the kind of person who’d kill their own animals would be. People talking about shooting their animals–it sounds very Old Yeller, rural, etc. I live in a city and I can’t really imagine anyone saying they just up and shot their sick animal. It would be so out of place. It’s more something I can imagine being done in theory, but not in real life.
Like how lisacurl put it, it’s a reality of life but not one that a lot of people personally want to deal with. My idea of hardcore is going a week longer than I’d like for waxing or living in a place without a nearby Sephora.
It’s just who she is. You know the saying “If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen?” The one everyone keeps bantering about?
Well, some people know they can’t and have enough sense to stay out of the kitchen. Thankfully we live in a society where it is possible to do so.
I’ve put down a few sick cats and dogs on my uncles farm. The level of attachment was totally different. These animals stayed outside, slept around our chicken houses. The cats hunted rats in our barns and chicken houses. They kept us company while we worked during the day. But, they never came in our houses. They were dirty with ticks and fleas. They were farm animals. We cared for them, feed them well, and occasionally petted them. When they got very, very sick, my uncle or I put them down quickly and painlessly as possible with a .22. Most of our dogs lived at least 8 to 10 years.
My house dog now is part of the family. He sleeps in our bed. We watch tv together on the sofa. I’m much more emotionally attached to him. He’ll get the best treatment at the vet that I can afford. Someday, the vet will put him to sleep. No way would I do it.
I wasn’t trying to criticize Freudian Slit: just to understand her. I was wondering if she were like one of those people who will insist that hunting one’s own food is immoral, while simultaneously eating steak tartare. Which she seems not to be.
I grew up on a semi-working farm. I saw my dad shoot our 16 year old lab. We’d had her from 1980, when I was 6, to 1996, when I was 22. It was really hard to see, and really hard for my dad to do, but I’m convinced she would have suffered much more on the 30 minute ride to the vet. She hated the car and she hated the vet. She didn’t appear to suffer at all from the shot, it was over instantly.
I also think any animal owner that lives in a rural area should know how to quickly and painlessly dispatch an animal, in case of emergency.
It may be more ethical to do it yourself. When I took my first cat in to be put down she woke up after the 2nd injection and looked me in the eye with a distressed look.
It seems eminently practical and fine to me.