How the “no kill” movement may be conning you
The obstacle that arises with many hot-button issues, such as animal welfare and advocacy, is that extremism often arises within the cause, which then causes a large divide between groups who work on the same issue. The focus of the cause is then shifted into amassing the most information to prove which party is “right” and which is “wrong”. Any possible solution to the issue are lost in the blame game and the truth often lays somewhere in the middle. Whether it’s getting lost in translation, or whether there are just simultaneous truths on both sides, is the question. And it is a grave injustice to those benefitting from the cause when the two sides don’t work together. It is not about who is “wrong” or who is “right”. It is about what is; right now. What is the is of the situation?
Anyone can spin a truth to serve their beliefs and their agenda. Why, when both parties truly care about animals, do they turn against one another? Most extremism that I have encountered has occurred out of putting emotions before logic. Emotion is always present in advocacy issues, and should be present; if it weren’t for emotion, people wouldn’t care about the issue in the first place. But often times, those who shoot to one side of the extreme or the other, are being reactionary, not logical, and so are often not employing the most effective management strategies.
The easiest thing to do is mobilize groups using emotional tactics. But that is not necessarily the best thing to do, and can often times serve to harm the cause. For instance, I have had numerous emails from my readers who work for county/city shelters which euthanize, that report people saying that they will not donate to, or adopt animals from, that particular shelter because they have read about the “no kill” movement. Let me clarify; there are those in the “no kill” movement who work with shelters to create better programs. Then there are groups of the “no kill” movement who have done nothing but smear shelters by publicly posting shelter pictures and twisting the context of those pictures to serve their agenda. What occurs from that is that they mobilize a group of people who are easily swayed because they already have a tendency towards knee-jerk reactions. These types of people often quickly jump on a bandwagon without stopping to question the research, or thoroughly educate themselves on the issue.
And what is the result of these extremist “no kill” strategies? It is actually causing animals to die. Because now that shelter that is losing money, and losing adopters, is being faced with fewer adoptions which means more animals housed, and fewer resources. How can a shelter even consider being proactive, when they are forced into being reactionary?
The extremist “no kill” movement has conned and manipulated the public by shifting back and forth between two main contexts, but using the same label for both. They are targeting both “kill shelters” and those who work for “kill shelters”, but pursuing both as one unit, and that is a gross fallacy. They are over-simplifying the issue by lumping together the physical act of killing, and the mentality of those who work for “kill shelters”. That is, they are operating under the assumption that because one works at a kill shelter, that they prefer this method, think it is the best method that will ever be possible, or are simply too lazy to employ any other methods. They ignore the fact that shelter workers can be “no kill” in their morals, goals, ethics and beliefs, and still work for a kill shelter. In other words, shelter workers don’t want to kill. They just recognize that it is the option that is being employed to best manage the drastic overpopulation problem that is occurring now. It also doesn’t mean that they don’t want to work towards the same goals as the “no kill” movement. It means that they are assessing what is.
Shelter workers are not defined by the actions that they carry out. They are not defined by the fact that they euthanize animals. To simply chalk them off as “animal killers” is to take one part of what they do, and label that as who they are. By doing this, their personal goals and commitments to furthering progress and solutions to this problem are stunted by how they are being classified. It is effectively quieting the voices of those who care for animals more than most – the voices that have a lot to say, and that are open to solutions. They are being accused and prosecuted in the public court of opinion, instead of being recognized as those with the best input.
And that is one of the biggest injustices to animals that I can think of.
Voices From the Front Lines
I am tired of being told that a euthanasia technician is not “no-kill.” We need those geniuses who are solving all the overpopulation problems to assist us, not denigrate us for co-opting the only system currently available. We’ve been finding homes for animals just as often as we’ve had to kill them, so don’t tell me that just because I accept euthanasia as an option, that I am NOT no-kill. No healthy adoptable animals should ever have to die just because no one shows up to take them to “rescue.” In my experience, many of those “rescuers” are also known as “hoarders.”
-Tami Harbolt-Bosco, Louisville, KY
Voices from the Front Lines
People presenting animals on intake exist on a continuum, sort of like the Purina scale.
0: Zero compassion/clue factor. Surrenders cat for not matching couch; returns puppy after one night of whining. May then insists on having the pet euthanized. Later on, it turns out to be the ex-SO’s pet.
0-1: Sanctimonious “compassion”: Unwilling to foster/adopt but always willing to complain about those who do. After discovering likely fate of sickly feral litter personally brought in, R/P declines to foster kittens a few weeks as R/P will be too busy writing letters and/or calling another shelter to report animal cruelty.
1-3: Liars: Surrender, for example, dogs bonded to them while claiming not to have any idea who these dogs are.
1-3: Rationalizers: Glib and very PR-like on intake. By far the most common category: It’s not fair that Carrot is stuck in his hutch all day, that Spot has no room to roam where his owners are moving, that Kitty won’t get the attention she needs now that the new baby is coming. It’s not fair, so let’s just drop the animals at the shelter and consider that our good deed for the day.
4-5: Can’t/don’t want animal: State that they are surrendering due to a human change of circumstance. They’re usually moving or have allergies or are getting/got a new baby, usually.
6-7: Can’t keep animal they want: They tell you on intake that their cat is medical-needs and they just got laid off and can’t afford the cat anymore. You don’t have the heart to tell the lady what’ll happen. She knows anyway. She’s crying and and later on in the kennel you hear the cat crying too, like a baby.
8-10: Owner present: Sometimes it’s one owner, looking discordant in the middle of a workday, crying, in line with his little cat kennel or his arthritic dog. Sometimes the whole family (of age) comes in. Saying goodbye to your pet at the end of life is among the most compassionate actions there is.
-anonymous
How a shelter dog defended his life…and won
For each heartbreak that we have in animal welfare, we have many happy endings. And it is those happy endings that keep us going in the tough work that we do. They are that “light at the end of the tunnel” that gives us a little glimmer of hope that the work we do is not in vain.
This happy ending story starts with a chubby, cheerful, little American Staffordshire Terrier mix. He was a short, stalky, squatty, dog that looked more like an overgrown piglet, than an actual dog. He made happy little grunts when we took him out for his walks, and cheerfully pushed his head into our laps to soak-up the attention that would ensue from his plea for head-pats. He had been in our adoption kennels for about a month, and had truly done his best to charm the pants off of passers-by who had come to peruse the kennels. Unfortunately this little guy had a few things working against him. First, he was an adult with many puppies available for adoptions around him. Second, he was mostly black and generally black dogs have a harder time getting adopted. Third, even though he was an American Staffordshire Terrier mix, he had that blocky head that many equate with a Pit Bull. This little guy was up against some big odds.
After about a month, our adoptions kennels were full, and we had more dogs coming in that were ready to be put up for adoption. At times like these we have to clear space in our adoptions kennels, which unfortunately means that adoptable animals have to be euthanized. Sadly for our chubby little friend, we usually chose to euthanize the dogs that had been there the longest.
That particular day, it was me and another veterinary technician, Tara, performing the euthanasia’s. Usually there was one person in charge of doing the actual euthanasia and a second person in charge of retrieving the animals slated for euthanasia that day. On that day I was performing the euthanasia injections, and Tara was pulling the animals. We were just at the end of our unusually long list, and were both mentally and physically drained. Tara left to get the last dog for the day, while I prepared to draw up the euthanasia solution. I tried to put myself into a very clinical, non-feeling, frame-of-mind, because I knew that our final dog of the day was our cheerful, chubby, little friend in the adoptions kennels.
Sometimes thoughts can creep in that you try to ignore, but can’t. Thoughts like, “He is probably going to be so excited when she takes him out of the kennel because he thinks he is going for a walk, but he has no idea that she is walking him to his death”. I used to torture myself with those thoughts frequently. I bitterly plunged the needle of the syringe into the bottle of euthanasia solution, going on one of my then-common silent rants about having to clean up society’s discards, and assuring myself that I would someday live on a deserted island with no people, just my animals. Seeing the worst of how people treat animals on a daily basis has a tendency to make you a little resentful towards the general public.
Just then, Tara started to walk through the doors of the euthanasia room, with our cheerful little friend in-tow. One thing that I always did when I was euthanizing was put the previously euthanized dog on the floor, in the corner, wrapped in a towel. I hated to put them in the “dead freezer” right away, for fear that I would inadvertently do so when one was not yet deceased. I knew logically that was silly, because I could always listen for a heartbeat with my stethoscope. But I suppose it was a practice that made me feel better. Unfortunately, this time, I was somewhat careless and a paw from the previous dog was showing beneath the towel. Our cheerful little friend happily pranced about 3 feet into the room, saw the paw of the deceased dog, and immediately whipped back around and ran to a kneeling Tara – hiding his face in her lap and shaking. When Tara tried to get him to turn around, he planted his feet firmly down, and would start to bare-down on the leash. He wasn’t budging. Tara looked at me, wide-eyed, and I knew exactly what she was thinking. It was like he knew exactly what was going on. I threw the syringe full of euthanasia solution down on the counter and said, “I refuse to kill this dog”.
Tara and I put him in a holding kennel near the euthanasia room while I began to make frantic phone calls to other rescue groups and shelters. Unfortunately, most rescue groups are breed-specific, taking pure breeds only, and many shy away from taking anything resembling a Pit Bull because they are hard to place into new homes; even if they aren’t Pit Bulls. I finally called an SPCA that was a few hours away, in hopes that we could do what is called a “shelter transfer”. This is where privately-run animal shelters, such as Humane Societies and SPCA’s, will take a dog from another shelter, usually a county or city-run facility, if they have more room.
I spoke to my contact at the SPCA and explained the situation to him. I relayed what happened in the euthanasia room, and told him that I just didn’t have it in me to put the dog down. He agreed immediately and said that he and another shelter representative would be down to our shelter within a few hours to pick up our chubby little friend. Sighing with relief, I hung up the phone and ran off to tell Tara the good news.
Our chubby little friend was eventually adopted by a single woman in Berkeley who needed a companion to keep her company. We ended up naming him “Presto”, after a family friend of mine who is an attorney. I felt that he had done a pretty good job of pleading his case. And he won.
The ugly little bunny
The middle-aged man who pulled into the parking lot of the shelter, at which I worked, that sunny day parked his car, got out, and carefully removed a 2′ x 3′cardboard box from his trunk. Having just started out in the animal welfare field, and being the ripe old age of 19, I naively looked at him sympathetically as he walked in, assuming that anything in a cardboard box pulled from a car trunk on a hot day must be deceased. But what I saw in the box made my jaw drop.
Inside the box, packed from bottom to top like a pile of packing peanuts, was a huge pile of baby guinea pigs and baby bunnies. The ones on the bottom were dead from heat or suffocation, the ones in the middle were barely alive due to extreme temperatures of the car trunk, and the ones on top were extremely warm and listless. Thankfully, one of our animal control officers was at the front desk as well, and he immediately began questioning the man while I grabbed the box and ran back to our health check room.
Once there, another shelter worker and I began digging through the box and pulling out the live animals that we could find and placing them on the linoleum floor to gradually start to cool them off. As I sat there, lining the shallow-breathing babies up one by one, I silently wondered where, in between apathy and callousness, did this man’s brain shut off?
Out of the several dozen babies, we were able to save a handful. The problem was we were already full of rabbits in our pocket pets room. So there sat two baby bunnies, peering up at me through the red wire transfer cage. One was a soft fluffy brown little bunny; he looked like he was right off of a Hallmark Easter card. The other….well, she was albino and scraggly with thin, white fur that was causing the bright pink skin poking through the thin white fur to emphasize her bright red eyes. I’ll be honest; I’ve seen cuter rabbits – like the one that was sitting next to her.
I told my supervisor that I would like to foster the brown one since we didn’t have much space for more rabbits. My supervisor told me that I had to take both. “But the other one is not going to get adopted, I guarantee you – she is scary looking; she looks like Bunnicula!” But my supervisor shook her head. “Sorry, you want one then you have to take them both.” I sighed and looked back at the tiny duo, now trying to nibble their way out of the wire cage. “What is the harm?” I thought to myself, “I will only have them for a few months anyways.” I picked them up and transferred them into a crate to take them home. “Hopefully you have a fantastic personality,” I whispered to Scraggly Little White Bunny.
I took them home and put them in a large dog crate so that they and my cats could meet each other with a safe barrier between them. When the cats and bunnies got used to each other, I let the bunnies out to investigate. Cute Brown Bunny immediately started racing around the room, exploring everything, and starting trouble with my bewildered cats. Scraggly White Bunny hopped over to me, sat down, and burrowed her face into my leg. “Ah, so you’re a snuggler”, I said, gently picking her up, “Well maybe your personality will get you adopted after all”.
That was 12 years ago, and just 3 years ago, I laid Cute Brown Bunny, who came to be known as “Mr. Bun”, to rest at the age of ten. And Scraggly Little White Bunny? She became my “Snuggles,” a huge, beautiful, Rex bunny with velvety thick, curly fur and affection for cuddling. I laid her to rest 2 years ago at the age of 11. I miss them terribly as they were a fixture in my life for so long: moves, school, boyfriends, break-ups, job changes, celebrations, holidays. My rabbits were always there.
Anyone who says that rabbits don’t have personalities just haven’t paid attention close enough to see them. Their personalities are there: they just don’t smack you in the face like that of a hyper dog or an obstinate cat. Theirs are quieter, calm. And yet, they leave a huge void when they’re gone. Little did I know that day 12 years ago that a cardboard box pulled from a trunk would contain two bunnies who would be my companions for over a decade. Little did I know how much those 2 tiny bunnies would hop their way into my heart. Little did I know that an ugly little bunny would grow up to become a beautiful white rabbit.
Voices from the Front Lines
Yesterday I stood in my vets office as a man came in and gave 2 newborn, listless kittens to the front counter clerk. The clerk was giving me “the look” and I knew she wanted me to say something, but was not sure of the situation so I said nothing.
The man left.
As the clerk quietly handed the kittens to a tech she turned to me with a look of anger and sadness. She then explained that the man comes in over a period of time, every year and drops off kittens. Often he just drops them on the desk and leaves without a word, or leaves them on the floor when the office is busy and runs off. She was hoping that since my rescue partner and I were there that we would talk to him.
Over time the staff learned that the kittens are from his own cat. The vet has made a standing offer to spay his cat for free. It has been made very clear to him that the kittens are in bad shape and that the kittens are euthanized.
He will not have his cat spayed because he “doesn’t believe in that.”
-anonymous, State unspecified
An interview with Patricia Smith of the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project
Compassion Fatigue is a condition that afflicts many people who are working or volunteering in the animal care field. If gone untreated, it can have detrimental effects on those afflicted by it. Sadly, many of those who have this condition may not realize that there is an actual name for it, and that it can be treated. They may feel that it is just a realm in which they are living as a result of doing the work that they do, without any commonalities shared by others in their field.
The point of my work is to show other animal rescue workers that there is a comminality, and that by hearing experiences from others in the field, it may resonate in a way that can help begin the healing process. A way for those who are feeling hopeless, depressed, and lost, to see that they are not alone.
Patricia Smith is the Founder and Director of the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project©. The mission of the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project© is, “To promote an awareness and understanding of Compassion Fatigue and its effect on caregivers.” Patricia is a certified Compassion Fatigue Specialist with more than 20 years of training experience. She writes, speaks and facilitates workshops in service of those who care for others in all caregiving professions. She took the time to answer some questions for Confessions, to explain Compassion Fatigue, and to offer guidance to those who feel they may be suffering from it, and those who want to ensure that they don’t.
Confessions of a Euthanasia Technician: What inspired you to take this specific direction with your work?
Patricia Smith: In 2002, I was hired as the training and development manager for Humane Society Silicon Valley. My first project was a shelter-wide compassion fatigue training. I had never heard the term “compassion fatigue,” so I was very interested to find out more about it. What I learned changed my life as I realized more and more I suffered from it for many years. The shelter-wide project was very successful and when American Humane asked me to come onboard as a compassion fatigue consultant, I left the shelter and traveled for a year presenting compassion fatigue workshops. It didn’t take long to see how wide-spread this distressing syndrome was among caregivers. Soon, I was branching out to all helping professions. Along the way, I started applying authentic, sustainable self-care practices to my own life and saw my symptoms decrease dramatically. When this started to happen, I realized I had something to share. My son created the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project (CFAP) website for me, and the rest is history. We now receive 50,000 hits a month from caregivers all over the world wanting to know about compassion fatigue. This work is the most satisfying work I’ve ever done.
CET: What is Compassion Fatigue?
PS: Compassion Fatigue is a secondary traumatic stress disorder. The display of symptoms is the natural consequence of stress resulting from caring for and helping traumatized or suffering people or animals. Compassion fatigue is a set of symptoms, not a disease.
CET: What are some common symptoms of Compassion Fatigue?
PS: The set of specific compassion fatigue symptoms include:
o Bottled up emotions
o Impulse to rescue anyone (including animals) in need
o Isolation from others
o Sadness, apathy
o Often feels the need to voice excessive complaints about co-workers or management
o Lack of interest in self-care practices
o Recurring nightmares, flashbacks
o Persistent physical ailments
o Prone to accidents
CET: Do you find certain types of people, or certain predispositions, are more susceptible to develop compassion fatigue?
PS: Helpers in all professions are at-risk for compassion fatigue. There are many things contributing to developing compassion fatigue – the main one being unresolved past trauma and pain. Dysfunction within the family unit can create trauma and suffering for developing children. We all survive dysfunction by playing different roles. Some become peacekeepers; others become caregivers. While others choose to just check out and withdraw from the drama. As we develop and grow, if we don’t come to terms with the trauma we experienced during our formative years, we learn to deal with the inner pain by “stuffing” the difficult emotions or attempt to “deaden” the pain with drugs, alcohol, food, tobacco or other unhealthy addictions. As a result, the trauma and pain remain unresolved. It is within this unresolved pain and suffering that compassion fatigue takes hold.
CET: Tell us a little bit about the concept of “Self Care” and how it pertains to prevention and treatment of compassion fatigue?
PS: Those of us who suffer the ill-effects of compassion fatigue are most likely “other-directed,” which means we put the needs of others before our own needs. This is something we learned at a very early age due to lack of healthy role modeling by the adults in our lives. When required to become adults at a very young age, we develop an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. When this pattern takes hold, the notion of “self-care” isn’t present. Since we are “other-directed,” we fill the needs of others. This unhealthy pattern leads to a lack of applying daily self-care practices. Eventually, this lack of devotion to our own lives leads to anything from money/debt problems to health problems.
CET: I know that Compassion Fatigue can present itself in many different caregiving professions. Tell us specifically about Compassion Fatigue as you have witnessed it in the animal care field?
PS: I have the upmost respect for those who work in animal welfare. Society’s disregard for caring for and protecting animals makes this field, in my estimation, one that is fraught with compassion fatigue. So many of us enter the profession thinking we can make a difference only to find the challenges are insurmountable. We enter the field because we love animals and, ultimately, euthanize what we love most – sometimes due to a simple lack of space. In Tami L. Harbolt’s landmark book, “Bridging the Bond: The Cultural Construction of the Shelter Pet,” the author makes this observation:
“My personal experiences working in an animal shelter for the past several years have led me to believe that people are drawn to sheltering work out of more than simply a desire to help animals. Many of the people I met in this community had experienced various forms of oppression, either in a familial, societal, or biological way. This experience of oppression led many of these workers and volunteers to develop a heightened empathy for animals as victims, based on a perceived experience of shared oppression and suffering. I will suggest in this book that people are drawn to animal shelter and welfare work because it is highly dramatic, intense, and characterized by joyful highs and overwhelming setbacks. And it satisfied some need in people, not only to control their social environments, but also to rearrange their legacies of disenfranchisement.”
Sadly, my years of working in animal welfare have led me to believe this is true.
CET: One of the pieces of advice that your organization gives to facilitate the healing process is “Choose your battles.” Can you expand upon the concept of “choosing your battles?”
PS: If, in our formative years, we parented the adults in our lives, we never learned the concept of personal boundaries. We became hyper-focused on others in order to fill their needs as they arose. We became so enmeshed in the dramas created by others that we never were able to keep our boundaries in check. In other words, we never learned where we started and others left off. Everything melded together in order to survive our unhealthy environments. As we aged, this lack of personal boundaries led to the inability to make good strong decisions. And also an inability to understand we have limited resources such as time and energy. Healthy decision-making is a skill. In a field such as animal welfare, the challenges are overwhelming. Those of us at-risk for compassion fatigue tend to think we can attack all of the problems – all of the time. The first step in regaining our health is an awareness that we do have limits- we can only do so much. Looking at the big picture in a healthy way, we recognize our greatest strengths and talents, and make the decision to choose which “battle” fits our resources. Once we are able to put our energies into making a difference in one area, we start to feel empowered and successful. Soon, we begin providing care from a place of abundance rather than a place of constant depletion – which is compassion fatigue. There was a study done that tells us if we DO ONE THING (DOT) we will have a 93% success rate. If we DO TWO THINGS – that success rate drops to 53%. That is amazing information! Choose one battle and our chances of success are very good. And the best part is our little animal friends will benefit.
CET: A lot of animal care professionals find themselves in a situation where they are far progressed in the condition, and not at a point where they can even pin point what, if anything, is “wrong”. Perhaps they are at the point where they are feeling completely lost in despair, hopelessness and depression: what do you believe is the first critical step in beginning their recovery and restoring balance in their lives?
PS: It is so very sad to see this happen in well-meaning, caring helpers. I don’t think we can experience compassion fatigue without sensing something is terribly wrong. At least that has been my personal and professional experience. Unfortunately, the bottom line is this: When someone is suffering from the symptoms of compassion fatigue to the point where they are basically not functioning, they need professional help. This often means removing themselves from the caregiving profession and, somehow, taking time to recover with the help of a mental health professional. I receive emails from many people in the situation you have explained– and they instinctively know if they don’t remove themselves from the “front line” they are not going to survive. Many change professions; many stay in the profession, but remove themselves from the trenches. Actually, that is what I finally had to do. I jumped from the proverbial frying pan into the fire when I left animal welfare work to work with terminally ill children. When I left that job, I was so compassion fatigued I was hardly functioning. Now, I work in health care, but I’m not in the hospitals. I work in the corporate office where I do public relations. I feel I am still a “helper,” but I protect myself from the trauma and drama I experienced in my previous jobs.
CET: How can someone who may be fairly new to these types of high-risk for Compassion Fatigue protect themselves from this condition?
PS: Three ways: education, education, education. When I found out about compassion fatigue, I felt such a strong motivation to tell others what I had learned. That is how the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project started – I felt an overwhelming need to educate others as to what I had learned. The information changed my life and I wanted others to know there was a way out of the quagmire. There was hope and a healthy, fulfilling life ahead. There are so many wonderful people now who are doing this work like Dr. Beth Hudnall Stamm who created the Professional Quality of Life Compassion Fatigue Self-Test (www.proqol.org). This measurement is the best way for us to monitor our progress in overcoming and managing compassion fatigue. I take the test several times a year to be sure I’m still on target. Unfortunately, compassion fatigue never goes away. It always lies dormant and if we’re not vigilant about our self-care practices, the symptoms will creep back into our lives. It has happened to me many times, and when it does, I reaffirm my commitment to myself to get right back on track with my self-care plan. It works every time. Dr. Beth and I offer all of our website materials free of charge to anyone who wants to help others. All we ask is that you give us credit!
CET: And, of course, we have to ask! Do you share your life with any fuzzy animal companions?
PS: Oh yes. The love of my life is Mitchel, a wirehair fox terrier. I adopted him from the shelter when I worked there. My plan was to save his life when, indeed, he ultimately saved mine. I have attached a picture of my little love.
Vegas’ Song
I recently found out that I have Synesthesia. Essentially, my senses are cross-wired. I see my numbers in colors, certain smells have human names, and certain colors have tastes. I only recently discovered this because I mentioned something to my fiance that he found odd: I asked him what color he saw his numbers in. It never occurred to me that others didn’t perceive things the same as me. Now that I know my way is not necessarily how everyone perceives things, I am more conscious of where I do this, and when I’ve done this. Synesthetes describe their sense in a language that most wouldn’t understand. For instance, I can tell you that my 5’s are orange and my A’s are red. My fiance’s name, Wes, tastes like lemon, and he smells like blue. Kind of sounds strange, doesn’t it?
But this story really isn’t about my Synesthesia – it’s about my lost love, “Vegas”. The foster dog that I tried to rehabilitate and couldn’t. In realizing that I have Synesthesia, I realize that Vegas is a song to me. He always has been – even before he died. The first time I heard the song, I was in my car listening to a radio show whose guest star was Tori Amos. When asked her current favorite song, she said “Rose Rouge” by St. Germain. I had never heard of St. Germain, but as soon as the song came on, I knew this song was Vegas. Even though Vegas was named after the group, “Dirty Vegas”, and their song, “Days Gone By” came on the radio literally as I was driving home, sobbing, after putting Vegas to sleep. This other song, “Rose Rouge”, to me, epitomizes Vegas. I still get teary when “Days Gone By” plays, but I realize that it’s not synesthesia: its association. How do I know this? Because when I hear “Rose Rouge”, I am not sad because I lost Vegas; I feel his presence. It’s like he is right there with me, sitting next to me, bobbing his head up and down in time to the music. I feel love and peace, like he never left.
I won’t get into every single detail as to why I had to put Vegas down. I will just say that he had behavior problems from the beginning. He had been adopted three times and returned three times. The third time I brought him home to foster. I fostered him for a whole year, and we worked with a private behaviorist. Finally, after a year of work, he displayed some serious aggression that we knew meant that he could not be adopted out because he would seriously hurt someone (did I mention he was also 90 pounds of pure muscle?). So I made the responsible, but incredibly heartbreaking, decision to put him down. That was seven years ago, and my heart still hurts like it was yesterday–unless I hear “Rose Rouge”. And I just realized this because, again, my Synesthesia did not stand out to me as something that was different until I started paying attention to it and realizing the things, here and there, that were a symptom of it.
So, I gave “Rose Rouge” its own association before Vegas ever died. I made the association while he was still alive, and happy, and we didn’t yet know the road we were headed down. It was like my brain captured this wonderful snapshot in time where things with Vegas were good, and happy, and had no overshadowing of sadness and heartbreak. And now, I can always get that snapshot back when I listen to the song because that song does not remind me of Vegas. That song *is* Vegas.
Bomb Detection Dog – Taking a Chance on an American Bulldog
When I worked at an animal shelter, that shall remain nameless, I worked on a particular “Dangerous Dog” case that resulted in meeting an amazing American Bulldog, doomed to die, but with an incredible will to live.
The facts were these: a man had 5 dogs, all of whom had escaped his yard. A few of these dogs killed other neighbors’ chickens. Several witnesses claimed they saw the two darker dogs (the other three dogs being lighter in color) attack the chickens. Because these dogs had unfortunately gotten out before, and this was the second time that chickens had been killed as a result, it was decided during the hearing that all 5 dogs were to be destroyed.
During the hearing, the dogs were all housed at the shelter that I managed. One particular dog, an all-white American Bulldog who I will call “Chance,” stood out to all of us. I don’t like to anthropomorphize, but I will say this, if ever there were an astute dog, it was Chance. He was very polite and took all commands from us very seriously. When we told him to “sit” as we entered his kennel, he did so right away and looked at us with very large, serious, brown eyes, waiting on our next command. When we took him for a walk, he gently walked on the lead, sniffing along the way, just long enough to take in his surroundings but not too long that he lingered. If we stopped walking, Chance would stop and patiently sit and watch us, waiting for his next cue. I had a very hard time believing that this dog was a savage chicken-killer.
One day, on a whim, one of my employees and I took Chance out to the shelter’s barnyard area, which housed about 10 chickens, all free-roaming, in a large, enclosed, area. As I cautiously approached that area with Chance, I watched him very closely, waiting for any change in his demeanor that would suggest he was ready for a chicken dinner. As we got to the fence, Chance noticed the chickens, lifting his head and sniffing in their general direction. Then, because I had stopped, he sat down and stared at me – as usual. Feeling a little more emboldened, I slowly opened up the door to the barnyard area and led him within a few feet of a very leery-looking hen. Again, Chance sniffed in her direction and then went about sniffing the ground and exploring the area around him. Finally, after doing this with him for about 20 minutes, I put down his leash and slowly walked away from him, just on the off chance that he was some evil doggy-genius fooling me with disinterest so that I would get overly-confident and give him the opportunity to pick-off a feathered morsel. Again, he could not have cared less that there were chickens anywhere near him. Even when a group of three rapidly clucking hens hurried past him at full-speed, no prey drive kicked in. Chance was not a chicken-killer in the least.
While this was a small victory to discover, I knew that this would not change the decision. To make matters worse, word had gotten back to the outside animal control agency that was responsible for this case that the employees at my shelter were hesitant to euthanize Chance, and the head officer demanded that one of her officers take a Polaroid picture of Chance’s body once he was dead to prove that we had gone through with it. I resigned myself to the reality that Chance would be yet another victim of a careless owner and went about my work.
In the meantime, a few police officers from a bomb squad unit for a particularly large city had come to our shelter to see if they could find any dogs that would be suited for their program. This is not an uncommon practice as we have many different police departments, and other agencies that use service dogs, that will occasionally come through our facility to see if we have any dogs that test well for police work. Our percentage of incoming purebreed dogs was anywhere from 20-30%, and a lot of them had their lives spared through this program.
One of the officers from the bomb squad zeroed in on Chance and asked if they could test him. I told her “no” and explained the situation. She was quiet for a second while she stared at him and asked if she could take him out anyways. While it was against shelter policy for a dog deemed “dangerous” to be taken out and walked by anyone other than shelter personnel, I decided to let her do this, figuring it would at least give Chance the opportunity to run around and get some human interaction before he was put to sleep. The officer entered his kennel and, as always, he politely sat down, alert and ready for her next command. She slowly led him out to our enclosed play area to begin testing him, and I went back to work.
About 45 minutes later, she found me to talk about Chance.
“You know,” she started, “He tested better than most of the shelter dogs that we see. I think he would be a perfect addition to the program.”
That broke my heart even more. I knew he would test well. He was obedient, eager to please, and listened very well. The fact that he tested well also meant that he had what we call “ball drive.” This meant that he was very motivated to play with a tennis ball, a big component in service dog training. This also meant that he could distinguish between chasing a ball and chasing small animals. This was another huge plus in his favor. I took her card and told her I would call her in the morning with information on the other dogs that they were interested in.
After she left, I was talking to one of my employees, Jim, who had been at the shelter for much longer than I had been and was lamenting at how unfair it was that Chance could have an amazing life as a bomb squad dog, saving lives and working to protect people, and yet he had to die over a technicality. Jim was quiet for a minute and then said, “Well, you know, there is always the “Witness Protection Program” method.” With that, I burst out laughing and asked him what in the world he was talking about. He went on to tell me about a similar situation with a German Shepherd dog and how they faked his euthanasia paperwork and secretly handed him over to a police department that wanted him. It just so happened that this particular dog was also handled by the same agency that was handling Chance, and he speculated that this was the reason that the head officer wanted a picture of Chance after he died; they had apparently heard rumors of the German Shepherd going to the police department and did not want to take a chance that we would do the same thing this time.
After this conversation, the wheels in my head were turning faster than ever. If only there were a way that I could get past the whole Polaroid issue, then we could sneak Chance into the bomb detection program! As I was mixing up a fresh bottle of euthanasia solution and getting the tranquilizers prepared for the day’s euthanasias, it hit me. The euthanasia solution that we use in shelter-work comes in powder form with a small blue tablet in it. This tablet is simply a dye that is used to turn the euthanasia solution blue so that it would be clearly marked as a bad substance. The powder is reconstituted with water, the tablet is dissolved, and then we have our blue euthanasia solution. What if I gave Chance a high dose of the tranquilizer, snipped off a bit of the tablet, mixed it with a little bit of the same kind of saline solution that is used for IV fluids, and injected Chance with this fake “euthanasia solution” in front of the officer? As I was getting more excited about this idea, the little voice in the back of my head was saying, “Are you crazy?!?! This is illegal on *so* many levels. You could lose your job or worse!” I decided to ignore the voice and snuck into my office to call the officer from the bomb detection squad.
Once I told her my idea, she was quiet for a minute, and then said, “You tell us when to be there with the truck, and we will be there.”
I went back to Jim and told him about my plan and that we had the agreement of the bomb squad to help us. We called the contracted animal control agency to tell them that they could send over an officer to not only take a picture of the body but to witness the euthanasia. We told them that Chance would be euthanized at 6pm after the shelter was closed. Not too long after this, the assistant Executive Director of my shelter, who also happened to be my boss, approached me. He told me he had some suspicions about what was going on. I stared at him for a minute, not saying a word, as I tried to figure what, if anything, I should tell him. We had butted heads on numerous occasions and I didn’t feel comfortable letting him in on what we were doing. After a minute he finally said, “Whatever you are doing or thinking of doing, I don’t want to know. Tell me what I should hear, and I will back you on that if it comes into question.”
I told him that Chance was being euthanized at 6pm sharp and that we had invited the officer on the case to witness it. He said, “Then that is all I need to know,” and left. I sighed with relief and quickly walked back to the euthanasia room to set up the “staging area.”
At approximately 5:45pm, I led Chance into the Euthanasia Room. Sadly, there is a common occurrence when a dog walks into a Euthanasia Room. I don’t know if it’s that “sixth sense” that animals have or if they can smell the common smells accompanying death, but many dogs become anxious when they walk into that room. Chance was no different. My normally composed and reserved Chance walked in, stopped, sniffed, and quickly tried to back out of the room, finally sitting down and looking up at me. Even though I know dogs cannot understand what you say to them, I pleaded out loud, “Please just trust me that everything will be ok!” I gave his leash a little yank, and he reluctantly followed.
We sat Chance down on a blanket. Jim put him in a common restraint hold and held off the vein in Chances front leg while I slid the needle of a syringe–full of tranquilizer–into it. After I got a flashback of blood, I slowly plunged down on the syringe, and Chance quickly fell to the ground. He was out cold. Jim and I gave each other a quick stare, and I nodded at him to bring in the animal control officer who was outside waiting to view and take pictures of Chance’s euthanasia.
The officer, Todd, came in with his Polaroid and plopped himself down in the chair at the work desk. As I spoke, I tried not to sound too rushed to get through it and made the best attempt at casual conversation that I could. I again had Jim hold-off Chance’s front-leg vein so that I could inject it with the fake “euthanasia solution” that was already prepared in the syringe. Todd at this point had gotten up from his chair and was standing right next to us. As I plunged the fake solution into Chance, I heard a snap and saw the flash of the Polaroid camera and thought to myself, “Ok, now just get him out of here before he sees that Chance is still breathing.” Luckily I had given Chance as high a dose of the tranquilizer as safely possible for him, so his breathing was fairly shallow.
I hurried Todd out of the shelter, telling him that I had dinner plans and needed to clean-up the Euthanasia Room before I left. Once he had driven away, I called the bomb squad officer who was waiting with one of the other officers in their truck at the far-end of the shelter parking lot. They quickly drove around and backed their truck up to the doors of the Euthanasia Room. We wrapped Chance up in the blanket on which he was laying, picked up his limp body, and put it in the back of the covered truck bed. Jim and I quickly gave Chance the reversal agent to the tranquilizer and covered him up with more blankets. I gave the bomb squad agents the instructions on watching Chance wake up from this particular tranquilizer, told them the signs to look for in case he needed to go to the veterinarians’ office, kissed Chance one last time, and sent them off into the night.
Chance is now a bomb detection dog for this particular bomb squad. I still think about him often. I wonder how he is doing in his role as protector and marvel at how well he was suited for such a role. I still have his shelter paperwork that I took when I left my position at that shelter. It’s his impound form with the snapshot we took of him when he first got to the shelter, looking dignified and studious as usual. I have to chuckle a little every time I get to the bottom of that form and see the big, red, stamped letters pronouncing “EUTHANIZED.”
Thought for the day
Many of the solutions to the problem are simple, yes; we can offer behavioral counseling to those who are struggling with their problem pets, or offer low-cost spay/neuter to the public. But one of the biggest problems that we face is not lack of public education or resources; its apathy.