“Mercy Killing”, or Killing to end suffering

This morning Chelsea, my dog, caught a squirrel, broke it’s back, and was tossing it around.  Usually, when I see her or the cats playing with a “critter” - a mouse, rabbit, squirrel or bird - it is already dead.  Not this time.  He was struggling, trying to defend himself, but could not.  When I got outside and convinced Chelsea to leave him be, I found him on his back, front legs up, mouth open, rear legs obviously paralyzed, breathing heavily and watching everything that moved around him.  He screamed and waved his front paws at Chelsea when she came close, but was quiet and didn’t try to struggle when I picked him up.

Now, it is difficult for me to kill anything, even a mosquito, but I could not let this fellow suffer any further.  The quickest death that I could think of at that moment was to break his neck.  So, apologizing for his suffering and his death, that’s what I did.

I am still, several hours later, upset about it, but what choice did I have?  I had no other way to ease his pain, end his suffering.  Even if I could end the pain, he could not have survived outside, and bringing him inside to try to heal him, and into necessarily a life of captivity would be just as cruel.

All that I could think of at the time was the thought that “this being, in a previous live, could have been my father, mother, my son or daughter.  Could I let them suffer like this?”  The only possible answer in the moment was “no”.

~ by Thor on May 17, 2008.