I can't tell you how many friends have come to me and asked me to put their animals down. Several cats and dogs. I don't like it but I do it to ease an animal's suffering or take out a vicious dog with too many issues.

Why can't people do this themselves? The owner is the one who can best relax the animal before the shot. Taking an animal to the vet in a strange place with strange smells and people and coming back to pick up the beloved pet in a garbage bag is not considerate of the life of loyalty that animal has given you. To me, it is a coward's way out. That animal will suffer MUCH less with a bullet in the ear than those shots. Those shots hurt. The first shot is a sedative so they don't cry out. The second shot hurts but stops their heart. A bullet is instant.

I am in no way comparing my dad to an animal but, I was the one who removed the cannula from his nose. I was the one who held his hand and did my best to smile at him as he passed. I was the one who closed his eyes after he passed. It was one of the hardest, most merciful, most loving things I think I have ever done. It goes through my mind every day.

I really sux sometimes being a man. Doing the right thing. Setting the example.

How do y'all cope with being the executioner?

It's never good. I just remember its the best solution.

I tend to drink excessively but I may not be the best role model.

I followed in the footsteps of my role model

I get the same request generally friends of my wife asking her if I would maybe mind putting the animals down. I Wonder why their husbands cant or won't. Had one husband stand by as I put down one of the family goats. I guess he was just not comfortable with his ability to get it done fast and efficient.

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In the last few years I put down 2 horses, 4 goats and one of my dogs. Some were mine most were friends.

I also seem to be the go to for removal of problem critters. Sometimes its me doing it directly others its loaning traps and giving instructions.

Its not pleasant but its necessary and someone needs to do it. Looking at it another way its nice to be know as someone that can help solve problems.

I have seen a couple executions gone bad and I am never going to see that again. I was responsible for one. I take my dogs to the vet. They will be lying on the back seat with me petting them. Vet comes out and give the injections while the dog is laying on the back seat of a truck they are very familiar with. No blood, no convulsing or thrashing around - just relax and go home if you want. I left my last dog to be cremated after he had been put down.

I would note that our dogs are in our will

done several animals mostly for other people, that doesn't bother me.

I don't feel like the executioner , executioners are killing the living for some crime.
I am the mercy to stop the pain , the animal is dead in time either way. it's slow suffering or lights out.

I have taken dogs to the vet , I don't like it but my wife said don't be the guy who shoots your kids dog , let the vet do it so they don't look at you as the killer.
not sure if they would have but that reassurance you aren't reading the condition wrong is worth something.
and I haven't yet miss read the condition. I think the vet has wondered how I kept them going that long some times.
I don't care for the shots , you can see them stressed getting the first injection.

to quote my hunting partner , a real man balls his eyes out and pulls the trigger when it's time.
that said if you can't do it right , sometimes pulling the trigger is getting someone who can do it well to do it for you.


I was there for my wife's death , caring for her , we started her on the pain meds the morning she died the nurse walked me though crushing and mixing the pills in the pill crusher and drawing them up on the oral syringe , I administered the doctor ordered meds that let her calm down and relax and ultimately pass.
she probably would have died later that day any way , maybe the next , no point in the stress of being uncomfortable and restless.
The cancer had taken her mind at that point , her ability to speak , to move as she wanted, it happened over just a few days but that is the way liver failure works.
The pain meds just let them relax ,you didn't kill your father you just did your best to ease his pain in the ending that was eminent.

sometimes easing the pain is letting them go it blocks the natural adrenaline that keeps the heart going every last second.

sometimes being the man and doing the right thing does suck , but passing that responsibility off on a stranger doesn't seem right , you see it through when you really care for them.

no shade on people who take their dog to the vet , like I said I have done it as much for the reassurance I was not wrong in my diagnoses.

I stop putting pet to sleep, take the to a vet!

If the right thing to do was always easy we'd all be saints

Maybe you need a new vet if that's been your experience. I never had a dog put down until a couple of years ago. Everyone said they just lay down and go to sleep. So, maybe what you described is what a lot of vets do. It's not my experience. My dog did not like going inside the vet's office, so we didn't. We went to a little strip of woods outside where everyone took their dogs to pee that she loved nosing around in. I let her nose around until her heart was content, then sat down on a fallen log with her and waited... feeding her bites of leftover Easter ham.

When the vet came out, I knelt down beside her, petting her and talking to her, as he picked up a foreleg and quickly located a vein. When the needle went in the vein, she never flinched. She was dead before he could pull the needle out of the vein. She never knew what hit her. The only one that cried out was ME, because it was so much more sudden than I had been expecting. I am certain she felt nothing. Having put down many critters, I know that whatever that vet used was even more efficient than a well placed bullet.

I had a female American Water Spaniel who was like one of our kids. She was 12 and had a diagnosis of lung cancer. She was very ill and suffering. I will never forget those sad eyes when she looked at me when I put the gun to her head. I couldn't pull the trigger. Ended up taking her to the vet. All my animals we take to the vet since that time. They cremate all of them.

Prior to that I had shot one dog I had who bit my granddaughter. That one didn't bother me in the least. But, it was messy.

the first one I took to the vet seemed to take forever , that first needle the dog flinched and kicked and was restless as it slowly over what seemed like forever to finally sleep it was probably 7-10 minutes
second needle it didn't fight but it wasn't still either it kicked like most everything does when put down. it is probably just muscles reacting.
maybe I did need a new vet , maybe they mixed too little of whatever it was they used.

the vet had given the first shot , left came back in what he thought was enough time and it wasn't he left again and came back again and then he had calmed down and was just sleeping sedated.

Im friends with several vets and very good vets, they all can tell stories of euthanasia procedures not going well.

Have put down a bunch of them....It's awful, and adds another scar to your soul....Just remember that you care enough to help them out....Your doing it for them.

If you think dogs are bad, horses are 10X worse.

Cats are the only upside in this grisly business...Complete indifference, Lol.

We shoot them makes it quick. But it gets to a point that it's helping. Like I had a doge and she was old had tumors and didn't have a good life.

Those shots can make a horse flip over and bust it head on the ground but they drug them so it's "peaceful". Friend is a vet and if they let him he would rather shoot them then give them a shot.

Had the same thing happen with me. Finally I just started saying no.

I know a large animal vet who carries a 45 as his euthanasia kit he is mostly cattle and dairy.
makes sense a big slug in the right place works

personally all the cattle I have done got a 308 , what I had that I knew was more than enough and it always was just need to make sure you watch the shot direction.

I've driven two-hours out of mh way to put an animal down for someone, plain and simple some people just cant do it, just don't have it mentally. And honestly many times im happy they called me because they're such a wreck when I get there them trying to give them a bullet themselves would probably end up pretty bad .

Idk I can just kinda emotionally shut down , but also see it as , not an honor or anything but a privilege maybe? Still nit the right word but when your the kne skmkne calls to put down a an animal they loved and cared about for a decade because they trust you to make it as quick and painless as possible, well I fell thag should mean something .

Now I've alsk had some whe. It was a farmer just waning me to put down a lame animal, they didn't care about ,just couldn't be bothered tk do it themselves , those , those are the ones that really bother me

I can tell you 100% positively - for me, it is easier to put down someone else's pet than it is my own.