This post is dedicated to the rescue/shelter worker whose job or decision is to euthanize.
This message is to the death row dog.
To the dog I cannot save.
I hear your cry, but please don't be afraid. Your day has come. The very moment that brought you here is the very moment that will set you free.
When she comes for you in that moment, she will assure you that you are safe. As you walk down the hall she will tell you about all the friends that you will make, friends who are right there waiting for you, friends that already know your name. Please make sure you smile for her because she is sad that you're leaving and she feels it all the way down to her soul.
She will miss you so much that she will carry a piece of you in her heart until the day she sees you again.
Someday she will, and it's on that day that she will realize that the guilt that she has carried during the time she walked the earth was in vain, because you were in a better place all along, and she is the hero that helped you get there.
When she picks you up and gently sets you down on a table, she will kiss you and whisper in your ear.
She will tell you how, over there, you will forget about every minute that you have been here.
She will tell you how, over there, they never leave you.
They never stop loving you.
You are their world.
You are safer on the other side.
When she sees that you have left, she will shed a tear as she ponders the last 48 hours. She will look down at her phone and prepare for the next 48.
8am,
POV from security camera.
2 emaciated, mangy dogs tied to the fence. Forced intake x2
10:00am.
Phone call from a local number.
A dog has been tied to a pole with instructions from owner to shoot. He is starving and eating the owners chickens.
Forced intake x1.
11:17 am.
From employee.
Dog isn't acting right, Doc thinks twisted gut. Not moving. Diagnosis. Pneumonia. Entire facility must go on lockdown. No adoptions allowed.
10:18pm
Email from a local owner: I don't want her anymore, I'll be dropping her tomorrow morning.
Please euthanize.
Forced Intake +1.
11:21 am.
From a new adopter a thousand miles away.
Confirmed pneumonia in both lungs, causing the adopter who just received her dog, thousands in medical bills.
3:22 pm.
From previous adopter.
He collapsed today. The vets gave him CPR but he is gone.
7:58 am
Message from new adopter.
-two huskies being returned- it's not them of course. It's not their dreams being crushed while they travel for days across the country in stress, finally get into the loving arms of people who spent weeks anticipating and wanting them, just to be sent away. It's got nothing to do with them, or the time, money and other families that could have had a chance.
8:30am. Rinse and repeat cause it's just another F'ING day in rescue.
To all the rescue workers out there trying to empty the ocean with the bucket.
I hear your cry. But don't be afraid. Someday, we will see them again. Someday we will see what we knew all along and the very reason that we continue on.. someday we will see that they truly are no longer halfway home.
