whatikilledtoday

2012-02-15T23:35:00.000-08:00

A five year old Bengal cat that was very aggressive and kept attacking the other pets in the house as well as the owner.

2012-02-13T20:51:00.001-08:00

An 8 year old yellow lab. I met the owner in the parking lot. He didn't want to be present for the euthanasia. I stood next to his huge, expensive looking truck not knowing what to expect. We had brought a gurney out expecting her to be unable to walk. He opened the back door and she hopped out happily, wagging her tail. He handed me the leash, saying he didn't want it back. He was crying, obviously upset. I quickly brought her inside and as soon as the door was shut I'm pretty sure I exclaimed something sacrilegious out loud. The dog was skin and bones and had huge bald patches all over her body. She looked like one of the worst case street dogs I saw while working at an animal shelter in India. Her toenails were so long they were almost curled under and there was a huge purple lump over her eye, probably an abscess but maybe a tumor. I looked at her chart. She hadn't been to the clinic in over two years. I weighed her. 50 pounds. Her previous weight was 80 pounds. This dog had lost 40% of its body weight and much of its hair and the owner hadn't brought it in to see what was wrong. Maybe it had cancer. Maybe it was something more simple than that. We'll never know. What got me the most, however, was how absolutely sweet this dog was. I sat on the floor and she rested her chin on my shoulder then gave me big wet kisses all over my face. I asked a co-worker to bring me treats and she accepted that excitedly. Then she crawled into my lap and held her chin up against mine. I was holding off her vein for someone else who did the injection so I was able to stroke her head and whisper to her as she passed. She was an amazing dog who deserved so much more. At least the owner got one thing right - the dog's name was Angel.

Juxtaposition

An Amazon parrot with a viral wasting disease that is very contagious to all other psittacine birds. The owner is one of my favorite clients. She's the type that will take in any homeless animal and will do whatever it takes to give it the best care possible. She spends thousands of dollars a year on animals, some of which are just transients passing through her care. This particular parrot was not at all friendly, and in fact was quite aggressive yet the owner was sobbing so mournfully at his demise. She said "I'm never getting another pet again! I just can't go through this each time." It was all I could do to not laugh and say "I don't believe that for a *second*. You'll probably find a stray on the way home and schedule an ultrasound for it next week."

I try very hard not to judge people. Everyone has a story and a side that I cannot see. But sometimes it's very difficult.

I leave you with some words, The Buddha's Words on Kindness (Metta Sutta)

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in saftey,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!

Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.

2012-01-02T19:42:00.001-08:00

A spunky 12 week old kitten that had come in for some vaccines. We did a routine feline leukemia test and it came back positive. The doctor recommended euthanasia which the owner agreed sadly. Because the kitten had been so feisty during the initial blood draw for the test, the doctor told me to do an IC, or inter-cardiac, injection for the euthanasia because hitting a vein long enough to get the full dose of the solution in would have been very challenging. I stared and said, "with her awake?! Won't that hurt?!" I have only ever done IC injections on anesthetized or nearly dead already animals. He rolled his eyes and said "fine, you can sedate her first" so I gave an intra-muscular injection and she fell asleep peacefully, then I did the IC injection.

Afterwards I asked what kind of internment the client wanted. The options are for them to take it home and bury it themselves, general cremation with no ashes returned, or private cremation with ashes returned. The first, of course, costs nothing but the latter two do have a fee, with the ashes returned option being pretty steep. She couldn't afford either cremation option and lived in an apartment with no where to bury the kitten. The doctor told me to just double bag it and put it in the dumpster. I said okay, then put the kitten in a box and snuck out to my car to bring her home. I'll bury her in our orchard in the morning.

2011-12-23T08:31:00.001-08:00

a cat with a brain tumor

a chicken with merrick's disease

a canary with a broken leg

2011-11-05T18:55:00.000-07:00

A big husky that had bit the owner's daughter. Apparently it had a history of aggression and that was the last straw. He seemed like a nice dog when he came in, though we asked the owner to muzzle him anyway. For some reason he didn't respond fully to the whopper dose of the solution given so he was basically just anesthetized but still breathing. The doctor had to go get a second dose. I stayed in the room with the client who started second guessing his decision out loud. Luckily the second dose worked.

It was a sad coincidence that a co-worker had to put her own dog down in the morning for a similar reason. He was a rescue who had always been slightly aggressive towards other dogs, though never towards her in the several years she'd had him. He bit her while she was breaking up a fight between him and her other dog. It wasn't just an accidental nip though, as he bit her three times and started shaking her arm. She needed 11 stitches and decided he just wasn't safe or trustworthy any longer.

2011-10-26T21:14:00.000-07:00

A 19 year old lab mix. The elderly owners had very rural accents and said "she was the best darn dog we ever had" through their tears.

2011-09-12T22:34:00.000-07:00

An old golden retriever who was in chronic pain. It was the first house call I'd ever gone on and was less traumatic than expected.

2011-08-25T21:40:00.000-07:00

A tiny toy poodle. He had been in the hospital for a couple days due to anemia caused by a flea infestation so severe the fleas were literally crawling out of his eye sockets and other orifices. His red blood cell count was 12% (normal is ~37-55%). We got rid of the fleas and stabilized him and sent him home but he had a stroke the next day and lost the use of his hind legs.

The whole thing was especially frustrating because it could have so easily been prevented with the application flea medicine.

2011-08-19T18:34:00.000-07:00

A guinea pig who was trying to die on its own. The girl said it was fine the night before and when she woke up it was not moving.

2011-08-01T23:31:00.000-07:00

An 8 year old Lhasa Apso that seemed perfectly healthy. I asked the doctor why it was being euthanized and he said he didn't know. He seemed totally unphased by having someone come in and say they want to euthanize their pet. He's been practicing longer than I've been alive (and I'm not particularly young). I hope to never reach that point. It was still bothering me later so I went back and read the patient's history. Nothing was really listed except the adoption papers from the animal shelter were in there. It had been returned to the shelter several times. I'm guessing it had an insurmountable behavioral issue going on.

2011-07-18T19:52:00.000-07:00

An ancient Himalayan cat.

A miniature dachshund with a mammary tumor larger than her head.

2011-07-15T22:52:00.000-07:00

For some reason it had been a long time since I'd been involved with any euthanasias at work. It was just how the timing worked out. Today, however, there were five or six and I was involved with three of them.

A seven year old ferret. I don't know what, if anything, was wrong with him despite his age. He was anesthetized on a table when I walked over and did an inter-cardiac injection. I'd been a long time since I'd done one but it was a clean stick and he went quickly.

An old beagle. Again, I don't know what was wrong with him. I didn't ask. A teenage boy and his mother were with him.

A cat who had gotten her teeth cleaned yesterday. She was still woozy from the anesthesia when the owners took her home and when they let her out of the carrier she jumped off the bed and broke her back.

2011-05-27T23:31:00.000-07:00

A semi-feral cat with FIV.

A shar pei with horrible mange, no fur, a wasting disease, and a cancerous growth in its mouth.

2011-04-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

Two two week old manx kittens (litter mates) who both had spina bifada. Both were paralyzed and could not use their hind legs. Because their veins are so tiny the injection had to be given intraperitoneally (into the abdomen) which takes longer for the drugs to work though is equally painless. As I was waiting for it to pass, I let one of the kittens nurse on my finger tip, hoping it would give it a sense of calm or well being. A co-worker walked by asked why my finger was in its mouth. I told her my reasoning and she shook her head at me. I'm not sure if she disapproved of my actions or just thought I was too invested in the creature I had only met minutes before.

2011-03-23T21:31:00.001-07:00

A baby guinea pig with two clubbed feet.

2011-02-08T12:51:00.001-08:00

A cat with cancer whose abdomen was the size of a basket ball. The owner did not want to be present so I stuck him in a cage with a bowl of extra rich wet food which he licked at gently before putting him down.

Another old cat whose body was shutting down.

2011-01-26T19:31:00.000-08:00

An 11 year old great dane who weighed 160 pounds. The owners wanted to take the body home so we did the euthanasia in the car. I crawled in the backseat with the owner and the dog. It's always unnerving holding a syringe filled with more than enough euthanasia solution to kill a human.

2011-01-22T13:59:00.000-08:00

A six year old black lab who was diagnosed with diabetes. The owners could not afford to treat him.

A sheltie who had just been hit by a car and had a severed spinal column.

Seeing my cat's name in the drug log today gave me pause.

2011-01-19T12:45:00.000-08:00

I euthanized my own cat today. She was 13 years old and had a bad heart. She threw a clot - a saddle thrombus and was in intense pain. At first we tried some live saving measures but when she pulled her IV catheter out I felt like it was her saying "please let me go." Rest in peace, sweet kitten.

2010-12-29T22:12:00.001-08:00

A one year old pit mix who had a liver shunt. His owners had tried everything but it's really a death sentence and he was wasting away.

2010-12-12T20:56:00.000-08:00

an ancient doberman wearing a diaper and a giant tumor hanging off its face.

a geriatric dachshund with a horrible back and giant patches of fur missing.

2010-11-14T08:10:00.000-08:00

A basset hound with bladder cancer. I recognized one of the family members from the local youth activities group. The dog had a history of aggression but seemed very at peace with what was happening.

2010-10-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

an eight year old ferret that was trying to die on its own. just helped it along.

an old dalmation. this was a few days ago and i wasn't going to list it because i just set the catheter and handed her off to a doctor. i didn't do the injection and wasn't present when she died but it's been bothering me so here she is.

2010-10-18T19:36:00.001-07:00

a tiny black cat with cancer

2010-10-15T20:06:00.001-07:00

An old shepherd mix that couldn't walk anymore.

2010-10-13T20:37:00.001-07:00

A beautiful 10 year old cat with a urinary blockage. The owners could not afford to treat him.

2010-10-04T19:36:00.001-07:00

An old orange blind cat with a severe head tilt. Maybe a brain tumor.

2010-10-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

A 160 pound St Bernard who had lost the use of her hind legs.

2010-09-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

A 13 year old Australian shepherd.

I have, up to this point, tried to avoid anything personal in this blog but I feel with my new job that it is morphing into a new creature and I am going to let that continue.

I took my last hiatus because I had a child. I have now returned to working as a veterinary technician at a new clinic. It is in a small town so it is no real surprise that I have already run into many of the clients outside of the clinic. Most of the euthanasias are with the owner present. Today it was my child's pediatrician's dog. She was there with her husband and her children and they spent a significant amount of time explaining everything to the kids. They were thoughtful and gentle and her eldest son held the dog's head as the solution was injected. Before it was all in he said "she's gone, mama." Everyone in the room was tearful, including me. I excused myself silently and wondered to myself if she would mention today at our baby's next appointment which is in two weeks. Their family was beautiful.

2010-09-22T19:52:00.000-07:00

Two cats, right in a row.

One cat was very old and arthritic. She had a lot and fire left in her though and let us know she didn't appreciate us. That makes it harder. I don't like to have and animal's last moment be like that.

The other cat was young but had a large tumor on its face. She was very peaceful.

2010-09-18T15:17:00.000-07:00

A six year old pit bull mix with cancer.

This is the first time this has ever happened but there was one euthanasia last Wednesday and *I can't remember what the circumstances were*. It's driving me mad as the entire purpose of this blog was to remember every animal. I know it was a dog. I know it was either old or sick but the week became such a blur that I just can't place it. I'm sorry, anonymous dog.

2010-09-03T20:47:00.000-07:00

a five year old english bulldog that had attacked the owner's baby twice.

Hi. I'm back.

2010-08-25T20:16:00.000-07:00

a sixteen year old shepherd mix. he couldn't walk anymore. the owners were in the room with us. the husband was a big tough guy who laughed nervously instead of crying. they were good people and the dog lead a good life.

2009-02-18T16:53:00.001-08:00

Today I went on a "field trip" to a fish hatchery. I put field trip in quotes because when most people think of field trips they think happy thoughts, good times, great memories. That's not how it went today.

We were there to learn how to spawn steelhead which are then raised in the hatchery and released for sport fishing. The process goes like this: First the females are put into a tub with electrodes. Electricity is applied until they are unconscious. They are then lifted out of the water and an 18 gauge needle is stuck into their abdomen that is attached to a pressurized airline. The abdomen is filled with air which forces the eggs out. The eggs are caught in a bread loaf pan on a table. The unconscious fish is tossed back into the water. Next a male is removed from the water. He is clubbed, in theory, to death on the floor then the sperm is milked out of him. His body is thrown out the window into a pile on the ground.

I refused to participate. The instructor, disappointed and possibly angry, said "you're going to have to kill something sometime." I rolled my eyes. I stepped outside to avoid ridicule and realized that many of the male fish lying on the ground were still alive. I told one of the hatchery workers and he came out and half-heartedly clubbed one again. It was still moving. While it may have just been postmortem nerve reflexes, it still unsettled me so I spent the next hour cutting the heads off the fish as they were tossed out the window to ensure they were dead rather than have them suffocate to death. The knife they gave me was dull and it took all my strength to cut through.

So, honestly, I don't know if I killed anything today but it still felt as bad, if not worse, than any euthanasia I've ever performed.

2009-01-29T20:26:00.000-08:00

I've been working mostly with fish lately. I don't know if I should record their deaths. As I said about the herring, there is little ceremony or emotion involved. I don't hold their hands or look into their eyes. It just happens. However, for the sake of completeness I feel the need to mention the schools of pacific cod and halibut that were euthanized yesterday because they had been exposed to a non-native species during testing and couldn't be re-introduced to the local population. I don't know how many of them there were - I didn't count. Their bodies will be used for school children, so they can dissect them and learn about biology. I suppose it is some consolation that their deaths were not complete wastes. Perhaps a child will be inspired to learn about the oceans.

2008-12-05T18:28:00.000-08:00

a dungeness crab with shell rot disease. it had been moved from the visitor center back to the hospital where we were trying to care for it. my co-worker came in and found it lying on its back and when she flipped it over its leg fell off.

2008-10-22T21:18:00.001-07:00

A moribund herring, part of a school waiting in quarantine before being released into the public area of the science center. There is little ceremony in the euthanizing of a fish. It is a matter of fact procedure, part of the day, another tick mark on the to do list.

2008-10-15T08:55:00.001-07:00

a small ground squirrel. i tried to swerve out of the way but it ran right under my wheel. i looked in the rear view mirror and it lay motionless in the road.

2008-04-07T10:42:00.000-07:00

I am taking some time away from employment for a bit so this blog, thankfully, will not be updated for an uncertain amount of time.

2008-03-18T17:55:00.000-07:00

a chicken that had been mauled by a dog

a cat in end stage congestive heart failure

a ferret with a golf ball sized hard mass in its abdomen

2008-03-14T17:01:00.000-07:00

a flea ridden dachshund with a softball sized tumor that had grown so large it had broken through the skin and was necrosing.

an emciated geriatric ferret who was wasting away.

2008-03-12T12:25:00.000-07:00

a hamster with a severe rectal prolapse.

One thing I never post about is animals who aren't euthanized but just die on their own. A cat came in this week, brought in by a man whose wife had recently died. It was his wife's favorite cat and he was taking over its care. He had brought it in for a teeth cleaning and it died while under anesthesia. While not unheard of, it is a rare occurrence. It's not the first time I've seen an animal give up shortly after its owner died. In fact, I've seen it several times. The connection we have to animals and them to us is unspeakably powerful.

2008-03-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

a 21 year old cat with a tumor on its and face and an abdomen full of fluid. her body was one giant mat of fur.

2008-03-06T20:36:00.000-08:00

a dwarf hamster with a severe malocclusion in addition to a respiratory infection.

2008-03-04T17:05:00.001-08:00

a sweet old yellow lab with cancer whose body was shutting down. my co-worker was sobbing before we even started.

2008-03-03T19:34:00.000-08:00

a 950g rat that was all tumor

a chinchilla who had just suffered massive head trauma when his cage fell over on top of him as it was being cleaned.

a baby rat with an upper respiratory infection.

2008-02-18T15:36:00.001-08:00

a 16 year old shepherd mix whose body was just shutting down from every angle.

2008-02-14T21:01:00.000-08:00

a 9 year old jack russell terrier with undiagnosed ailments. the owner did not want to do any testing to figure out what was wrong.

2008-02-12T17:38:00.000-08:00

A 17 1/2 year old cat in the beginning/middle stages of kidney failure. The owner had been through similar situations with her cats in the past and decided to help this one along before he was miserable.

2008-02-04T17:21:00.000-08:00

a beautiful tiny chocolate rex rabbit - eight years old and in GI stasis. her fur was like velvet and i burried my face in it while she was still alive. we touched foreheads and leaned into one another.

several weeks ago i euthanized an animal and didn't make an entry. i was without net access for a few weeks and by the time i got it back i didn't know if it was appropriate. i have not forgotten and it's been gnawing at me ever since. it was the first animal (in private practice) that i had not eulogized here. so: a pet chicken that had been attacked by something. a cat? another chicken? the wound never healed and had grown very necrotic. the owner was self conscious about it and did not want to bring it in to the hospital for fear the smell would offend. i sat in the back of her station wagon in the parking lot and gave the injection.

2008-01-05T22:15:00.000-08:00

three rats - assembly line style. one had an enormous tumor, one just looked very sick, and one had a small tumor that would grow quickly into something unmanagable.

a 12 year old cat. i don't know why. no history was given, nothing apparently wrong. i questioned myself and the situation heavily.

2008-01-04T16:12:00.000-08:00

An aged dachshund with cancer

A very sweet cat who had been at a shelter, adopted by a kind man and then ended up with an upper respiratory infection which caused him to stop eating which in turn caused hepatic lipidosis. The man, having only known the cat for 24hrs went to extreme measures to try and save him. I syringe fed him every hour yesterday and today but in the end the decision was made to euthanize.

2007-12-28T15:55:00.000-08:00

a 13-year-old basset hound in kidney failure. she was so kind and licked my face as i carried her in from the car for the owner. he was a sweet old man with tears in his eyes. i fed her an entire bag of treats and she kept eating ferociously even after the injection. her chewing slowed down and then she was gone.

2007-12-22T11:40:00.000-08:00

a Pacman frog with a proplapsed anus.

An emaciated ferret who had been fighting an auto-immune disease.

2007-12-08T22:31:00.000-08:00

a 16 year old pomeranian. the family was present in the room. they were wearing very formal clothes, all black, as if they were attending a funeral. i tried not to make anything of it but, during their grieving, they stated that they were actually on their way to a funeral for a friend who had died - a 44 year old woman with a nine year old daughter. they were sobbing, i cried as well and felt no need to hide my tears. the dog wimpered with the injection and tried to fight it a bit. then he laid down and rested.

2007-12-04T18:00:00.000-08:00

An 8 year old Australian Shepherd with septic arthritis. I fed her a can of rich fatty cat food before she went. She went peacefully.

2007-11-24T17:08:00.001-08:00

a small brown songbird of some sort that had been attacked by a cat.

2007-11-10T16:53:00.000-08:00

a 12 year old golden retriever filled with tumors. extra hard because the family was present and sobbing.

a one year old ferret with congestive heart failure. especially odd and uncomfortable because again, the family was in the room but one of the children was mentally handicapped and kept barking like a dog.

2007-11-08T17:27:00.000-08:00

a young rat that belonged to a pet store. she had a respiratory infection and was listless.

a 14 year old cat that had just been diagnosed with renal failure. it hadn't been eating for a month but was not brought in until today. no effort was made by the owners to investigate treatment plans. the vein blew as i injected. he went comatose but was still breathing. his blood pressure was so low I couldn't find another vein. I panicked and grabbed a tech walking by and asked her to finish.

2007-11-06T21:49:00.000-08:00

A 14 year old cat that had lost the use of his hind legs.

Hello again

2007-11-06T05:36:00.000-08:00

Hi kids,

It's been over a year.

While many creatures were let go since last posting, it was not an experience that I felt was worth sharing.

I have since returned to a position similar to the one that inspired the creation of this blog in the first place. So, without further ado...

An ownerless hamster that had wet tail that just wasn't healing.

A fifteen year old tabby cat. She could barely breathe. After she passed and her head was lowered, much fluid ran out of her nose. I'm guessing it was a pleural effusion, possibly from heart failure.

2006-10-13T18:23:00.000-07:00

An African clawed frog who was severely bloated. After he died I pulled more than 15mL of fluid from his abdomen. Cause of ascites was unknown.

This will be the last entry in this blog. Good luck and god speed, all creatures.

2006-08-25T18:37:00.000-07:00

A cooper's hawk that someone had shot with a pellet gun. It had a shattered shoulder and would never be able to fly again.

2006-08-24T21:04:00.000-07:00

a 20 year old cockatiel

a rat with mites and tumors. there was a woman there with me who is a client but she is a special type of client who gets to hang out in back with us and tells us stories about her crazy life and i find her quite nice to be around. she watched me euthanize the rat and afterwards caught her breath and said "i've... never witnessed anything like that before." i told her about this journal and she understood.

2006-08-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

a guinea pig with huge tumors in his mouth

2006-08-12T15:40:00.000-07:00

an 8 month old cockatiel with an enlarged heart

2006-08-10T17:55:00.000-07:00

a naked rat with a huge tumor on his head.

a yellow nape amazon parrot that someone had had for 33 years. we never really found out what was wrong with him (owner declined necropsy) but he couldn't keep any food down.

2006-08-04T01:24:00.000-07:00

a hamster with a giant necrotic tumor on its belly.

2006-07-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

a rat with a tumor that must have comprised at least 50% of its own mass.

2006-07-14T23:12:00.000-07:00

A kestrel with a broken wing. It was right at the joint and coudn't be pinned so there was no way she'd ever fly again.

There was a duck that had been attacked by an opossum and the wounds went untreated. It was totally filled with maggots and necrotic tissue. I literally felt nauseous which does not happen often. I had the doctor perform the euthanasia because touching it felt so wrong.

2006-07-07T23:49:00.000-07:00

two identical rats. they were probably sisters. both had giant mammary tumors that were taking over their bodies.

2006-07-07T06:50:00.000-07:00

a decrepit old rabbit covered in its own urine and feces. this was a long time coming.

2006-06-24T17:44:00.000-07:00

an old rat. he was just very old.

2006-06-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

A ferret with lymphoma, an adrenal tumor, and an insulinoma. She had no hair left and was covered in lymphatic lumps. She didn't look like a mammal anymore. Nevertheless, her spirits were high and I fed her a hefty dose of Nutrical tasty goo before anesthetizing her.

2006-06-06T06:37:00.000-07:00

A wild crow with an awful, awful mite infestation on its feet. They were so swollen and plated they looked like rocks instead of feet. Many of the toes had been lost already.

2006-06-03T13:34:00.000-07:00

An old mouse covered in tumors and mites.

2006-06-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

A wild rat that someone had raised from a baby. They tried to release it but it wouldn't go. It had neurologic symptoms and couldn't stand.

2006-05-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

A momma opossum with a pouch full of 10 babies. I had to pluck each baby from a teat before I euthanized the mom who had been hit by a car. The babies will go to rehab with a surrogate mother.

An old rabbit who wasn't eating anymore.

2006-05-03T22:16:00.000-07:00

A baby opossum with spinal injuries. He couldn't use his rear legs. It's spring. So many baby animals. (this should have been posted on Monday)

A prairie falcon died today while we were trying to help it. It wasn't euthanized, it just died.

2006-04-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

A rat with an extreme respiratory infection.

2006-04-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

A six year old rabbit with spinal injuries. She belonged to a teenage girl who seemed very level headed. They spent some time with the rabbit before it died and when I went in to ask if they were ready, she asked me, through tears, "do you have any potato chips? That is her favorite thing." Her mother said "you can't give her potato chips now!" But I said, "actually, I do have some, I brought them in this morning." The stange thing is that I hardly ever buy chips and I bought these without looking at the ingredients and after opening them, realized they contained whey which I can't eat so I brought them in for my co-workers. So the girl and I went into the back and fed her rabbit potato chips before she was put to sleep.

2006-04-05T22:00:00.000-07:00

A tiny dwarf hamster. Honestly, I don't know why it was being euthanized. It was having a hard time breathing and its eyes were shut. Maybe it had an upper respiratory infection and the owners didn't want to treat it. I never found out. There was so much chaos happening around me. Two other animals had just crashed and died in my hands literally moments before. It was just the next to go in a unfortunate chain of events.

2006-03-15T18:59:00.000-08:00

A hamster with ascites from an unknown cause. It was two years old so exploratory surgery wasn't really an option. She was bloated she looked like she had ping pong balls in her hips.

A 13-year-old chinchilla with teeth so bad he couldn't eat anymore. He was slowly starving.

2006-02-23T09:17:00.000-08:00

an emaciated rat with a huge mammary tumor.

a guinea pig with an infected eye that had to be removed in order to ease his pain but the owners didn't want to pay for it.

2006-02-22T16:53:00.000-08:00

a wild dove with a broken wing. the woman who brought it in just called to see how it was doing and I told her we humanely euthanized it and she burst into tears. I thanked her for taking care of it and doing the right thing.

an amazon parrot with a tumor in its leg that had eaten its entire femur.

2006-02-21T08:42:00.000-08:00

a young rat with a pleural effusion. the cause was unknown.

a cockatiel that had laid too many eggs and had peritonitis. Her abdomen was the size of a golf ball and entirely filled with fluid.

2006-02-06T22:53:00.000-08:00

a friendly little rabbit with a kidney stone so large i could feel it with my untrained hands.

2006-02-02T17:10:00.000-08:00

A ferret we had been taking care of for a week. It made me very sad. I almost asked someone else to do it. I really wanted to see him recover.

2006-02-01T10:41:00.000-08:00

a huge pet rat, only a year old, with a respiratory infection and lice. the owners didn't want to treat him.

2006-01-26T21:32:00.000-08:00

a young ferret with distemper.

2006-01-25T19:41:00.000-08:00

An otherwise healthy looking hamster that had gotten into rat poison. An apartment manager found it. One of her tenants thought it was vermin.

2006-01-23T15:17:00.000-08:00

Red-shouldered hawk with a shattered shoulder. He was covered in lice and piegon flies and was in bad shape all around. My hands have been shaky today and I slipped while giving him the injection and the needle, full of euthanasia solution, went straight into my forearm. I sighed and shook my head and treated it like a snake bite, sucking the venom from the wound then filled out an accident report. I don't think any chemicals ended up in me but it's a good reminder that we are all just meat.

2006-01-18T19:10:00.000-08:00

budgie with a huge tumor in its abdomen.

very old rat. so sweet, so kind. he licked me. i kissed him. he smelled like disease and dying. his kidneys had probably failed. his paws were covered in blood. he made me cry. i whispered to him.

iguana with calcium deficiency.

the most beautiful veiled chameleon i'd ever seen. metabolic bone disease.

All of these happened within 45 minutes of eachother. None of us could understand.

2006-01-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

A little budgie. We didn't really know what was wrong with him other than he had been ill his entire life. His legs bowed out to the sides and he couldn't stand up anymore.

2006-01-09T16:40:00.000-08:00

A very chipper and seemingly happy lovebird whose bottom beak somehow disappeared today. The owners didn't know what happened - maybe he was attacked by another bird or maybe it got caught in the cage. There was no way he would have survived without being syringe fed for the rest of his life. I didn't like the way it felt to euthanize an animal that was in such high spirits.

A young Hermann's tortoise who had been attacked by a dog.

2005-12-14T18:20:00.000-08:00

a very very old chinchilla that was dying in front of us. i just helped him along. often times when an animal dies, it takes the nerves and muscles a little while to get the signal. after the chinchilla had died, i sat staring at him on the table and his whiskers started to twitch. then his cheeks, then his neck muscles, his shoulders, back etc. it was as if the life was leaving him in a wave beginning at the tip of his nose.

2005-12-07T22:36:00.000-08:00

A pet rat with huge tumors. I never saw the owners but I could hear the little girl crying in the other room. The doctor gave her a toy hamster and I heard what can only be described as the sound of a smile.

2005-12-06T14:57:00.000-08:00

A sharp-shinned hawk with a broken wing. The bone was so badly fractured that a piece of it was poking through the skin. It was the first sharp-shinned I'd ever met.

2005-12-05T23:47:00.000-08:00

a tiny leopard gecko with gout. it took him a very long time to go.

i feel responsible for the death of the very old ferret because i was his anesthesiologist as he died on the surgery table. his insides were all bad news and though technically i had nothing to do with it, i was the last person he ever looked in the eye.

2005-11-22T10:25:00.000-08:00

A 13-year-old parakeet (budgie). They're only supposed to live 7 years or so. She had survived hurricane Katrina.