A Veterinarian’s Daily Life
“Will you euthanize the dog?” — Today’s receptionist is Alya, who knows how much I hate euthanasia, so she asks as if apologizing.
“What’s wrong with it?” I ask her wearily.
“Old age…” she says.
“Old age,” I continue our usual phrase, “is not a diagnosis!”
Alya slouches and adds guiltily,
“She also has diabetes. Cushing’s. The owner… is sobbing.”
Cushing’s syndrome is an endocrine disorder caused by a tumor in the adrenal gland or pituitary gland. It’s expensive, complicated, and risky to treat. Tedious, lifelong. Add in other diagnoses and the high cost of identifying them all. Worst of all, even once you figure everything out, appropriate treatment isn’t always possible. If the tumor is in the adrenal gland, you can operate and remove it, then give the dog lifelong hormone replacement injections. But if it’s in the brain — you have to remove both adrenal glands and buy outrageously expensive medication from abroad, which also must be injected for life. And what if there are metastases? And the diabetes, too… as a complication of the syndrome.
“Is the diagnosis for Cushing’s confirmed?” I prod Alya.
“Preliminary,” she replies, as expected, and hands me an old, dog-eared medical chart. On the sheet are blood sugar readings and insulin dosages — the dog is already battling serious diabetes.
Well, if needed, I can offer the owner dexamethasone suppression tests, pituitary hormone testing, an adrenal ultrasound, and repeat blood work — as alternatives to euthanasia. If she asks.
Alya invites the woman in — she’s leading a black, disease-wasted cocker spaniel with a bloated belly and large bald spots on her sides. The dog can barely walk, and the woman is sobbing loudly, her face buried in a damp tissue. The sight of the broken dog and the devastated woman settles it. I don’t offer alternatives.
“Can we just…” the woman says through tears, “not put her down on the table?”
“On the floor?” I ask, surprised.
She nods and hands me a white flannel blanket to lay down. Then she carefully places a second orange one on a chair:
“Take it. Maybe someone else can use it.” She sniffles again.
Alright. Lifting the dog onto the table must already be stressful. I feel like someone granting a dying person’s final wish. The excess cortisol in the dog’s blood — ironically the very hormone of stress — doesn’t need more fuel. On the floor it is.
I record the procedure in the log, explain the medication and its effects, draw up the syringes.
“You don’t have to stay,” I warn the woman.
“I’ll stay,” she replies.
Oh God. A saint.
We lay the dog on the blanket. Alya holds off the vein, I shave the fur — it’s dark on the floor, I can’t see the vein, and I remember the conditions field vets sometimes have to perform euthanasia in: outdoors, in the cold, in filth, in dark stinking sheds. I’ve witnessed it all when I happened to accompany such visits.
The cocker goes peacefully, as if she’d already been ready. I listen with the stethoscope — silence. We wrap her in the white blanket. The woman leaves her for cremation and walks out, still crying.
She forgets her gloves.
…Death. Relief from suffering.
These days, I’m more tolerant of it — when I know recovery would mean long, painful treatment, or if it’s hopeless. Not long ago, two kind women brought in a stray cat with a rotting, torn-off lower jaw, broken in three places. Maggots wriggled beneath the peeled-back skin, and the cat was in shock from blood loss and extreme pain. A car must’ve hit him days ago, and only now had someone seen him and brought him in. Maybe he didn’t let himself be caught until he was too weak.
I’m all for life — but when I see things like that, my hands don’t shake. The patients don’t haunt my dreams. Of two evils, we choose the lesser, and sometimes death is the only way out of unbearable pain. Life seems inseparable from suffering.
…Ironically, my next patient is a man with a perfectly healthy young Miniature Schnauzer — salt and pepper color. I remember that color because, back when we were students, my friend wanted a schnauzer that shade. She got a reddish puppy instead, and the breeder promised the color would change with age — which it never did. He didn’t even grow into a schnauzer, just a stubby-legged mutt, still bright red. We laughed so hard. We ended up calling him, sarcastically, “Salt and pepper?” Of course, she kept him. Loved him dearly.
“I want to euthanize the dog,” the man says, abruptly pulling me from the funny memory.
Excuse me? The contrast hits me like a sledgehammer. I glance at the man, then the healthy, cheerful dog.
“This one?”
Are you kidding me?
“Yes,” he answers calmly, as if it’s normal. He preempts my questions:
“We recently had to put down our shepherd. It scared a neighbor. So we got a schnauzer. That was a mistake. Can you put him down?”
What? My hands start shaking. What? I’m speechless. I just stare at him, like he’s something grotesque and absurd. He’s so sure of himself. Like he’s at the right place, asking a reasonable thing. My ears buzz. I clearly imagine strangling this bastard right here in the office. Just a tight hug — very, very tight. With all-consuming love.
“Go. I’ll handle this,” Alya steps in, pushes me out the door. I peel my fingernails off the edge of the table.
“Go have some tea.”
“Have some tea,” echoes in my head.
Tea… have some…
“We only euthanize terminally ill animals,” I hear Alya say as I walk away, legs like wood. She’s still talking, and I pray the man doesn’t shout something like, “So what, should I tie a rock to him and throw him in the river?” — like they often do when vets refuse to comply…
The now-cold tea and a long-forgotten chocolate from the shelf bring me back to life. Sipping the bitter brew, I watch through the security camera: the man stands in the lobby with the schnauzer, seemingly undecided.
“What. Was. That?” I ask Alya as she comes upstairs.
“Forget it,” she shrugs and hands me another candy. “Here, have another.”
I take it.
Alya turns to the monitor showing the clinic entrance and the road outside:
“Son of a—!”
The man, calm as ever, ties the schnauzer to the porch with a long leash. The road there has no sidewalk — it’s right next to the clinic. He raises his collar and walks off. The dog follows, stepping into the road, barking, wagging. A taxi slows to avoid him. The man vanishes.
Alya bolts downstairs, stumbling over the threshold, nearly tearing off the door. I see her shouting from the porch. She stands there in the cold, then unties the dog and brings him inside. He follows reluctantly. We tie him in a back corner — nowhere else to put him. Alya lays down the orange blanket left by the cocker’s owner, places a bowl of water nearby. How her halo doesn’t scrape the ceiling, or her wings the doorframe, is a mystery.
And Then a Miracle Happens
That evening, the same woman who brought in the cocker spaniel peeks into the office:
“Excuse me… I think I forgot my gloves?”
“Yes, I’ll get them!” Alya heads to reception.
The woman’s eyes fall on the schnauzer — he’s spilled his water and bunched up the orange blanket from earlier. Each time the door opened, he’d lunged, hoping. Now again.
“Who is that?” she asks.
“Was brought in… for euthanasia,” I shrug.
“What?” she looks from me to the dog in disbelief.
“He was ‘a mistake,’” I quote the man. “I know your dog… today… but maybe… Would you take him? We have no place. If not, it’s okay, but maybe, just maybe…”
“Here are the gloves,” Alya returns.
“Shh!” I hush her.
“What’s his name?” the woman asks.
“Whatever you decide.”
She walks to the dog, kneels down. He licks her cold fingers, wags his tail. Such a sweet boy. She turns to us and nods — no words, only tears in her eyes. Alya unties the leash and puts it in the woman’s hand.
We both silently walk them to the door.
