Mercy Killing

This is a bit graphic. If violence offends you, please find something else to read.

I got home last night and did not have much time before I had to run out again to help finish a project that I was involved in this weekend. As I was bouncing around the house doing this and that before I left, I had to go out front to do something (shake out a towel or dump the nasty dog bowl water on our parched lawn) when I noticed a rabbit in the alley. It was not dead, it was just sitting there. I walked towards it and it began dragging itself towards the yard away from me, but it was not getting very far. I looked like it's back may have been broken low, near the back legs.

I went back in and finished what I was doing and then reached for a plastic grocery bag. My wife asked me what I was doing and I told her. "Babe, I have to do a mercy killing and I am not looking forward to this." I then told her the story.

I went out in the alley with the plastic bag and my heavy work gloves and picked up the rabbit. It was very nervous...not that I blamed it...it was about to lose its life at my hand. A friend (who traps) once told me a rabbit's neck snaps very easily, so I picked up the rabbit and gave it a quick snap, but I the rabbit was still moving. I was a bit nervous at this point...it was supposed to be easy. I then got up the nerve to twist until I heard snapping of bones and then put the rabbit in the plastic bag and put it in the trash. It was over...or so I thought.

I went in and told my wife the deed was done. She asked me where the rabbit was now and I told her. "El, The picked up the trash today. That rabbit will bake in the bin until they pick up again next week and it will smell horrible." I agreed that it needed to go someplace else...not in our bin. I went back out and retrieved the bag and that is when I noticed that the rabbit was still breathing. I felt really horrible at this point...the little beast had suffered before I attempted to put it out of its misery and now it was suffering even more. It could not move, but it was breathing. I took the rabbit and put it in our yard (in the shade so it would not be roasting) while I figured out what to do next. I did not have knife sharp enough to cleanly slit its throat, but I did have a high powered pellet gun in the garage.

I went in and removed the trigger lock, pumped it up and placed it at the base of the rabbits skull and fired. It stopped breathing. To be sure, I pumped it up again and fired one more shot into the same general area. The animal was dead. I put dead animal back in the bag and I took him to a field to be handled by nature. I guess had I thought about it I could have done that first. Does that make me a bad person?

I would be lying if I said this did not bother me. I have had to do this only a couple of times before to rabbits (and a squirrel I think) and it is never easy. My wife and have had to have 2 cats put down since we have been married and it was painful...even though I do not like cats. I am not a killer nor do I want to be one. Taking a life is very difficult for me.

Call me a wimp if you want...I really do not mind. I am secure in my identity and how God has created me. I also believe (after some prayer) that God is using this to prepare me for when I have to put little man (our 12 year old lovable mutt) down. He is in good physical shape, but he is acting very weird. Today, I found him staring at a plain off-white wall. Not growling, not scratching, not sniffing...just staring. We have found him doing this before but snaps out of it pretty quickly.

He also has mini convulsions every now and then, like a Parkinson's patient might have. He is sometimes aggressive and has nipped me (as well as others) a few times. I have no doubt we will be forced to put him down at some point. The thing that hurts is that he can be so loving a large percentage of the time. It is only a small percentage that he acts like a bad dog. The day I have to make the decision to euthanize him I will no dubt be a basket case. I love my dog. God first, then wife, then my son, then my dog. Really. Little man is my pal.