Vet Begs Pet Owners To Stay With Their Animals In Dying Moments
LittleThings’ editorial content? Please contact us at Vet’s Heartbreaking Plea For Owners Putting Pets To Sleep: ‘I Beg You Do Not Leave Them’ animal Vet’s Heartbreaking Plea For Owners Putting Pets To Sleep: ‘I Beg You Do Not Leave Them’ by Lindsey Weedston Published Sep 14, 2018 Advertisement
The hardest part about being a pet parent is being there during a fur baby’s dying moments. The Hillcrest Veterinary Hospital in South Africa understands, but its staff also has a message for animal lovers: Don’t leave them when they’re dying .
The animal hospital recently posted an impassioned letter from an anonymous veterinarian begging pet owners to stay in the room during euthanasia. Well-cared-for pets who live to old age are often suffering in their final days, and putting them down in a painless and peaceful manner is typically the best, most humane option. However, many loving pet parents find it difficult to watch their babies go.
This totally makes sense, but this anonymous vet makes a compelling argument for staying with them as they pass on. Whoever this vet is has seen too many animals search the room for their owners, scared and confused — and those are the last things they feel before they die.
The vet wrote, “The thing you people need to know that most of you don’t is that THEY SEARCH FOR YOU WHEN YOU LEAVE THEM BEHIND!!!!”
Those are the exclamation points of a person who has seen too many scared animals die alone.
“You have been the center of their world for THEIR ENTIRE LIVES!!!!” the vet wrote. “They may just be a part of yours but all they know is you as their family.”
Well, we’re already crying, but please, go on. Flickr / Ellie Nakazawa
The vet makes an attempt to be understanding, acknowledging that it’s not easy and in fact can be “devastating.” But it’s worse for the dying animal if you’re not there.
“Do not make them transition from life to death in a room of strangers in a place they don’t like,” the vet wrote. Facebook / Hillcrest Veterinary Hospital & 24hr Emergency Service
It soon becomes clear why this vet felt compelled to write this letter.
“They search every face in the room for their loved person,” the vet explained. “They don’t understand why you left them when they are sick, scared, old, or dying from cancer and they need your comfort.”
The letter is signed, “From a tired broken-hearted vet.”
It cannot be an easy job having to put down so many frightened animals. Facebook / Hillcrest Veterinary Hospital & 24hr Emergency Service
If you weren’t already crying, the responses to the letter make everything worse.
“My husband and I stood by our dogs, stroking them and talking to them until the end,” wrote Carol Dreyer. “It was painful, but their total loyalty and love, deserved that at the very least.” Facebook / Hillcrest Veterinary Hospital & 24hr Emergency Service
“From someone who has had to say goodbye to a couple of wonderful little dogs, I couldn’t agree more,” wrote Jennifer Obermeyer. “I stayed and held them and bawled my eyes out, but I would never ever have left them to have their last moment on this earth, with a bunch of strangers, albeit caring ones.”