She Killed the Class Pet

I am continually amazed at all the wierd, cruel methods people come up with for dispatching sick and injured animals. My wife’s a vet and has a whole stable full of stories of what people do out of sheer stupidity. Throwing it down the garbage chute? Rat posion? You use rat poison to kill rats you can’t catch. Anyone whose seen the suffering animals who get into rat poison go through before they die wouldn’t use it so lightly. Either find a vet who will do it for a reasonable fee (my wife quoted $25) or stomp it quickly.

I’ll give Caroline Howard the benefit of the doubt in that she must have thought the rat poison was the best way to go, but I don’t think I could have done it. It seems pretty harsh to me. But I wouldn’t have paid the $250 either. I probably would have called around to every vet in my area until I found one with a little compassion, like Eric’s wife. It’s too bad the Howard’s vet wasn’t more understanding.

Wow! $250. It cost 95 for my chow/shepard mix, and that included cremation.

As a Veterinary Technician, it is just HORRIBLE to think she watched that hamster suffer for THREE DAYS after she purposely poisoned it. Doesn’t she understand what rat poison does? It’s an excruciatingly painful bleeding out! What’s the lesson to her child there?? At our office, euthanasia for a hamster would be about $40. When I was younger, I had a hamster that had been “mouthed” by a dog that I had put to sleep for $12 after calling several vets in the area and getting the lowest price. If you can’t afford a humane euthanasia performed by a veterinarian, please make the poor little being’s death QUICK. For goodness sake, you could drive over it, shoot it, etc. Sickening to think of, but I’d much rather it be that when compared to a painful, slow death by poison. I don’t care what that woman’s excuse is…That’s just disgusting that she would torture that poor hamster like that.

I am continuously amazed at the generosity of vets. We found a kitten once with a broken femur and the vet ended up donating what I imagine was something like $8000 in care in return for a promise we would find the cat a good, safe home.

I cannot imagine treating a living being with so little kindness and not seeking other options. I imagine if you told that vet what you were planning the cost would have come way down.

$250 seems really steep, and I am likewise giving her the benefit of the doubt that she thought that rat poison would be the best option. ::shiver::

This is why I truly believe any class pets the teacher introduces into the class should be the responsibility of the teacher. I’m sure she thought that rat poison was the way to go, but call around to different vets, ask friends for recommendations to vets, somewhere there is a vet with a conscience and a heart who would have done it for much less.

I personally know two vets myself who would have paid for it themselves rather than see an animal suffer with rat poison.

All she had to do was pick up the phone and call around. She would have found a cheaper vet. Sounds like she was lazy and cruel.

She definately could have called around and gotten a lower price. Rat poison is not a gentle death. It would have been kinder to give it alchohol or something else that would have numbed and killed.