wafflycat said:
I've always thought that a person's attitude to an animal in distress speaks volumes about the kind of person he/she is. And what is heard is very, very revealing.
I grew up in the countryside, rearing animals for meat for our own use and for sale. We always took the view that if you were going to eat the animal, you owed it respect and a decent life beforehand.
Similarly with our pets. If you took the responsibility for the animal, that meant also for a non-suffering death. Sometimes that meant taking it to the vet, sometimes a short sharp blow or a 12-bore cartridge.
I've found abandoned puppies by the side of the road in Spain twice and had to put them down myself as the alternative was a slow death by thirst - not something I could allow to happen. Taking them with me was not an option.
A little while ago a cat turned up outside my neighbours - blind, deaf, walking in circles for 18hours non-stop. The vets were closed and my neighbour was freaking out. I put the cat down.
A few years ago a cat moved in with me and we got on very happily. He got poisoned, I suspect by someone using weedkiller, or by eating a poisoned rat. I thought he was recovering and left him for a weekend but when I came back he was visibly dying. I put him down too.
I don't enjoy it, it's always horrible to have to kill something, but the alternatives in all these cases were worse - a lingering painful death, in order to spare my own feelings.
To my mind, it's more honest than sub-contracting it to a vet.