My View on Euthanasia

Until recently my family owned a horse by the name of Yukon. He had white fur and was pretty chunky for a horse, but he was content. He might have been a little lonely at times, but he had a donkey as a neighbor, and the two of them would converse from across the street. My dad always liked to say that our neighbor is an ass.

Well anyways not too long ago we started to have a few problems with Yukon. His condition over the past year and a half had slowly worsened. He started getting sores all over his body, and he had difficulty standing up after he had lain down. In the end of his life he couldn't stand at all. It's a sad state for such a noble animal to be reduced to, and yet here he was.

My mom called the vet to see if he could fix the situation. I knew that the horse wasn't going to live through the night, but being so attached to something can sometimes cloud your sense of reason. I opposed calling the vet, for two reasons. One, I don't really trust them, they take your money for the most mundane things and it makes me sick. Two, I think the idea of letting a stranger kill one of your animals is cruelty in it's most basic form. Think about it, by not doing the "job" yourself, you're admitting to yourself that the animals life had been worthless and that it isn't worth you getting your hands dirty over. In my opinion it is the right thing to, one not let an animal in suffering go on suffering, and two, to look that animal in the eye with confidence, and sadness and show it that it's life had been worth living, before you end it's life. And I'm sure the vet did not do the second one, that costs extra.

Some would say that it's a sign of ruthlessness to kill an animal, that if one belongs to our higher society they should not participate in the act. But it seems to me that in our attempt to become a more noble or "high" society we have severely failed.

It turned out I was right. Yukon was put down while I was at show choir practise. It cost my mom $150 to have him killed, and another $500 to have his remains disposed of. Highway robbery is what it is. He was missed and even though I told my mom I didn't want to say goodbye, at two o'clock, when everyone was a sleep I snuck down and payed my respects to the poor animal, whose life, in my mom's opinion, had not meant anything.