Should've, would've, could've...: The story of Whitey-white-white

A little experience on euthanasia. Sometimes we need to look at both sides of the coin before we call heads or tails.

A few friends of mine do some rescue work. One of them, call her Ms C, is a very kind, hardworking lady. When I say hardworking I mean for the animals. She does not stint one bit on care and expenses for the animals in her charge.
A few months back, a bus driver brought a small dog to Ms C that he picked up from the street. This dog had been abandoned, with a TERRIBLE eye infection. I wish I had taken pictures but by the time I saw the dog, words can barely describe her condition.

The infection and maggots had eaten away this little terriers eye. When she was brought in, the wound and eye sockets were full of maggots, eaten up, and half the head skin was gone as well. The eyeball itself was long gone. Ms C was horrified by the condition of the poor dog, and brought her to the vet to be euthanized. Instead of doing so, the vet said that since she is eating, she deserves a chance at life, and she wouldnt put it to sleep. RM200++ later (Half price) the dog had been cleaned up, the skin flaps of the scalp sewn together, but nothing could be done for the gaping, raw socket. Ms C brought her back home to the shelter, where I saw her 2 days later on the weekend.
Another vet (who also runs a shelter) argued that the dog should have been put to sleep. Her condition was bad, she was in a lot of pain, and the cost spent on her and could have gone far in maintaining our shelter as we run it privately, generally without donations from the public. But done is done, and after all that, that doggie was not gonna be put to sleep.

For 2 weeks, twice a day we had to use a light iodine solution to wipe and clean the eye socket and wounds. The socket was very deep, and the area under the socket was already hollow due to maggots, so the pus had to be squeezed out before rinsing it with iodine, then smearing with Socresyl (sp?) Jelly meant for burns. We needed raw flesh to heal over. Pus was also in the wound above the eye socket, but the skin flaps healed pretty alright after a week. Whitety-white-white as I called her was such a good dog, even though the treatments must have hurt A LOT, at most during a particular hard squeeze she would just flinch. She ate like a horse too, and her belly was so distended I think she was pregnant in the bargain (We couldn't do much about that due to her health and also late condition, the main thing was to heal her, then rehome the pups if they came). For all the pain we caused her during the cleaning (and it must have hurt a lot!), Whitety-white-white never bit, or growled at me, and kept on eating. This was done TWICE a day by me and Ms C...

Unfortunately, 2 weeks after all that intensive care, just when her scalp wound had scabbed over and fallen off, and the hole under the eye socket clean of pus, on Saturday, Whitey-white began to have fits. Maybe we missed some infection and it got into her brain, her eye socket wounds were very deep. I did not go to the shelter during that week, but her fits grew a lot worse and finally on Tuesday, Ms C had no choice but to bring her to the vet and put her to sleep. Frankly, if Ms C had made that decision, that dog must have been suffering like hell. Ms C tries her very best and often succeeds in healing her dogs. It was a pretty sad day.

Thinking about that episode, I regret that Whitey-white had to go through all that for nothing. While she was healing, we had also been looking for homes for her and her puppies and actually had adopters waiting. She and her pups had a prospect for a good life, just waiting for her to get well. But I guess when its time for someone to go, nothing in the world can stop it from happening.
I really wish that she had been euthanized on the first visit, we could have spared her this pain, and in a practical aspect, we could have saved RM400 at least from her vet visits and the medication we spent on her. That money would have been used for the other dogs and cats instead. Thats a number of dogs and pups that could have been spayed at RM60 a dog. Thinking about money is cold, but thats what makes the world go round and shelters keep going.

Still, though, at least Whitey-white spent her last 2 weeks of life with love and care, in a comfortable place (but in pain). She had the best temperament, and hopefully the love given to her will help her in the next life to come. I can't regret that out of the whole experience. Maybe she gained something from the way she handled her experience. If we can't help her right now in this life, maybe love can help her in the next. Or maybe I'm just comforting myself. Questions with no answers, as always.

I wish we had taken pictures of her injuries, but they were so horrific I guess no one wanted to look at it and actually realize the extent of pain someone had let her get to. For she was a small, white terrier dog. Skinny, yes and dirty, but before all that also most likely someones neglected pet or breeding machine who got abandoned when she got wounded.

Add another person to the list of people to burn in hell eh?