Today I saw what made being a veterinarian the hardest: having to put a dog down. The moment I walked into the hospital today, there was a Great Dane lying on the counter and he looked pretty sick. There was a couple of vet techs crowded around him and one doctor who was giving him a check-up. The Great Dane had muscle atrophy, an old prostate, a bloated (maybe turned in) stomach, and was 12 years old (way past the age that Great Danes usually live). He looked extremely tired and it just seemed like he couldn’t live his life out happily even after surgery. The owners knew that the right thing to do was to put the dog down so they didn’t even discuss surgery. They immediately skipped to euthanasia. It was really sad to have to see a dog in that state and that’s when I realized that it’s more important to put an animal out of its misery rather than try to make them live a little bit more with their pain. It was sad, but it was the right thing to do and the Great Dane lived a really long life.
Along with this, we were also able to watch an FHO surgery of an 11 month old Maltese. The picture above shows some of the things people have to wear when entering and watching a surgery.