Euthanizations and the "ET" room

Drawing blood from an alert and cohesive animal is hard, even when you do it every day. We draw blood for heart worm tests on adopted dogs that are 6 months of age or older before we send them to the vet. I've observed Kim and the other staff strugle and fight against dogs for a small sample of blood over one hundred times with in the last 5 weeks. Very few dogs sit by without a struggle and it's pretty hard to predict how a dog will react, although the smaller breeds usually make a bigger fuss about needles, the MinPins especially.

Yesterday, Lauren offered to let me try to draw blood from a dog. The one she had lined up for me was a young black lab she thought would be calm enough for a beginner. She began by demonstrating and talking me through the process when under Shelly's grip the lab began to growl. Lauren decided it would be best if she draw the blood given the reaction of the lab. I agreed.

She said that today I could practice on the euthanized dogs and cats, or at least that's what I thought she meant. What she actually meant was practice finding the veins in order to administer the leathal dose. So I euthanized several tranquilized cats and dogs.

One cat was a mother who had abandonned her kittens. The kittens were cold and Bill thought they were dead but when he brought them to the ET room they started crawling and crying. They were the tiniest kittens I'd ever seen or touched. They were euthanized with an injection to the stomach. Lauren said that everyone thinks that an injection in the abdomen is really painful but really they only imagine that its painful they don't really know. She said she's had injections to the abdomen and that it really isn't painful at all. Lauren says it is the most humane way to euthanize the kittens, but because the chemical is absorbed instead of injected directly into the vein death is slower.

I euthanized a pit that bit a baby on the head and face. How some people can put their children in a situation like that is beyond me. People are so irresponsible.
The other pit had attacked and killed a MinPin and another small breed dog.

They bring the aggressive dogs in on a stick and corner them behind a chain link gate that's mounted on the wall. Then they tranquilize the dogs, remove the stick and latch the gate against the door. When the dogs eventually go down they're put on the table for euthanization.

The cat's brachial vien is much harder to find and stay in thant he dogs' vein. They showed me three different points, the brachial, the hind leg and the tounge, where the injection could be made.

I'm a little surprised that Lauren suggested I try this considering how I reacted to vaccuming the hamster (I cried like a baby all day). I'm glad the hamster incident didn't affect her opinion of me as someone who's weak and not able to cope with things.

In any case, I'm alright, I even noticed that my hands were steady throughout the whole thing, not shaking at all although I was nervous, I didn't show it.
Lauren told me to stick around for ETs tommorow too, I hope I will do better and gain some skill.