Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Buddhism and Euthanizing Your Pet
skydancer
Veteran
What are your thoughts?
When I was in long retreat my aging dog was in end stage of life and finally died. My Lama said no euthanasia, so part of my retreat was bearing with the suffering of old age, illness and death.
What I learned from my dog was regardless of how bad things got for him, that dog wanted to live, it was I who could not bear his symptoms--which were rather extreme.
Now my old cat, (aged 16), is starting to show signs of 'losing it'. Here we go again. Sometimes I wish I wasn't a Buddhist.
When I was in long retreat my aging dog was in end stage of life and finally died. My Lama said no euthanasia, so part of my retreat was bearing with the suffering of old age, illness and death.
What I learned from my dog was regardless of how bad things got for him, that dog wanted to live, it was I who could not bear his symptoms--which were rather extreme.
Now my old cat, (aged 16), is starting to show signs of 'losing it'. Here we go again. Sometimes I wish I wasn't a Buddhist.
0
Comments
My dog was dying of congestive heart failure. We called the emergency and they said that it would be ok to bring him in the next day because of their assessment of his signs/symptoms. He didn't make it that long and died. He was a very frightened dog of unfamiliar places as he had been a rescue dog, a stray on the streets for a long time. I am kind of glad that he had a peaceful place to die in his home with his family. He didn't have bright lights and confusion around him.
Basically he said something similar to what you said.
"Sometimes we make decisions out of fear, because we think the animal is suffering etc...
you should ask your pet if he wants to die.
Try to feel the connection between you and him, and simply ask him."
I cannot remember in which talk it was tho, you will have to find out by yourself if you would like to see it. http://www.youtube.com/user/BuddhistSocietyWA
I have and had many pets, i know how much we love these creatures... it's a very heavy decision most of the time.
As for killing or not killing an animal, I would always side with life. Physical suffering is much more trivial than we make it out to be from an outsiders perspective but when one is experiencing physical pain, we learn to deal with it.
The main thing to consider here (as with every issue), is intention.
Will Euthanizing your pet truly be an act of compassion for your pet, or will it be of more convience to not take care of it?
I put down my dog a few months ago, sad days.
Best of luck with everything.
This is truly the right path!
It's not an assumption. I have seen animals refuse to eat when struck by serious illness. Humans can get like this, but not often. Most humans struggle to hold on to life. Animals can often just know it, and not really fight it.
I know this too, but if you leave an animal who refuses to eat and cannot recover with modern medicine to be. It will wither to a skeletal state barely able to move and it will die a slow death of suffering. An animal in this condition knows they cannot recover. So what would be a more compassionate decision as the keeper of that animal. To let it starve to death and feel its body shutting down slowly and painfully without any possible reversal, or giving it a peaceful and quick end under a needle? To me the theory that letting it deal with all that suffering on its own in order to get rid of its negative kharma is just religious theory that I cannot put blind faith in. It does not make honest sense to me. If anything I think the owner choosing the more compassionate path for the animal makes more sense to have to do with good kharma. But that is just me.
I am not bound by tradition, I go with what feels right.
Last week, another of my friends was put to sleep, and it was an entirely different case. Prince, a 13 year old, very big and healthy male, just started wasting away. I couldn't figure it out. Always a friendly cat to others, he always cringed whenever I went to pet him. It was always kinda hurtful to me...I love my cats and had never done anything to hurt him...and I never could understand why he seemed so....scared around me. As a family, we joked that perhaps he was cringing because I'm such an alpha female. Oddly, for the past month or so, while he seemed to be losing his appetite, he started sleeping with me. Would come to my bed and was talkative...I knew he was trying to tell me something.
Either way, took him to the doc for a yearly rabies shot, and he completely collapsed over the weekend. Turned out, he had the disease, and that shot put him over the edge. He needed a transfusion, which I couldn't afford, and while he wasn't where my Lucky was at, it was just a matter of days.
It was pre-emptive death, not pain management this time, and I was so undecided...so torn...so sorrowful. What was the right thing to do? He just laid there, and for the first time ever, with his big head resting in my palm, purring at me, accepted my touch and not cringing. It took two shots to still his big heart, and it occurred to me: 'Did you always know? That it would be me, with you, in the end?'