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We shot the dog.

Not, “we put it to sleep” or “we put it down”. We shot it. In the head. Three times.

This is still shocking to me, even after days and days, nay weeks, of asking around and somewhat agonizing over the decision. Even after a proper burial, clean up, and knowing she’s no longer hurting.

We shot a dog.

I woke up this morning expecting to see her at the door, tail optimistically wagging, hoping to get some of the cats’ food. Every day it was the same: she’d nip at the cats while they ate until they, feeling very harassed, backed off and let her to it. She never let Red Fox eat. Sometimes the kids chased her off with a stick long enough to let the cats eat. But she’d always be back in minutes and all the animals let her reign.

She’d been biting Red Fox too. At first it was playful nips and banter. Then, as she got more uncomfortable, the mange weeping and oozing in cycles, she got crabby. Red Fox, being very hungry by this point, started biting the cats on their necks in turn while they ate.

Fly nipped at the baby on the weekend. She laid around and stank like the rotting, walking heap of flesh she’d become. I began to feel more guilty about letting her suffer like that than being the one to go ahead and put her out of her misery.

And I wasn’t the one. All David wanted to hear that I was okay with him doing it. It wasn’t something he much wanted to do at all anyway, but he really didn’t want to do it if I was going to be against it and mad. I was that far removed from the deed and I still feel sort of dazed and confused that we shot a dog.

City-girl Me moved out here and found these two mutts in my yard. I did what city people do: they ask around to see who owns the dogs. If it’s a big enough area, they might post signs. And if no one responds, they call Animal Control, who removes them even further from “the deed”.

They laughed at me, these country people out here. A few were sympathetic. Not only did no one fess up to actually OWNING the dogs (everyone admitted to feeding them now and then), but they looked at me kind of cross-eyed when I asked about “the pound”, “animal control”, the “humane society”. My neighbor suggested I try the vet, to see if he would come out and inject the dog. I’d have to pay for it though…

Gradually it dawned on me. Out here, they think it’s okay to shoot nuisance animals. They just don’t DO it often. There’s a bunch of people out here who were willing to let these dogs walk around as “the town strays”, feed them scraps, scratch them behind the ears and such. But no one was going to actually take responsibility. No shots, no tick removal or medicine. And when it’s limping around in pain, no one would do what they say they “do”: shoot it.

If my kid did something like this I’d call it Passive Aggressive Disobedience. Problems don’t go away just because no one wants to deal with it. No one wants to pay for an animal shelter or control program. Probably few out here could afford the extra taxes anyway.

Just don’t look at the city people like, “Duh, that’s what your GUN is for” when you’ve let this animal stumble in pain through your own yard without doing anything yourself. Everyone agreed it was what needed to be done…..they just didn’t want it to be them doing “the deed”.

Andrew dug the hole, the only one with foreknowledge of what was about to happen. I saved dinner scraps and covered them with rich chicken broth and we put the plate on the edge of the hole. She never even looked up from her moment of gastronomic bliss. He put the first one in the back of her head. She instantly fell over, eyes closed.

I was at the bottom of the hill with Red Fox penned up in the shed. The other kids were in the house, the baby in bed. Andrew jumped back aghast when her legs continued to kick. For his comfort, David put two more into her until she stilled. She’d fallen right into the hole as planned and they buried her quickly.

Clean. Fast. Painless.

We told Wheaton and Celia shortly after. They were sorry we had to do it but everyone knew her days were numbered. Right after that Wheaton’s first tooth fell out and he pretty much forgot about anything else until today when he said, “ Smelly nasty dogs make other not-as-smelly-nasty dogs mean”.

Because we all noticed how different Red Fox was today. Happier, friendlier, fed. He gets up and dances on his hind legs in a circle when he sees us. Gone is the cloud of flies that used to hover over Fly, gone is her stench. Thankfully, so is her pain, and we don’t have to wonder when she’ll next snap at the kids and how hard she’ll bite.

One criticism that is often hurled at those who’ve lived in the city/suburbs but who talk about wanting to farm is that they won’t know how to put down their animals when it’s time, they won’t be tough enough, whether it’s for food, mercy, or protection. I still don’t know if I can actually wring a chicken’s neck. I know I could shoot a snake or something threatening us. And I know that the man I married, and the son we’ve grown, will be REAL MEN and take care of things as they need to be done.

I’m still kind of sick about it. We can buy our meat in packages, go Vegan, put developments on forest land, make hunters out to be crazy guys in camo…but all we’re doing is pushing the inevitable over on to the next guy. If death is a part of life, I’m seeing where we need to handle that responsibly.

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