Allow me to tell a true story. I saw this with my own eyes.
My two sisters and I had adopted a stray dog. We called him "Friend." One Friday, a few days after we'd first met him, Friend growled at my dad. At this time, Dad was a real bastard... or maybe he thought the strange dog we'd befriended was a threat to us. (Maybe the latter, for everytime he saw a rattlesnake, he'd make sure he killed it, so there'd be one less to menace us. We lived in the country, you see).
So, Dad shot him in the head. Blew half his head off, wrapped him up in an old towel, and drove a couple of miles to the open dumpsite in the woods that everybody used. That's where he was laid to rest.
That was on Friday.
Sunday, we come back from church, and THERE WAS FRIEND! Right there on the front steps. He had found his way home... with half a head.
Mom wouldn't let us out of the car. Dad walked up to look at Friend... and friend thumped his tail, and wagged it at Dad.
Now, my Dad wasn't (and isn't) a cruel person. While he had attempted to kill Friend for whatever reason (he still evades the question to this day), he didn't mean for anything like THIS to happen.
So, Dad shot him again. Several times. Immediately. My big sister got the job of cleaning all the blood off of the sidewalk and the bed of Dad's truck.
The moral? I had a very scary childhood... and living creatures can be surprisingly resiliant. From a purely mechanical point of view, killing any robust animal is tougher than it looks, and despite our best intentions, it's not always a painless death. I'll have to hear more before I'm willing to accuse the greyhound guy of willfully toruring the dogs he was tasked with killing.
Loxley
(who respects Melskunk very much, and hopes she doesn't think he's being argumentative)
Allow me to tell a true story. I saw this with my own eyes.
My two sisters and I had adopted a stray dog. We called him "Friend." One Friday, a few days after we'd first met him, Friend growled at my dad. At this time, Dad was a real bastard... or maybe he thought the strange dog we'd befriended was a threat to us. (Maybe the latter, for everytime he saw a rattlesnake, he'd make sure he killed it, so there'd be one less to menace us. We lived in the country, you see).
So, Dad shot him in the head. Blew half his head off, wrapped him up in an old towel, and drove a couple of miles to the open dumpsite in the woods that everybody used. That's where he was laid to rest.
That was on Friday.
Sunday, we come back from church, and THERE WAS FRIEND! Right there on the front steps. He had found his way home... with half a head.
Mom wouldn't let us out of the car. Dad walked up to look at Friend... and friend thumped his tail, and wagged it at Dad.
Now, my Dad wasn't (and isn't) a cruel person. While he had attempted to kill Friend for whatever reason (he still evades the question to this day), he didn't mean for anything like THIS to happen.
So, Dad shot him again. Several times. Immediately. My big sister got the job of cleaning all the blood off of the sidewalk and the bed of Dad's truck.
The moral? I had a very scary childhood... and living creatures can be surprisingly resiliant. From a purely mechanical point of view, killing any robust animal is tougher than it looks, and despite our best intentions, it's not always a painless death. I'll have to hear more before I'm willing to accuse the greyhound guy of willfully toruring the dogs he was tasked with killing.
Loxley
(who respects Melskunk very much, and hopes she doesn't think he's being argumentative)