If we can all rewire our fixed societal viewpoint about the pets we euthanize in practice, we will live with less angst and personal torment and improve our mental well-being. Our newly rewired thinking can reduce sadness, depression, and our profession's suicide rate.

When this beloved dog developed a second bone cancer in his left front leg after having an amputation for bone cancer in his right rear leg, the prognosis was grim. Euthanasia was the best option when his quality of life declined to a low point.The connotation that society and our profession holds about euthanasia is associated with "taking life." This accepted conventional thinking may impute veterinarians to automatically feel badly, even after they have delivered a good quality euthanasia. This bad feeling may be compounded when the practice has a series of euthanasia requests on the same day or week. The very nature of our patients being short-lived and generally smaller, dictates that we must bear witness to more trauma, illness, aging, decline, and death than other professions. We will benefit if we make the conscious effort to rewire our unconscious but deliberate negative thinking as "takers of life" at euthanasia and adopt the kinder role for ourselves as "Mother Nature's helping hand."

Mother Nature's quick and helpful hand

Aging and frail animals that live in the wild will slow down. They often fall behind or separate themselves from their pack and lay under a bush, which exposes their vulnerabilities. Mother Nature's quick hand, with her harsh elements and her laws of predation, sets the destiny for sick, frail animals to die quickly in the wild. There is rarely a prolonged, lingering phase at the end of life for frail or sick animals that live in natural habitats.

By keeping domesticated pets in our environment, we shelter them from exposure to predation and nature's harsh elements. When humans domesticated animals, we adopted the ancient contract of the "good shepherd." As the good shepherd, it is our duty to separate our terminal pets from the pack when it is their time to die. This helps our pets avoid unnecessary suffering or an unnatural, lingering death. This obligation, to be the good shepherd, is especially important when our pets' quality of life declines to a low point or if they began to suffer relentlessly. When our pets' lives are no longer worth living for them, it is our responsibility as the good shepherd to employ Mother Nature's helping hand to help them have a peaceful and painless transition with a compassionate euthanasia.