WEST LAFAYETTE, IN — When she was 9 years old, brown Labrador mix Brinny had been returned to the Clinton County Humane Society more than four times.
She was an anxious dog, prone to biting those she did not know.
After months of watching her picture disappear then re-emerge on the Humane Society website, Cindy Downham jumped into her car and went to pick her up.
“I went and got her. I didn’t need another dog, and she was a growler,” said Downham, no stranger to working with anxious dogs.
Within a week, Brinny bit Downham’s friend — not severely, but enough to warn the woman to not hug Downham again.
What led Brinny’s previous owners to surrender her back to the shelter became instead one of the moments that convinced Downham to turn the foster scenario into an adoption.
As Brinny adjusted to her new space, the living room couch became her favorite spot, although her hips would not allow her to lie there in the months before her death.
When her hips were healthy, she would jump over the back of the seats in a way that constantly made her owner nervous.
“You would not think, as fat as she was, and as short as she was, she’d go right over that couch, and every time I winced, but she always landed,” Downham said as she laughed along with the memory.
At 15, Brinny was put to sleep on the couch where her happy memories resided.
Downham knew that with an anxious dog like Brinny, going to the vet to be euthanized was an unappealing option. She was still traumatized by what had happened with their pit bull mix Buddha.
When Downham realized Buddha was suffering, she went to the family’s longtime veterinarian, Dr. John. Although the dog was treated well, Downham recalls that she did not feel comfortable mourning her pet.
“Dr. John will always be my vet, but he’s a farm vet. Farm vets are very clinical,” said Downham, who had to navigate carrying her medium-sized dog into the clinic alone, with tears streaming down her face.
So when Brinny was suffering, Downham contacted Dr. Nicole Amsler from Weeping Willow Veterinary Euthanasia.
‘That’s the way you do it’
“She (Brinny) didn’t have to go anywhere, she didn’t have to be anxious … and I thought, That’s the way you do it,” Downham said.
Amsler specializes in at-home euthanasia for dogs and cats.
The process with Brinny began with an injection of anesthesia to take away pain. Amsler then left the room, allowing Brinny and her owners one last chance to say goodbye.
“I give the family some time to talk to them and comfort them while they’re kind of getting sleepy, and I go back in when they’re ready,” Amsler said.
Thirty minutes later, Downham announced she was ready for the second injection that would put Brinny to sleep.
Despite being a veterinarian focusing on at-home euthanasia for more than 14 years, Amsler admits she sometimes still cries. These emotions never go away completely.
“Being able to go home, cuddle my own animals and just knowing I helped (the euthanized animals) does help me as well,” Amsler said. Her rural Carroll County family owns three dogs, eight cats and 15 goats that all help her recover from a sad day at work.
The veterinarian said she has always had a great relationship with animals, partly because of her memories with her late grandfather. One of her favorites is of sitting under a weeping willow — her grandfather’s favorite — near his pond as his dogs played in front of them.
That feeling of peace is what she wishes to give the animals and their families.
Looking for another way
Jeri Hatfield not only found this peace, she found a friend during a dark time in her life.
After living on a farm with her husband, J.D., for 50 years, he died, leaving her with three older dogs and too much land for the 84-year-old to take care of herself.
She moved to a house in a neighborhood where she said it feels as if people are piled on top of her. In less than a year, all three of her dogs died.
The first to go was Tyler, who died at home with a vet who did at-home euthanasia, but not in a gentle way.
“He just was so cold and he just put him to sleep right there,” Hatfield said, pointing to the spot on the hardwood where Tyler was euthanized standing up before he fell and hit his head on a bar stool.
When the vet left with her dog’s body, Hatfield said, he “threw him in the back of his car … slung him in there.”
For her next dog, Sneakers, Hatfield knew she needed someone kinder.
Through the app Nextdoor, she found Amsler, who came to her home and sat with Hatfield during the process.
After Sneakers died, Amsler and her husband wrapped the dog in blankets and placed him on a small stretcher that was carried to a spot in the bed of their truck filled with warm blankets.
Once Amsler euthanizes an animal, she provides the owner with the options of cremation and paw and nose prints.
Downham decided to bury Brinny next to her sister. But so many clients, such as Hatfield, requested the cremation option that Amsler now has a cremation chamber in her home.
The vet then sends a handwritten sympathy card.
“I always try to hand-write each sympathy card and talk about their pet and what I noticed while I was there,” Amsler said.
Brinny’s euthanasia cost more than $300, more than the $100 it cost to euthanize Buddha because of traveling and services. But Downham said she does not regret choosing Amsler.
Brinny was hers: “She was just an old dog who wanted some peace.”
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Local vet practices at-home euthanasia for pets
Reporting by Ava Westendorf, Lafayette Journal & Courier / Lafayette Journal & Courier
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Ava Westendorf, Lafayette Journal & Courier | USA TODAY Network
