One plus side of this story is that Gabby has a happy future (god willing)

The RSPCA and animal collection officers are all trained and certified to administer Euthanasia. Quite a few animals are injected into the abdomen if veins have collaped or are hard to find. It's not as quick as getting euthanol into a vien and it's a method that's avoided unless absolutely necassary.

Horrific:smt022 :smt022 :smt022 Poor baby. At least she is now safe. What about the other dogs who could end up the same :smt022 :smt022 :smt022

Some years ago I worked at a vets "Park Veterinary Clinic" in sutton, a client brought in an old dog to be pts. Early the next day the body man arrived to open up the freezer to take the bodies, he came back in and said there's a live dog in the freezer, two of the nurses ran out to find this dog standing there. Our boss pts it again later, that upset all of us for months, reading this brought back horrid memories. The original pts was carried out by a 'VET' believe it or not, our boss went mad at him for all the upset caused, he left not long after that, but it was the worst ever experience for me.

That is so sad Hugs to you xxxx

I would hope and pray they have learnt from thier mistakes. When having to euthanise an animal, it's one of the things you dread happening - you make sure you've given more than the recommended dosage, and double, triple check for a heart beat before placing them in the bag

I know !.....

Hello Malady,
I just thought you might be interested in the background to Sylvia's anti-euthanasia views, as you referred to them in the time frame of since she worked in America.
Sorry if i got the wrong end of the stick.

OMG Park Vets are very well respected, HORRIFIED to hear this!!

Lets see, where to start.

1st. I'm not sure what the animal control used to euthanize the dogs. If they used Pentabarbitol, which is the most common drug, if the dog was underdosed enough, he could have survived no damage, as peto was originally used to stop cluster seizures and in low doses causes no harm to major organ systems. If they weren't using pento, rather, using Rocal, which is an antiviral cleaning agent (as happens ALOT more than you want to know) then if they missed the vein it wouldn't have worked, but the dog wouldn't have even looked dead, so that doesn't make sense.
The third posibility is that putting the dog in the freezer after underdosing it with pento may have slowed its metabolism and heartrate enough that the drug cleared the dogs system so slowly it didn't cause any damage.
The fourth posibility is that it did cause damage. The reports made mention of a specialist, and didn't specifically say the dog wasn't ill. Though I sincerely hope she isn't

As for humane ways to euthanize, IV is best. On pocket pets we normally put them out with Isofluorane first ( an inhaled gas) then do an intracranial stick, its painless and immediately effective. I would never bag an animal unless I had checked it, and also had someone else check it for a heartbeat. Apparently, at the time this shelter didn't even have a stethoscope. Disgusting.

And for surviving a freezer. I don't see why not. Dogs live outside in freezing temperatures all the time. This is no different. A coldblooded animal like a lizzard couldn't survive 4 days of freezing temperatures, but a warm blooded animal could quite easily, especially if her metabolism had been slowed by the drugs.


At least they aren't using CO gas anymore. They used to put several animals at once in an airtight chamber and gas them with a noxious gas that burned the mucous membranes. The dying process was slow, painful and confusing, often the dogs in the tank would attack each other out of fear. It was not uncommon for dogs to survive the first gassing and have to be gassed again. For the most part, shelters have switched to lethal injection, but some still live in the dark ages, and routinely put animals to sleep this way. Its barbaric and cruel.

Our ACO's (Animal Control Officers) are all "trained" to euthanize dogs, no vet involved. My local Shelter euthanizes when the space is filled. Pets get 72 hours to get adopted, then they get put to sleep. Healthy, sick, young, old, cute, ugly, it doesn't matter. Thats the sad fact of animal overpopulation in this country. That is why early spay/neuter is so important.

Quite agree, they are one of the best, I'd still use them though, but the vet that did this ( Glad he left) wasn't well liked anyway, think he was up his own ar...