Dogs: Til death do you NOT part
Euthanizing a dog shouldn't be based off of your ego, your mortality or your vacation plans
I can’t watch the 2009 film “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale” anymore. I think I cried five times the only time I watched that movie, and even that crying estimate may be too low. I saw it a couple of years after it released, primarily because I’m a huge Richard Gere fan. I had zero idea what the movie was about beforehand. I just knew it was about Richard Gere and a dog.
When I found out the movie was based on a true story about Hachiko, it hit a little harder. I sympathized with that Akita puppy, who was born one day before me (November 10) but in 1923. The puppy missed his owner terribly even though they’d barely been together 1.5 years (from the winter of 1924 until May 21, 1925). When Hachiko’s owner had a stroke and died, and for 10 straight years, the Akita came to the Shibuya Train Station in Tokyo where he usually met his owner. He had no idea why his owner (a professor in agriculture named Ueno Hidesaburo) didn’t get off the train for their usual walk home.
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I love Hachiko’s story, but I can’t handle that movie. My eyes teared up all over again just writing those two paragraphs above. I got off my computer altogether and snuggled up with my Hound mix Junee, who leaped like a kangaroo at the attention. (She couldn’t have cared less why I initially looked so sad — and has been challenging the idea that dogs don’t like hugs for three straight years.)
I love Junee. When I first saw her in a Facebook post, my email to the pet adoption agency about her said, “beautiful dog, but I'm not sure whether she'll be more than 50 pounds.” It took all of one email saying she was “super sweet, playful and affectionate” and seven full minutes for me to grab my keys and leave. I didn’t care all that much if she ended up being a large dog in a medium-sized condo. I came back with her the same day. (She grew to be between 32 to 35 pounds.)
No one lives forever, humans included
If I take an urn nap tomorrow, I absolutely hope that someone else would adopt and take care of my dog as well as I have. (And with the amount of people who interrupt my headphone listening to tell me how cute my dog is and to ask “Is she friendly?” I’m not convinced she would last 24 hours in anybody’s kennel anyway. In less than five minutes of me leashing her to run into a store, I’ve found out here and here that she’s more likely to be dognapped. Never did it again.)
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Still, when I wrote a living will, I had specific instructions for my own dog to be left with my parents. And if I outlive my parents, my will specifies that I hope Felines & Canines will find another good home for Junee. I’d like to live as long as my 95-year-old grandfather or my 100-year-old great great aunt, but I don’t have that kind of power. Life happens in its own time.
So I cannot comprehend why a Richmond, Virginia woman left instructions in her will to have her dog euthanized so they could be buried together. And when a dog shelter offered to try to get the Shih Tzu adopted by someone else, the executor still went through with the owner’s dog death wish and took Emma (the Shih Tzu) out of the dog shelter. Even worse, a vet followed through with killing Emma — even though there was reportedly nothing wrong with this dog. I grit my teeth at news like this.
Even while being bullied and beaten by a few pedestrians, Hachiko still went to that same train station for 10 straight years to meet up with his owner. Dogs have a right to outlive their owners. Is dog abuse a valid reason to euthanize Emma anymore than it would have been for Hachiko? No. Hachiko lived long enough to see his own statue (created by Teru Ando) at the Shibuya Train Station. And that homage helped other pedestrians befriend and honor the lonely dog. Meanwhile, this lady couldn’t bear somebody else having her dog? Grrrrrrrrrrrr!