
Originally Posted by
Tock
I was a dogcatcher for about a year, caught dogs for 6 months on day shift, then killed 'em for 6 months on night shift. In the 6 months with one needle I put about 5000 animals to "sleep." Most of it was totally unnecessary, because people let their animals roam free without being spayed or neutered, so they go out and reproduce and create more animals that nobody really wants, and then they either get run over by cars, or die of various diseases, or spread diseases to people's pets, then the pets give 'em to their owners.
It's a big problem. Nowadays the city dispatches upwards of five times what I used to do. A lot of the animals end up being used for medical experiments (too grisly for words).
If there's 5 of 'em next door right now, won't be long before there are 50 of 'em, all uncared for, spreading god knows what, starving . . . may as well do the other 45 who aren't here yet a big favor and catch 'em (they make traps for this) and take 'em to the local pound or humane society.
If you're gonna kill 'em yourself, I suggest you use what we used -- 1 cc of sodium pentabarbitol injected into the abdomen (1 cc for every 15 lbs of bodyweight). Of course, the cat won't appreciate your efforts, so ya gotta have someone wearing gloves hold the front & back legs while you inject . . . for some reason, cats don't react the same way dogs do. They'll get woozy after a few minutes, then zone out, and finally expire. Takes 15 to 30 minutes. Dogs, on the other hand, will tell ya real quick if this stuff gets outside of their veins -- for them, it's very painful. Gotta inject it in their veins, and if you do it right, they're gone in 10 seconds, pain free. Do it wrong, and things can get ugly. Had a confrontation with a boxer once . . . to make a long story short, I ended up wrestling 'em to the floor and holding him down while he snarled and tried to take a chunk of my ass, and another guy had to get a long needle and inject the stuff straight through the chest into the dog's heart. Ya, in situations like that, they'll moan and cry and let ya know they're in pain . . . but, it's gotta be done.
Man oh man, that was far and away the worst job I ever had . . . Had some old guy accuse me of trying to break into his house to rape his daughter once, too . . .
But anyway, if no one is looking out for those cats, they'll only reproduce and spread disease and you'll only have to get rid of that many more problems. Best to get rid of 'em now while there's only five . . .
--Tock