Don't play God

When, oh when, will I learn?

This weekend has been possibly the single most distressing two days of my life. Some of you who read this will get to the end and think to yourselves, "well if that's so distressing you've had a pretty good life". I acknowledge this. But for me it was hideous.

In a snapshot, I decided to play God and it backfired. As previously explained, the feral animal problem here is pretty out-of-control. So in my 'let's get organised' style I decided to get 4 of the local stray, but docile dogs de-sexed. Going into it I thought that not only would I be cutting down on the number of unwanted and therefore starving and diseased animals, but that I would be releasing said dogs from lives of sexual servitude, and possibly be able to re-home them once the operation was completed.

I went into it knowing it wouldn't be easy, but I had no idea how difficult it would be. I'm not going to relay all the gory details, but suffice it to say, all 4 got extremely stressed to the point of abject terror. The 'vet' clinic was reminiscent of a back-street abortionist. I was crying in public. The dogs took nearly 1.5 days to come round from the anaesthetic. And two have disappeared. For all I know they are wandering the streets dazed and confused; have been hit by a car; or are so terrified that they won't come back to the only security they know, the pack they've been living in.

I've been searching for them since saturday night, to no avail. So my conclusion is, don't play 'God'. Just because you think you've got enough common sense to make an 'appropriate' decision on behalf of someone else, that doesn't give you the right.

Postscript: Both dogs have since reappeared. One is quite swollen and I'm going to get the vet out tonight, but the other 3 seem ok. Thank goodness, thank goodness, thank goodness.