Sherlock, the object of the talk was sitting on my lap as we were on our way to the SPA (Animal Adoption Center) oblivious to the reason for the discussion.
"Isn't that discrimination?" he asked when I said, I wouldn't mind neutering a female dog.
"Female are the ones who raise the pups." It made sense to me.
There was no way we would ever breed Sherlock. He is a Yorkie, Griffon, ?, ?, ? mixture. Even if we wanted to create a new breed, I doubt if we could find another same combination female. He was doomed, anyway, to a sexless life (If you don't include his love affair with the gray pillow).
I understand that Sherlock's mission is to be loved by humans, us! He is not destined to be a father and there are too many unwanted puppies in the world.
Sherlock was still a provisionary adoption.
Not only was he due to be castrated today, there was paperwork to finish up after we arrived. His official name had to be changed from Spider, the name he received when left at the adoption center by the breeder. They had two addresses: office and home. The chip info was updated.
By the time we drove past the Perpignan airport with Gaddafi's bullet-ridden plane still waiting for repairs, I knew even more strongly I didn't want to subject Sherlock to the surgery. We had almost reached our destination.
What I wanted really didn't matter. The lovely vet, who had given Sherlock certain shots earlier, explained, I signed a contract. It was part of the adoption process.
She was right.
We surrendered him.
Six hours later we picked him up. His tail wagged but he was groggy. The next day he is still groggy and has begun peeing in the house again, far more often and like it hurts. He has been happy to eat.
I imagine when he looks at me, he thinks, "WHY? WHY? WHY?" and is forsaking all future car rides unless he knows the destination.
And the most important thing--he is officially adopted. He has a loving home. But I still wish there'd been another way.
Rick did a dueling blog at http://lovinglifeineurope.blogspot.fr/
Posts
1 comment:
I’m glad Sherlock is okay - we had our two boys neutered for two reasons but in hindsight don’t know if we did the right thing. We ended up going forward with it because we were told that it meant they were less likely to get certain cancers and that it would calm themdown. Now I think that it was time that has calmed them down and is there really any guarantee against cancers? I don’t know but we were led by the vets and I felt terrible for putting them through it.
Post a Comment