DF told me he shot his dog

[DickDarstedly]

I have just been visiting DF (90) in his care home. We were talking about the various pets we have had over the years. He said he had had a dog as a child and that he had shot it dead because it had been badly behaved. I said that is awful and asked if he was sad he had done it, I also asked what his parents had said about it. His response was to repeat that the dog was annoying, as if that explained everything.

I have never heard this story before and DF does have dementia, earlier in in the visit he told me his father had just died (he died 30 years ago). It’s just possible he is ‘remembering’ something he heard about or saw in a film. The thing is though, he has always lacked empathy and so I am inclined to think it is true.

I am still travelling home and don’t have anyone to share this with until I get back. I’d like to make sense of it. For context, DF has done many things over the years which show that he has no empathy or conscience, but I have tended to make excuses for him. But now I am wondering if I have been a bit naive. I know life was different in the 1940s/50s but to me this is sociopathic and it really changes how I think about him.

How would you feel if you heard this from a parent?

People are being a bit.... odd? It was an animal, not a child; it may have been aggressive to people or livestock. I'm not sure how shooting a dog is actually any different to having it PTS at the vets, as long as the person wielding the gun knows what they are doing.

(then again, this is Mumsnet, where people are urged to basically remortgage their home to pay for a million rounds of pet therapy, in the hope that it might salvage a dog that's been making everyone's lives miserable for years on end)

Quite. A few years ago I had to arrange to have an animal dealt with. It was by this point extremely unsafe for a vet (or any human) to have come within 15’ of said animal.

People are being a bit.... odd? It was an animal, not a child; it may have been aggressive to people or livestock. I'm not sure how shooting a dog is actually any different to having it PTS at the vets, as long as the person wielding the gun knows what they are doing.

I disagree with the shooting of a child but I do agree with human euthanasia.

I feel the same reasons apply to animals.

Even criminals on death row aren’t shot to death anymore.

It's not a human.

I wouldn't choose this as an ideal euthanizing method either, but the extreme reactions from some people on here are weird, especially given that most of them probably aren't strict vegans or anything.

“It costs quite a lot to go to the vet and if you don’t really care about the dog then you aren’t going to spend money going to have it PTS when you have a gun and can do it yourself.”

Your assumption is wrong and I care deeply about all of the many dogs I’ve owned. Up to and including that they have a quick death, in familiar surroundings.

@Shreik

No

This thread has gone a bit off topic. It’s interesting to hear about how rural people treat or used to treat animals but not entirely relevant to this situation.

My father didn’t really live in the country, it was a semi rural (at that time) part of Surrey and his father commuted to London to work as a civil servant. They were not farmers, nobody else in their family farmed and I doubt they knew any farmers. They were definitely not the sort of family who were used to the kind of things other people have mentioned on this thread. I can’t even imagine any of them holding a gun, let alone using it though I accept they might have had one in the house during the war.

Also, more importantly, this was not a working dog that was attacking animals. I asked my dad what it had done and he just said the dog was annoying. It had not harmed any person or animal. It was not a dangerous dog.

I think I will never get to the bottom of what really happened so it’s best for me to let it wash over me. He is dying and I think we both need to be at peace.