Healthy Guide dog being put to sleep so it can be buried with it's owner?

[Sparklingbrook]

Here AIBU to feel really strange about this?

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

Aw that's awful. Surely if she believed they would be together then she would also believe that one day when it was his time they would be reunited. That poor young healthy dog deserved a life. Course he's mourn his owner but he would have felt love again , someone else would have taken care of him :(

[VenusStarr]

How awful :(

[wannaBe]

it's despicable, and mercifully would never be allowed to happen in this country. Can I just clarify some points re guide dogs though...

Owners and dogs are not matched together for months - they are trained for about eighteen months, firstly by a puppy walker, then by an initial trainer and then a guide dog instructor (all of whom they form bonds with) and then matched with the owner with whom they are trained during a three week training programme by the end of which you will have built up some sort of bond with the dog. The bond does take much longer than that to develop fully, and really does depend from dog to dog.

Dogs that are returned to the organisation by the age of five years are re-assessed and often retrained with new owners. This obviously depends on the dog, the circumstances in which it has previously worked and the reasons why it is returned, but assuming there are no behavioral issues and the dog has previously worked well there is no reason why generally these dogs cannot be retrained and matched with new owners. I know someone who returned her dog to guide dogs because they moved abroad to the middle east where guide dogs just wouldn't be accepted and she was retrained and re-matched within three months. It was funny because I saw the dog out with the trainer a couple of times during her retraining, and this dog, who adored me, would go absolutely mad trying to get to me. but what it's worth bearing in mind at this point is that the dog is already trained, so it doesn't need to be retrained it just generally has to be re-matched with someone else, who then needs to be trained with it.

As for the "dogs grieve" statement, sorry but that is total rubbish, and is just another sign of how we humanise our animals. Dogs will pine for a period but bear in mind that a dog doesn't know that its owner is dead; they just know the owner isn't there. But generally if you take a dog out of that environment it will be fine. Dogs are fickle creatures, as long as someone feeds and walks them they are generally happy. Many guide dog owners are unable to keep their dogs when they retire for many different reasons and these dogs are then rehomed. If this grieving process was as prevalent as people would have us believe then rehoming these dogs just wouldn?t be possible because of how much they would grieve. They don?t ? they really don?t. They go on to have happy lives elsewhere and live out their retirements having walks and just being pet dogs. Oh and no, a dog doesn?t miss being a guide dog when it?s retired ? it is more than happy to become a fireside dog.

[cozietoesie]

I was surprised and shocked that a vet would agree as well. However, I know from talking to a couple of UK vets that it's not impossible that they would do something (under duress of conscience) that might be the immediate lesser of two evils. We don't know what was said.

[CheshireDing]

YANBU.

I read this at lunchtime today and thought that if the poor dog was really loved you would be happy to think of him having at least 10 more years of fun.

Very shocked a vet would agree to the procedure too.

[GogoGobo]

what a selfish cunt. who's dying wish is that their 5 YEAR OLD dog can be murdered so that she can be buried with it???
disgusting.

[PacificDogwood]

Sparkling, some things don't deserve to be understood .

MrsW, so sorry for your loss. I am sure it was a kindness to your dog .

I thought in this country vets have some kind of honour code not to PTS healthy dogs at owners request? I know our local vet regularly has dogs for rehoming that people bring in to be PTS when they are not unwell, but because their circumstances have changed. .

[Sparklingbrook]

I wish I understood but I really don't.

[BlessedDespair]

I would have been thrilled if 'my' seeing eye dog went on to help someone else and develop that special bond with another person in need.

Completely selfish, what a waste of a life....

[thezebrawearspurple]

Poor dog

[kungfupannda]

I meant I agree with Aurynne!

[pigletmania]

Totally wrong, what was the son thinking of!

[kungfupannda]

I agree - I can't possibly imagine that the dying woman said to her son "And when I'm gone, make sure you kill my dog."

I think the son has made a horrific mistake - not that it would exonerate him. He should have had the gumption to refuse, even if that was what he thought his mother had wanted.

[Astley]

It's disgusting. She was clearly a deeply needy person, who actually wants someone or something do be killed just to go with them in their coffin?! She probably imagined he couldn't go on without her. He could have.

[aurynne]

YES, you can definitely put a working dog for the blind to work for another blind person if the previous owner dies. Not only I know, but I have seen it done here in New Zealand. Same way as dogs can be loyal to a new owner when they have been abandoned and re-adopted. How incredibly selfish and preposterous to think your dog can ONLY love you, ever.

I want to believe that the son completely misinterpreted the words of her dying mother, and that she really meant she wanted the dog buried with her WHEN THE DOG DIED OF A NATURAL DEATH.

Because if it was not like this, that woman and her son are unbelievable self-absorbed and selfish, and horrible people, of the same moral likes as parents who kill their children and then kill themselves thinking that the children's lives will be worthless without them.

I am utterly disgusted by this.

[LilaFowler]

I think it's horrible, and I'm not even a 'doggy' person. To kill a perfectly healthy animal just so you weren't apart from it?
Why not just wait until he died of natural causes then have him buried with you?

[Sparklingbrook]

So, so sad. All of it.

[lonahjomu]

I automatically felt the son couldn't be bothered. We cared for my nans dog after she died. He was a bit nasty at first, but his whole routine had suddenly changed, infact we decided to try and keep as similar a routine to him and my nan, and my brother moved in to my nans house for a few months with him (it made sense to keep the house lived in for the winter). He then came to live with us, day visits first. (it sounds so strange now)

I realy couldn't of gone through with such wishes.

[cozietoesie]

I think the dog would have grieved and then moved on to enjoy a long and happy retirement as someone above said. It's a huge responsibility on a guide dog and one which they take very seriously - a few years or more of freedom would, I think, have been wonderful for it.

(I always recall, years ago, when I worked in a city and used frequently to eat a sandwich at lunchtime in a small city square park. A blind man would come in with his dog, all harnessed up, sit down on a bench and take the dog's harness off whereupon the dog would giddy-goat around for about 20 minutes just whooping it up in a carefree way. (Before coming back to have the harness put on again.) That freedom the dog felt for those 20 minutes was what I imagined for a good few years for the dog who has died.)

I don't understand where the son was coming from - unless it was just that he couldn't be bothered. What a dreadful thought that is.

[Ridersofthestorm]

OMG that's just awful!! The poor dog, what a way to reward five years of loyalty.
It's really creepy though because that's what the ancient Egyptians used to do, literally take everything they owned into the afterlife (including their slaves and pets). Bit of a strange fact for you there .
Anyway just totally selfish and weird, I hope that dog comes back as the ghost of Cujo and goes after the son.

[catlady1]

Disgusting.

[Sparklingbrook]

Oh MrsW I am so sorry. (((hugs)))

[Sparklingbrook]

You would have thought the family had grown close to the dog too, and as a thank you for being a great companion and guide dog let it live out it's life?

[dizzyhoneybee]

I'm not a dog person either, but it still seems wrong. Mick Philpott on the other hand....well lets just say I think the dog is worth more.