Above - The Pharmacological Shutdown:
Harry on the Massey lawn, draped in the scarf the ICU vet, "Steffi", insisted be used to hide the rigid 'euthanasia' catheter they installed before my arrival and prior to any consent (in fact, while I was still very much objecting). This image captures the false pretences established by the hospital - a dog portrayed as peacefully fading from their claimed "neurological event) - while, in reality, under heavy, undisclosed sedation that his body would shortly violently reject as he tried valiantly to alert me that he was still "in there" (with this efforts being quickly shut down by the vet Steffi, who instructed me to pull him down so she could administer the terminating substance).
This was a little boy, who just 15 hours earlier, after admission into Massey's ICU "care" was standing on his hind legs with front paws outstretched through the bars of his cage, screaming loudly for human comfort (and receiving none from the ICU staff - who, it appears, 'convenience-sedated' him instead with a potent sedative cocktail specifically contraindicated for the kidney issues they would clearly have seen he had, from the blood tests they had just processed).
For a more clinical and pharmacological evaluation of the above photograph, see end of article.
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Notwithstanding the Victim Impact Statement LINK TO VICTIM IMPACT STORY I felt compelled to write to demonstrate the intense and lasting impacts upon me of the sheer wickedness of Massey’s strategies and actions in the clinically and ethically incomprehensible actions they took that led to their ending the life of my beloved dog, Harry . . . here’s why I deserve (almost) no sympathy.
Every cell in my being – at the very deepest level – screamed at me that something sinister was afoot at Massey . . .
from the moment of the highly unexpected, lengthy and ultra high-pressure phone call telling me had to be “euthanased” (with no mention of the actual reason he’d actually been admitted just 12 hours earlier i.e. for a rehydration procedure . . .
to the ramping up of the pressure in another lengthy in-person “consultation” . . .
. . . to the multiple different trigger points the vet, "Steffi", came from in trying to get an "OK, then" response . . . from the clinical, "he's probably had a neurological event", to "he'll go downhill from here and don't you want to remember the good times instead?" . . . to "I remember how he used to run around the room and come up and lick me" (like a reminiscing family member, when she'd only ever seem him once, or at most, twice before and on a consulting room table) . . . to "you can't take him back into the van" (I was temporarily in a small campervan while flood-related repairs were being carried out on my house) . . . to every other angle she could come from as she probed for the one - logic or emotion-based - that would achieve the result she wanted from me . . .
. . . to the “urgency” of the claimed need . . .
. . . to the blatant evasion of discussing anything about the actual reason I'd brought him in i.e. basic rehydration . . .
. . . to the avoidance of any opportunity for me to seek a second opinion . . .
. . . to the presentation of him to me with the infrastructure of euthanasia already installed in his leg while I was still actively rejecting the notion . . .
. . . . to the cognitive dissonance of the fact that the intended euthanasia-catheter-securing bandage was a heavy cast-like structure clearly designed to keep my supposedly “brain evented” dog still from his sporadic bucking and vocalising (which I too late realised was him trying valiantly to push through the undisclosed dense fog of the heavy sedation they’d put him under) . . .
. . . . to the vet, Steffi’s wickedly wry “it’s a done deal, so don’t fight this” smile when our eyes met as they handed him to me with that cast on . . .
. . . to the sparkle in her eyes and the speed with which she jumped from her chair to go and get the needles and the substances etc the very second I finally hung my head in acquiescence . . .
. . . to the strange insistence that my scarf should hide the large rigid blue bandage on Harry’s leg during the taking of the “goodbye” photos . . .
. . . to the strange excitedness that she and the vet nurse assisting her exhibited as they stood at the door of my van (where I insisted “the deed” be done rather than a cold steel table) waiting for me to allow them to “do it” . . .
. . . . to the final scene whereby Harry (clearly comprehending the essence of their intentions) suddenly rose up strongly on his hind legs like a little bucking bronco and started screaming . . .
. . . and their rapid reactive insistence that I grab him hard and hold him down while Steffi tugged the top of the euthanasia needle with her teeth and jammed it into the catheter.
And the objective was achieved. The body of evidence was now a dead one that would soon be “disposed” of. And Harry’s adoring owner would (they now wrongly realise) never know the truth of what had led to that final, frightful scene in Harry’s precious little life.
So why do I deserve the unspeakable pain with which I am left to deal for the rest of my life?
Because – of ALL people – I KNOW the foolishness of ignoring intuition and “gut”.
I work in the field of high-stakes corporate and government construction megaproject bids. And one of my points of difference in my tutorship and coaching is that I teach the many different levels of “thinking”.
And one of those levels is actual
not thinking at all . . . it is the
somatic response of
subconscious pattern recognition.
Intuition is the brain's ability to process thousands of environmental cues and past experiences in a split second . . . long before the analytical mind can catch up. It is a biological survival mechanism that identifies anomalies and threats by comparing the current situation against an internal database of "normal" behaviour, making it a highly reliable, data-driven warning system.
I TEACH THIS. I teach it to the most resistant, commercially hardened audience imaginable . . . and I change their entire perception with it.
And yet, when the stakes were life-or-death high, I failed both my beloved dog, Harry (who was no less than a child to me), and I failed myself. For that, I deserve NIL sympathy.
What I DO deserve understanding for, however, is being trapped by the no-win toxic “cancel” culture of Massey’s veterinary teaching “hospital” – one where if you object to even the most objectionable, you do so at the risk of the threat to withdraw services and treatment from your pet.
Having experienced that on several occasions prior to that fateful night of November 30 (LINK TO STORY – WAS HARRY A MARKED DOG?), when I restrained (to just the teenage-looking “vet”) my expression of my horrified reaction to seeing two ICU nurses completely ignore my little blind dog in a state of high distress (because I feared they might respond by refusing him treatment), I inadvertently let loose the wrecking ball of his destruction.
And for that, at least, I forgive myself.
But for ignoring the massive red flags that flew in my face, one after the other in quick succession over the six-hour period of deception and coercion? No. I cannot forgive myself for that.
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Detailed evaluation of article displayed at top of article:
This photo, taken minutes before he was taken to my campervan to "euthanase" him under the pretences of Steffi, the Massey ICU vet's false diagnosis, provides the visual proof that the "vacant stare" she pointed to was not his blindness, but a drug-induced lack of a blink or "menace" response. That is, his state was one of pharmacological stasis rather than a terminal "brain event".
Ocular state:
The "glassy" and "vacant" appearance exhibited by Harry's eyes display the telltale ptosis (drooping eyelid), particularly on the visible eye, which aligns with the description of a missing "menace" response or blink reflex - bit is actually a visual manifestation of
Central Nervous System (CNS) Depression.
That is,
profound pharmacological suppression rather than the natural "neurological event", the Steffi and her Companion Animal Hospital colleagues had manufactured to disguise his true condition and thus to achieve my (greatly objecting) consent for the sudden and unexpected need for "urgent euthanasia".
Contrast with Blindness: While Harry was already blind, this image captures the
"chemical glaze" that is distinct from a natural vacant stare, illustrating the systemic drug effect of the Gabapentin/Prevomax combination.
Muscle Tone (Hypotonia): Harry shows a symmetrical
"wet rag" lack of tone. His head is lolled sideways against my shoulder with no evidence of independent muscular support or the "righting reflex" - similarly, a manifestation of the Central Nervous System (or what might be described as a "chemical straight jacket" effect) of the heavy sedating agents he was (unbeknownst and undisclosed to me) administered in the hours before presenting him to me.
