When I was a little kid, my mother took a picture of me and our dog Patches sitting on a bed. We were both 2 at the time, and my mother wrote the caption: “Puppies.” I’ve always had dogs around me, so when I finally got myself into an apartment that allowed pets, I rescued one from a local shelter. He was a 9-year-old Dachshund named Copper.
We had a good time, Copper and I. But as he got older, the arthritis and other ailments started to take over, and things weren’t looking too good for the little guy. I took him into the vet to get his pain med prescription refilled, and that’s when the veterinarian said, “He should be put down.” I was in shock. No way was Copper ready for this — and I knew I wasn’t, either. So I took him home, and decided to wait it out.
Two weeks later, Copper shifted suddenly and screamed. He expelled a lot of blood, and his gums were white and pale. I scooped him up in a blanket and took him to the vet. It was time.
I held him as the nurse attempted to give him the shot, the one that will end his life peacefully. But because of his blood loss, she couldn’t get a vein and ended up sticking him more than 20 times. When she finally did, she pushed the plunger and Copper immediately yelped in pain, biting my hand hard, then he just went limp. It was the most horrific thing I had ever seen in my life, and I never want to go through it again.
Happy Beginnings
Dr. Michael Fixler started his career as a veterinary orthopedic surgeon, mostly working on knees and hips. He worked at a hospital in old town Scottsdale, and things were going just fine for him and his wife. But when she found out that she was pregnant, Fixler started reevaluating his work. He had seen a problem, and wanted to fix it.
“When I was in the hospital we would get lots of calls for in-home euthanasia,” Fixler explains. “You know, no one wants to bring their pet in at that time.” But this was difficult for him to do. Often he’d have surgeries to perform and people in the waiting room, making it impossible for him to leave. Worse yet, the job wasn’t a one-person scenario. He needed to bring along a technician, so two people would have to be out of the office for hours at a time. So when Fixler’s son Max was born just under two years ago, he and his wife decided they would create an in-home euthanasia practice that could fill this void in the market. That’s when Happy Endings In-Home Euthanasia was formed.
To some, this seems like an odd thing to consider. Why not just take the animal to the vet and have them handle the dirty work? Turns out there are lots of reasons, one of them being age — meaning that of the client, not the pet. “A lot of older pet owners, they have 125-pound dogs and no one ever thinks … ‘What am I going to do if my dog can’t get up and I have to get either medical treatment or we have to put him down?’ And that’s where we come in,” Fixler explains.
Additionally, nature isn’t always convenient when these things happen. Sometimes, the pet is in agony and it’s the middle of the night, or the local vet’s office is all out of appointments. “For that reason, we are available 24 hours [a day],” Fixler says. “I actually sleep with this phone next to me, so if there’s an emergency in the middle of the night, then we’re there for you.”
The Process
Dr. Fixler may work with death on a daily basis, but his approach deals more with the final moments of life instead of focusing on the negative. He took a moment to walk me through the process.
“Basically, I’ll ask you a series of questions about your pet, get a good idea of the history and exactly what’s going on,” Fixler explains. “And then we will schedule an appointment and we will schedule a time — if it’s not an emergency, then we can schedule, you know later that day, or the next day, or later that week. If it’s an emergency situation, then we can usually be to you within a few hours depending on how our schedule looks that day.”
When Fixler and his wife — who is also his technician — arrive at the home, the first thing they do is perform an exam. Then he may discuss with the pet’s owner the options, if there are any, other than euthanasia. “If the pet is a candidate for euthanasia, then the first thing that I do is I give a sedative,” he says. “That sedative has a great pain reliever in it. So any pain, any discomfort that the pet’s feeling, that all goes away and the pet gets nice and sleepy. And of course, the nice thing about being at home, this can be done in their favorite bed, with their toys around them, there’s really little to no stress for the pet.”
Once the pet is relieved of pain and comfortable, Fixler places an IV cathether. “That IV catheter is not something that everybody does,” he says. “It’s something that we do to ensure that the medication that we give works painlessly and instantly and there’s no chance for error. And then once that catheter is set and the owner feels completely ready, then we go ahead and we administer our final medication — but we don’t do that until everyone is completely ready. And a lot of times, you know, one of the things that’s nice about in-home [euthanasia] is that more people can be there. If they want the whole family there, if they want the kids there, if they want other people around the pet, they don’t have to worry about being crammed into a little exam room.”
Following the pet’s passing, Fixler and his wife step out of the room to give the family privacy and a few final moments with their departed pet. “Then we will come back and we will handle everything for them as far as transportation,” he says. “They have a choice between a communal cremation and individual cremation. An individual cremation is where their pet is cremated individually and only their pet ashes are returned to them. A communal cremation is where their pet is cremated with other pets.”
Finding the Path to a Happy Ending
I’ve owned a few dogs since Copper passed, and I’ve had to put a few of them down because of old age or a debilitating illness. It’s never been a pleasant experience; I’ve left feeling empty, alone and sad. My entire purpose for taking Copper home after that initial visit with the vet was to make sure he was happy and could have a few more weeks of life. But his death was just so horrific that I know now it wasn’t the best decision.
Had Happy Endings existed back then, I could have had it as an option. I could have called up Dr. Fixler, had him come to the house and help me handle the process in a compassionate and understanding fashion. Copper could have passed peacefully, instead of in pain. And it all could have been taken care of at home, where Copper was most comfortable, instead of in a chair at the vet.
I have two dogs now, and one is right around the age that Copper was when I rescued him from the pound. I know her time will come, and when it does, I don’t want her to exit this world in agony. I think this next time, I’d rather have a happy ending to the story.
