Vent...okay. I hate a lot of things right now, mostly my hangover from a two night bender to try to blow off some steam after separating from the now ex-mrs.

I just want to play Civ...

Sorry to hear about your troubles, especially yours Liam.

As for myself, I have to go and take my dog in to be killed on Saturday...

I am getting sick of digging graves. :(

Sorry about that liam. I guess how you are feeling. Take it easy. And make sure you have people around to support you.

Holy crap Hamish, I have never been in a situation like that It must be really hard.

Quoting: DaifukuHoly crap Hamish, I have never been in a situation like that It must be really hard.

Sadly for me it has not been that uncommon, and has been something of a theme for us over the past few years. For instance, we lost one of our cats in April on Easter Sunday after a prolonged bout with what we assume was some kind of intestinal or digestive cancer; we were getting ready to bring her in to be euthanized when she gave us and herself the courtesy of a fairly peaceful passing at home instead. It was about the best result we could have hoped for given the circumstances.

Some of this is of course also a professional hazard for us, but I still think we can safely say that we have had more than our fair share of bad luck in this regard recently. We have now lost four calves over the past four years, a stark figure considering that in the four years preceding that we did not lose a single one. The consequences of this on our cattle herd has been massive, as we had to let go of most of our established head in response to this.

This included the first cow that I really could say I grew up with, and one that will likely always go down as one of the greatest animals I have ever had the privilege to work with. This was somewhat mitigated by the fact that she was already admittedly quite old by this point, and we had already been preparing for her departure by keeping a successor off her the previous year. Sadly for the other cow we were forced to ship we were not able to keep any viable heifers off her, ending her blood line even though her strong Hereford traits often made her calves the highest earners. She unfortunately developed a problem which prevented her calves from nursing properly, something which resulted in one of our aforementioned calf losses despite our own best efforts to supplement her diet ourselves.

The final casualty of this was our bull of many years, a lovable if still not very bright creature that was the last bovine that we were given by my late Gido before he died the year before, and was named in his honour. Given the changes in the herd, the majority of our remaining heifers were now going to be his own offspring, something which resulted in him no longer being a viable breeder. He also had developed a chronic and recurring leg ailment, something which did thankfully make the decision to see him go modestly easier. We were also thankfully able to trade the one and only calf we did manage to get last year for a new bull soon after, something which luckily has worked out rather well for us.

Unfortunately that was not the end of our troubles however, as even with all of our sacrifices we still had to spend four days hovering over a dying calf last March, trying everything we could think of to keep it alive and reverse the trend. This was the first calf off the successor heifer to the first cow I mentioned, who to her credit did admirably, birthing the calf without issue and sticking with it until the very end. Nothing brings someone closer to something than sharing its exertions and pain, and I have trouble describing the respect one forms when working with an animal like that. Towards the end we seriously considered having to end the calf's short life with a bullet, a prospect I relished even less than the one that now lies before me in the following hours.

Thankfully by the time we had made up our minds the calf had done the deed for itself, and in the end all our efforts were not entirely in vain, as we did eventually develop a working diagnosis for what killed it and were able to save the next two calves born to our remaining two mothers, even though I still had to lose a lot of sleep over it. The final calf of the year was born on Easter Sunday, the same day we lost the cat. I am currently planning on trying to arrange a trade for it so that we can acquire a new blood line to replace the one we lost and actually start growing the herd again.

Of course chickens are an entirely separate dimension when compared to cattle or pets, as they are naturally short lived and masters at finding inventive ways of dispatching themselves, but there are still some incidents that rank. Literally the day after we buried the calf in the snow we discovered that our young pullet had broken her leg. She was the one and only hen we got from a clutch of chicks birthed last October to a mother which unfortunately stumbled upon one of those eclectic ways of dispatching herself a few months later, so of course it was a crushing experience to find out that the only viable layer from the group was injured.

Because of this we tried all we could to allow for a recovery, but alas she died a few weeks later, a death I should have provided myself the day I found her as she was in a lot of pain leading up to it despite our care. Chickens do not have a good rate of recovery, and as current events go to show sometimes the best option is to go and end the pain early.

The dog in question is sixteen years old and has now spent more of his life old than he did young. I remember when he turned ten I made a deal with myself that if he could make it another five years I would forgo the right to complain; he has since past that feat easily and I am standing by what I felt then. He has lived a long and vital life but over the past year has been in a steady decline, losing much of his sense of direction and forgoing more and more of his past mobility. Last Sunday I was stuck all day in the Emergency department waiting on and for my mother, and when I came home I discovered that during a walk he had collapsed and had to be carried home.

This was not the first such incident for the dog, and his health had been especially rocky for about a month leading up to the event. Since then he has been unable to walk without leaning on something or stumbling, and the only real peace has felt has been when sleeping, not when he is awake. He has to be carried everywhere now, and we have not seen him wag his tail or even really acknowledge our presences since the incident. Sometimes when things get too much for him he even whines and needs to be drugged and dealt with. We had already decided that we would euthanize him before the snow falls, as the winters are especially hard on him, but this has forced us to speed up the process and get the deed done as soon as possible.

I apologize if this seems a bit too heavy for the forum or makes anyone feel uncomfortable, but the thread is intended for venting and Liam had already opened the door up to lives more difficult problems by sharing some his own. I have actually been waiting for an opportunity to collect some of my thoughts on this, and Daifuku's comment as well as recent events seem to have conspired to supply me with one. Thanks to everyone for giving me a platform from which to speak from.