When you are face to face with the suffering of your animal, many of you decide too rapidly to euthanize. Here are the words I often hear: “I cannot stand to see him suffer and in any case it is too late, he’s had it and we must end his suffering. He is lying down so it is the end. He must not continue to suffer…”.
However, we humans also suffer a lot. Sometimes this suffering is a passage towards our cure. For example, if we have the flu with a high fever and we are bedridden, that does not mean that it is the end. If we have a bad limp that does not mean we have to be euthanized or sent to the slaughterhouse, nor if we suffer from a bacteria or diarrhea. In other cases, even with cancer an animal can live on for several years and take advantage of life. If we euthanized all the sick people on earth, there would be very few humans left. I don’t doubt that you deeply love your animals, but I am just asking you to act reasonably. For your pet to get healed it may take time, unless you have a miraculous recovery. Once you have decided that you are going to try a healing you have to stay with that decision. You will have to be patient, feel positive about the outcome, and stop thinking that he is lost and has to be euthanized. You must also give him a chance. He deserves it for what he is and for what he has given you. To love and respect your animal also means you respect his choice and that you can go beyond your fear of seeing him suffer and your own fear of death. Animals don’t have the same feelings about death that we have, but like us they want to live and experience life.
Of course, you must follow the treatment prescribed by the veterinarian and always check with him. It is obvious that if an animal is suffering, for example, from a serious respiratory insufficiency, it would be preferable to euthanize him. But if your animal shows that he wants to live, I believe that he has the right to have a chance to be healed and to live. I was asked to treat a cat named Pretty who suffered from a serious respiratory insufficiency and whose caretakers wanted to euthanize. Pretty, however, showed that she was fighting back and wanted to live. After the healing she received, she recovered, which seemed almost miraculous. In fact, the veterinarian could not understand how her recovery was possible. Pretty was able to live for one month and a few weeks more with a lot of energy, happy and joyous, then she declined rapidly and it was obvious that she was ready to go. All the members of the family, including the children, were ready for her departure. The veterinarian was called and she slid peacefully into a final sleep. Sometimes one, two, or three more months can be gained.
The final decision over life and death is between the Creator and your animal’s spirit; however, we humans often make the decision for them and this decision can be distorted by our beliefs, our fears, and our emotions. One must try to be completely fair in respect to them.
What I would like to transmit to you is that your animal perceives your thoughts and responds to them. If you think that it is the end for him, he will let go and no longer fight back. To help him, we need to make sure that he has the will to live. My role is to do all I can to help your animal to heal. What you can do is to give us the time to help him, while you may help with positive thoughts about his recovery. One day in May 2011, a forty year-old horse named Billy collapsed and remained lying down because he could not get up due to problems with his left front leg. His caretaker who was very attached to him declared that he was finished since he could not stand and was forty years old. He was about to call the veterinarian to give him the final shot. I asked him to postpone the shot for one day. The next day Billy was standing. Two months later when I returned to the equestrian center, Billy was in great shape, galloping next to a young gelding that had been placed with him. He lived an extra year in perfect health. Life is beautiful when one wants to live.