“Remember to take some gloves!”

            It was September 24 and I was getting ready for my first ride to the landfill.  You see, that’s where the euthanized animals are “disposed” and you have to wear gloves when you’re unloading the bodies.  They’re placed in trash bags, loaded in a truck, driven to the landfill and dumped with the trash.

            The other employee and I arrived at the county landfill and began the slow drive up the hill.  Huge earth movers were bounding over mountains of trash, moving the refuse and then covering it with dirt.  An earth mover came toward us, and a man climbed out and pointed to the ground next to him.   We backed the truck to the chosen spot and opened up the back end.

            As I looked at the mound of lumpy bags in our truck, I was trying not to think about the fact that they were filled with animals that just an hour ago were wagging their tails or napping by a window.  We started pulling the bodies off of the truck and placing them down on the ground.  For some reason, I couldn’t just drop them.  Even in death, I instinctively wanted to care for the animals.  I gently set each one down, being careful not to put one on top of another.  Suddenly I was taken aback.  I could feel the warmth of their bodies on my hands … through the bags … through the gloves.

            Having completed our grisly task, we closed up the truck and, in a surge of grief mixed with disbelief over what we had just done, I tore off my gloves and threw them on the seat.  As we drove away, I watched through the rear view mirror as the earth mover (aka “compactor) covered our animals with a pile of dirt.

On August 2, a female black Lab was brought to the Shelter by a city police officer.  The dog was a stray.  We didn’t know who or where her family was.  Did she run away or was she merely lost?  How old was she?  We didn’t know anything about her.

            She was held the standard five days waiting to see if someone would come to reclaim her.  No one did.  Traditionally Labradors are popular and easily adopted, so we moved her to the Adoption Building.  We also gave her a name – Sydnie.

            Sydnie was a playful, loving dog.  Almost every day a potential adopter spent time with her and some even seemed seriously interested.  But after three weeks she still hadn’t gone to a new home.  So we decided to run her picture in the paper as “Pet of the Week”--still no adoption.  Each week when the decision was made on which animals got to remain in the Adoption Building and which did not, she continually lucked out.

            However, on September 24, Sydnie’s luck ran out.  After six weeks of occupying a pen, when other wonderful dogs were still in the holding area awaiting a chance to move to the Adoption Building, it was decided that Sydnie would be put to sleep.  I watched from a distance as she was led to the euthanasia area.  Her tail was wagging the whole time.  She didn’t know where she was going … nor why.

            That day at the landfill, when I discovered the warmth of the bodies, my heart dropped when I also realized that one of them was Sydnie.  I thought back to that first day, “I wonder who and where her family was.  Had she run away or was she only lost?”  I didn’t know anything about her beginnings.  But I certainly knew of her end.

Karen Pettay