Knowing you can help as a vet, being told you can't 💔

By Gunila Pedersen • • 2 min read

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I had to put a 3-month old puppy down last week. It was hard, but also it wasn’t, as she had a congenital condition that made her incompatible with life, through nobody's fault, just bad luck 💔

The cases that are really hard are the ones where you know you can actually help the animal in front of you, but the owners don’t want you to. Mostly because of the cost, but sometimes the owners are simply not prepared for the ongoing care necessary, or are against certain treatments.

What makes it so hard for us, is our inner arguing with this reality:

“It’s not fair”

“They should have insured their pet”

“People shouldn’t have pets if they can’t provide medical care for them”

“I should be able to help this animal”

I’m not saying these thoughts aren’t true, but I want you to notice how much they take over, and how they affect your emotional wellbeing. Most likely they make you feel powerless and frustrated, right?

Which are normal human feelings, in the moment. But if you keep churning those thoughts over and over, long after the event, you will burn yourself out 😰

There are two things I do to help myself snap out of this:

First, I check what I’m thinking. I become the observer of my brain, and that helps me to stop the constant spin.

Second, I find where I am NOT powerless in these situations. Maybe I got to a diagnosis, and at least helped the owner make a decision to stop the animal’s suffering.

Maybe the owners were also really struggling and beating themselves up for not having enough money, and I was able to show compassion for them and help them move on.

And at the very least, during my shift I helped so many other animals and their pets, and I don’t HAVE to focus on the one case that didn’t go as I would have wanted it to.

Can you relate? Tell me your story. I’d love to have a conversation with you, so if you’d like to talk about it and bounce some ideas then email me and we’ll set up a virtual chat - no strings attached. I just genuinely want to hear all your stories, and how you’re dealing with them.

In your corner,

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