Friday, July 7, 2006

Mercy Killing

My cat, Copper, woke me up at 3:30 this morning by scratching on the metal blinds (her favorite method).  I called to her but she was in one of her crazy cat moods.  I got up and she started running around and jumping on counters, very hyper.  I think noticed that my other cat was looking at something on the ground.  I poked it and it felt...squishy.  I picked it up with a paper towel and took it into the kitchen for a look.  It was a skink.  A very mutilated skink.  I thought it was dead but then I saw its little lungs breathing.

I looked it over and thought that maybe it had a chance if it was still alive.  It didn't appear to have an puncture wounds or broken bones (as much as I could tell).  But I watched it for a couple minutes and it really didn't move and it seemed to be in pain.  I decided that I should put it out of its misery.  That's a lot harder to do than I thought.  I took it over to my cutting board and got out my sharpest knife to cut off its head.  I tried several times to do it but I just couldn't.  It was too upsetting.  I don't think I could stand to see its little head decapitated or even worse, if I didn't get it done the first time.

I then remembered a story my mom told me about a bird she found mutilated by the cats.  She couldn't kill it either so she came up with the idea to put it in the freezer.  So I put the skink in the freezer.  I hope it was not a harsh death.  Poor little guy.  Very sad.