I shot my own dog – it was the kindest thing to do

Telegraph

4 hours ago

Dogs are like children: some are hard work, others you click with. My German shepherd, Jester, was a favourite of mine. He was a lovely, loyal dog who looked after me all his working life.
Jester came to me back in 1992 as an 18-month-old ex-RAF police dog who'd failed his training. From the minute we met, he decided he liked me better than he liked anyone else, and we got on like a house on fire. My job was to be a country gamekeeper, and his was to be the estate security. But he became my companion, and right up until his death in 2004, we were best friends. We never had a cross word between us and between us there was a kind of mutual respect.
At night, when the evenings were long and dark, we'd huddle up against each other to keep warm – sitting by the tree or in the Land Rover for company. During the day, we were like two lads out on the town; although one of us was a bit more wayward than the other, and you never quite knew what he was going to do next.
But as he grew older at about 11 and a half, Jester started to get skin irritations on his back. It was dry skin which he had been scratching and had been irritating him. It was then that I discovered he hated going to the vets. He'd arrive at the surgery and turn the place upside down. You'd have to muzzle him to just get him in the door. He was a large Alsatian, and quite capable of killing somebody when he was distressed – or at the very least, seriously injuring them.
The vet sedated him, gave him some cream, and he came back in a bad mood. For a while, the skin irritations seemed to go away. But one morning, I was about to take him for a walk, when I noticed he'd literally pulled a hole in his own back, seriously injuring himself. He'd gnawed at himself overnight and it was a deep, bloody mess. He was nearly 12 at this point, his movements were slower, his hair was going grey, and he was going a bit senile. I knew from a lifetime of working with dogs, and now with this brutal wound, that he hadn't long to live. I looked at him, and I just thought, 'What the hell have you done?'. I knew he was in pain, and that the situation was impossible to fix.
Clarity amid the tears
I had to make the hardest decision of my life: would I muzzle him up – which he hated – load him into the motor, take him to somewhere he didn't want to be and risk injury to someone? And all they would do is patch him up, and he'd have a slow and painful end over the next few days. Even if we'd called a vet out, we'd have had to muzzle and sedate him and the end result would be the same. Or should I do the one last thing I could to help him? After all, he'd been so faithful and looked after me all of his life. It was an unimaginably hard decision, but I saw it as the last act of service I could perform for my dog. I knew I had to do it, and I decided to do it that very morning.
But it was frightening. I didn't want it to happen, even though I knew it was the right course of action. Secondly, I didn't want to mess it up; I had to think very carefully about how I would make it a clean death. I shoot all sorts of animals on the estate, and know that there's nothing pretty about any dead animal; pheasant, duck or deer. There is, however, knowing that you did the right thing at the right time: you did it cleanly, and you did it to the best of your ability for all the right reasons.
I decided that we'd go for a walk. He'd be sniffing around where he's always sniffed around, and I would put him down by shooting him clean in the head with a 2:2 rifle. To this day, I can see him sniffing around his favourite spot of grass, and I can see myself looking through my tears at him.
There was a lot going through my mind in that moment: amid the tears, I had to find some sort of clarity that this was the best decision. I remember asking myself, was I absolutely right in what I was doing? I worked it through and the answer was 'yes'.
I've spoken to vets about it in subsequent years. They say that when they put a horse down, the best way is to shoot it, though it is, of course, the very worst way for the owner. You are then faced with a decision: do you do what the owner wants? Or do you do what is best for the animal? And that made absolute sense to me, it struck a chord when I thought about Jester – the decision I made was terribly hard for me, but best for him. It was the choice that former Reform MP Rupert Lowe recently had to make. His Labrador had lost the use of his legs and Lowe told Parliamentary colleagues it was kinder to have his gamekeeper end the dog's suffering in familiar surroundings than it would have been going to the vet, where the journey and smells would stress the animal.
Haunted by the memory
I knew that the vets would be too traumatic for Jester, that the trauma – of seeing him die before me – had to be mine instead. I took total responsibility for what had to be done, in exactly the same way I take total responsibility when I shoot a muntjac. But when you shoot a deer, you haven't got the emotional tie that you have with a dog.
Shooting Jester on that day in 2004 still haunts me. When I talk about it, I still break down despite the fact it was 20 years ago. After his death, all I could think about was him in those last seconds. But as time goes on, those memories filter into the past and you start to think about the better times before then.
There's no return from that final moment – you are having the last pat of the head, it's that last stroke you remember. But it's no different for the dog whether you go to the vet or do it at home. Everyone who owns dogs has to make that decision sooner or later, and it's bloody difficult whichever decision you make.
Since then, in my 40 years as a gamekeeper, I've shot three dogs – but only one of my own. In one instance, my governor asked me to shoot his dog. Another time, a dog had smashed its shoulder in a tractor wheel. We immediately phoned the vet, who said that he couldn't get there for a while, and asked if we could put it down.
It's very easy for people on the outside to judge but they need to be in that situation and be faced with those decisions before they can fully understand what it's like.
I find it very difficult to think about the last moments I had with Jester. Instead, I tend to keep in mind that it was the best thing for him and that I did my very best. I remind myself that ultimately, putting a dying dog – especially a dear, old friend – out of its misery is the very kindest thing you can do.