Thoughts on the Doggie Death Penalty

My son was bitten by a dog this week. I would post pictures but I don't want to look at them every time I post a poem. Suffice to say, he lost part of one of his fingers and it was a pretty traumatizing experience for him. He may have surgery on it to shave off the exposed bone or perhaps the soft tissue will grow around it and surgery won't be necessary. One doctor told me that boy's fingers are sometimes like lizards tails and they grow back! I really liked that doctor a lot! Hope is a powerful feeling. Brandt is the 2nd kid to be severely bitten so it is likely the dog will be put to sleep, or to be more blunt, killed. That idea has been really hard for me. For clarification, I did get really angry at the dog the night it happened. And I was pretty mad at some humans as well. But being angry and wanting a living thing to be dead are two very different emotions. I found out that I don't believe in the doggie death penalty but I am concerned about another child being even more injured than Brandt was. The good news in all of this is that I don't have to make the decision. The animal control people will. I feel sad, though, for the dog owner's and their grief over losing their dog. I feel sad for my son because if the dog is put down, he will likely feel some responsibility for that and be sad also. And darn it, I feel sorry for the dog, who in his limited ability, was trying to protect. He has learned to attack and will now continue to do so. He doesn't have agency like I do. He can't choose to change his ways. He will just continue to behave in the way he is currently behaving. He is stuck without hope. What a horrible way to live. How grateful I am to be able to choose in each moment how I want to treat other people. It is one of the greatest gifts I have been given. I am cherishing it this week because of a dog named Oreo. Thanks Oreo!