Performing good death at the veterinary clinic: experiences of pet euthanasia in Finland

Abstract

In contemporary pet‐keeping culture, the death of an animal is managed by the veterinary profession. The situation of euthanising the pet at the clinic is not an easy one for the owner of the animal, who has to manage the emotions involved in the death of a pet, while at the same time worrying about animal welfare in euthanasia. In this paper I explore the performances of good death in pet euthanasia. Drawing on pet owners’ experiences, I scrutinise the practice of euthanasia in the space of the veterinary clinic, emotions felt by owners about pet loss, the role of animal agency and the expertise of the veterinarian in providing the animal with an ending to its life. Theoretically, the paper draws on recent discussions about human–animal relationships as performances, as productive processes in which the relationship comes into being. The data consists of written narratives from a nationwide writing collection organised in Finland in 2014–2015. According to the analysis, the veterinary clinic as a site of pet euthanasia makes the human–pet relationship vulnerable by shifting it away from the home, the space in which the relationship is otherwise experienced and lived. Pet euthanasia nevertheless has the potential to become a relational achievement between the agency and bodies of the owner, the veterinarian and the pet. As such, it is a situated practice in which the animal can be killed at the same time that its relationship with humans is celebrated – an act of responsible killing and of care, with a possibility to provide the animal a good ending to its life.

‘Please tell me when you are in pain’: A heartbreaking story of care, grief and female–canine companionship

“…By reflecting upon the joys and sorrows of living with a four‐legged friend, our aim is to illustrate how an autoethnographic story of heartbreaking dog–human companionship can provide more nuanced understandings of care and grief as complementary dimensions of gendered body work and, in this way, allow for more agency to be enjoyed in the relationship between the ‘pet’ and her keeper (cf. Redmalm, ; Schuurman, ; see also Mik‐Meyer et al, , p. 6). The article is organized as follows.…”

“…To date, animals have been conspicuously absent from the field of organization studies, and the field has largely overlooked our own species’ organized, meaningful and close relations with animals (see Hamilton & Taylor, , ; O’Doherty, ; Redmalm, ; Sanders, ; Sayers, , ; Schuurman, as exceptions). As Sayers (, p. 370) has written, ‘there is too much humanism in organizational studies’.…”

“…By sharing an autoethnographic story of a specific female–canine companionship in which grief becomes entangled with the healing and palliative care of the animal, we render visible our lived experiences of our affective human–animal relations, still largely overlooked by organizational scholars (Birke, Bryld, & Lykke, ; Hamilton & Taylor, , ). The focus on female–canine companionship allows us to explore the gendered constructions of body work (Mik‐Meyer et al, ), in which ‘the animal is understood as a subject, an agent, and a partner in a relationship’ (Schuurman, , p. 211). As such, we describe the palliative care and mourning the loss of the pet and add it as a complementary conceptual pair to the existing literature, as described above (Figures , , , ).…”

“…It is surprising that animals are deliberately silenced among organizational scholars even though they are not voiceless at all (Sayers, ). As non‐human animals are present, viable and active agents in the daily life of numerous organizations in their own right (see,e.g., Birke & Brandt, ; Hamilton & McCabe, ; Hamilton & Taylor, ; O’Doherty, ; Schuurman, ; Schuurman & Franklin, ), they deserve our scholarly attention (Doré & Michalon, ). Recently, a number of researchers (see,e.g., Doré & Michalon, ; Hamilton & Taylor, ; O’Doherty, ; Sayers, , ; Skoglund & Redmalm, ; Tallberg, ) have discussed the prevalent neglect of other living non‐human agents within our scholarly field by addressing the variety of ways in which animals actively construct, shape and participate in organizational life.…”

“…Topics related to animals in the academic literature include the practices of veterinary work (Clarke & Knights, ; Law, ; Sanders, ; Schuurman, ), the therapeutic effects of pets on individuals in human–animal interaction (e.g., Brooks et al, ; Friedmann & Son, ; Jackson‐Grossblat, Carbonell, & Waite, ) and effects at a social level (Wood, Giles‐Corti, & Bulsara, ). The recent articles of Hamilton and McCabe () and Baran, Rogelberg, and Clausen () describe the work of slaughterhouse workers, who face the demands of killing animals, therefore revealing the struggles of ‘dirty work’.…”