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Dog given second chance at life after surviving euthanization bid
08/06/2003
AP
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Cast into a city gas chamber to be euthanized
with other unwanted or unclaimed dogs, it appeared the roughly year-old
Basenji mix had simply run out of luck -- and time.
But this canine had other ideas.
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KMOV |
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When the death chamber's door swung open Monday,
the dog now dubbed Quentin -- for California's forbidding San Quentin
State Prison -- stood very much alive, his tail and tongue wagging
amid the carcasses of a half-dozen other dogs.
Animal-control supervisor Rosemary Ficken had never seen such a
thing and didn't have the nerve to slam the door shut again on the
dog and fire up the carbon monoxide, the stuff commonly found in
vehicle exhaust.
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This 30-pound, orangish animal, she believed,
beat the odds and should live on, doggone it.
"She told me, 'Please, take him. I don't have the heart to
put him back in there and re-gas him,"' said Randy Grim, founder
and head of Stray Rescue of St. Louis, the charitable shelter that
took in the dog before taking the animal's story public.
Quentin's ordeal was played and replayed Wednesday on local television
stations, drawing gads of people looking to adopt "such a sweet
dog" that showed such dogged resilience.
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KMOV |
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"To me, it's a miracle or divine intervention,"
Grim said. "I can't help but think he's here to serve a higher purpose.
This case blew me away. This is amazing."
Though Ficken did not immediately return telephone messages Wednesday,
Rich Stevson -- the program manager for the city's animal center
-- said "this was one of those cases just a little different from
the others."
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The center euthanizes dogs nearly every
morning, typically numbering five to eight. Each animal is sedated
and caged separately, then put into the death chamber that is a
little larger than a washing machine.
Carbon monoxide is pumped in, killing the animals within minutes,
Stevson said.
"This is the most undesirable part of our job," he said of
the city's euthanizations numbering about 3,000 a year, with puppies
and kittens lethally injected because their lungs are too small
to really breathe in enough carbon monoxide.
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KMOV |
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Quentin's fate appeared grim. Surrendered
to the city by an owner no longer wanting the animal, the dog eluded
adoption, landing him in the death chamber he somehow managed to
emerge from groggy from the sedative but otherwise "pretty responsive,"
if not downright rambunctious.
"There was a reason for this dog not to go down," Stevson said.
"Maybe this dog is a special dog of some kind."
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The next morning, he said, "it was jumping
up and down, wagging its tail."
"The dog was ready to play."
At Ficken's request, Grim took in the dog that Stray Rescue dubbed
Quentin, given that "we feel like he beat the odds and escaped"
from a prison, of sorts. For the record, San Quentin has its own
death row and execution chamber, where injection in 1996 replaced
gassing.
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KMOV |
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On Wednesday, Grim said, Quentin was
a little malnourished but "in very good condition," being checked
for heartworm and other maladies by a veterinarian.
"You can tell he's really digging it," Grim said of the dog.
"He has a bed, love, food and water."
And that invaluable second chance. |
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