I met up with Laura today and we talked about EATM. She was excited for me, which made me feel excited, too! She asked what might be covered in the meeting in March, so I mentioned the long hours and their euthanasia policy. From the website:

Do I really have to euthanize some animals during the program? YES. This is a requirement of the program. In order to feed some of the carnivores, snakes, birds-of-prey and other animals we have in the collection, it is necessary to euthanize their prey items. All students must perform these tasks, regardless of any personal or religious beliefs. You are instructed in the humane ways of euthanization.

Discussing euthanasia over lunch in a restaurant is a pretty bizarre experience, I must say.

After lunch, I asked if we could go to her house to play with her pet rats. I love little pet rats! They are small and snuggly and lick my fingers.

When we got to Laura's house, she said we should put the dogs in the backyard so that they wouldn't attack her rats. Definitely a good idea, so we convinced them to go outside. Her backyard is cute. It's a nice little fenced in area with lots of medium-tall grass. Behind it is a huge field filled with tall blades of vibrant green grass.

Laura and I closed the sliding door behind the dogs. I turned to walk toward her kitchen, and then Laura started shouting things at her dogs such as, "What are you guys doing?!" Soon, she was outside, and before I could register what was going on, Laura was already screaming, "Oh my god, EW! EW! I can't handle this!"

At first I thought her dogs might have been eating poo, because that's kind of common, and is certainly very disgusting.

Then I heard, "Oh, no, it's still ALIVE!" and I knew. The only question in my mind was, what species was it? "I can't handle this!" Laura said, and I jogged over to help however I could. She told me it was okay to grab her dog's collar (I'd learned never to do that from working at the animal shelter), so I did. I handed Laura's dog over to her and she led her inside. The other dog was already inside, so Laura stood nearby waiting for me to figure out what I was going to do. "What is it?" she asked.

"It's a rat," I said. It was huge.

"A rat?!" She came and took a closer look, then ran back to her starting point. "I can't handle dead things or dying things," she told me. "Isn't this freaking you OUT??"

"Not as much as you'd think," I said, a little surprised by my feelings about the whole situation. "Okay, um. This is terrible, but... It's definitely dying. I can't leave it suffering here like this. Do you have a big rock or something I could use to, uh, help it along?" I asked.

"You can use anything you want," she told me. I tried to move a big rock she had in her backyard, but that one was too big and heavy and was stuck under her porch.

Laura headed inside to look for a brick, and I followed her to grab some plastic bags, intending to scoop the rat up after I killed it, which I could not believe I was intending to do.

I headed back out into the yard, not more than one or two minutes later, and the rat had stopped moving. "It's already dead," I told Laura.

"Are you sure?"

Laura was afraid I was going to be bitten if I poked it, but I stuck my hand through two plastic bags and touched its back, after which I was thoroughly convinced it was dead. We discussed options for where to put the body, and Laura said the big field on the other side of her fence doesn't belong to anyone and that she was sure the ants would dispose of it.

"Oh, jesus," I said. "Close your eyes."

I still had my hand inside the two layers of plastic bags. With my wrapped hand, I picked up the rat by the tail, closed my eyes, and threw it over the fence. We just stood there a minute in disbelief over everything that had just occurred.

"Thank you, God," I said out loud, "that I did not just have to kill that rat myself." Laura and I named a few other deities while we were at it, just to cover our bases!

I turned the plastic bags inside out and threw them away, then washed my hands, because the very sensation of holding the rat's tail was still somehow on my fingers, and I had to do something about that. Laura checked her dogs for any rat bites and didn't find any, which is very good. She also called the vet just to be sure there wasn't anything she was forgetting to do, and to double check the currency of her dogs' rabies vaccinations. The vet said raccoons, bats, and squirrels are the biggest rabies threat here and as long as the dogs were current on shots, there was no need to worry.

It was all over, and we could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

You know what I realized, though, that's really weird? I was totally going to kill that rat. It didn't have much time, that much was clear. Part of me wishes I'd acted quicker so that it didn't have to suffer those two minutes I was inside. Part of me is glad I didn't have to. And the rest of me is amazed at my conviction to do so, if it had come right down to it.

When I first read EATM's euthanasia policy, I wasn't sure if I was okay with that. I put off applying for a while, in fact. I took a long time to contemplate it before I decided that it wasn't something that would keep me from wanting to participate in the program. And even though putting an animal out of its misery is much different than euthanizing a healthy animal for food, I realized that I'm capable of doing it. My fear was that I'd cry in front of the class if I had to do that. And now, I don't think I will. I think I'll be able to handle that part of the program, and that in itself, is a very weird realization for me.

Since the stressful ordeal was over with, we let the dogs back outside, then scooped up Laura's tiny pet rats and brought them into the living room to play with. We watched some comedy specials on Laura's laptop as the two tiny ratties ran up and down our arms and shoulders and across our laps. Then one rat ran down my arm and onto Laura's leg and promptly peed on her. She scooped them both up to put them away, and that's when I scratched my shoulder and realized one of them had peed on me too! Laura lent me her shirt and threw mine in the washer along with her pants. After we threw everything in the dryer, we went out for a brief shopping outing. We hit a local metaphysical shop and soaked up the fragrant incense and lovely energy while we were there. We browsed the music, books, and tarot cards before heading out to find a little jewelry shop. We found it, but it was already closed, so we'll have to revisit it another time. Once we were back at Laura's house, I gave her her shirt back in exchange for mine, and we said our good-byes. It turned out to be a nice day after all, in spite of the stressful crisis we had at the beginning there.

I still feel bad about the wild rat. I'm having a difficult time gathering up my feelings over the whole thing. My words feel not-quite-right, and I feel like I'm leaving something unsaid. I'm just not sure what. It's just always difficult to see an animal suffer, I guess.

R.I.P., little rattie.