I know the script well by now. One of our animals is sick or dying of old age. Stubbornly clinging to my pledge to be open, I post a message that we are thinking of putting the animal down, either by shooting or by the veterinary needle.

In this case, it’s Zelda, scheduled to be euthanized by our large animal vet next Wednesday.

Within a day or two, one or more people will e-mail Maria, as someone did yesterday, not daring to message me. “Maria,” said one of the messages, “you are a compassionate person! (Presumably, unlike her cold-blooded husband), don’t let Jon shoot Zelda!”

Mostly, this kind of message is the signature message of a person who believes they are championing animal rights. Animals must die like humans, not like animals.

These messages are much less frequent than they used to be, none of them bother much with me anymore, which is, I suppose a blessing, although I am sorry Maria gets them. She feels pretty much like I do about compassion, and does not suffer fools gladly.

What does compassion mean? According to Merriam-Webster, compassion is the sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.

That is my understanding of compassion, especially when it comes to animals.

The messagers don’t know that my decisions about euthanizing our animals are not made without Maria, we either do things together, or we don’t do them at all.

I wanted to shoot Zelda because I believed and still believe that done right, it is the most compassionate way by far for an animal to die. Maria asked me not to do it, mostly because she thought it would be hard on me. I defer to that.

She might be right. I am still tender about Red dying, and unlike the people who message her, Maria really is compassionate, to me, and Zelda as well.

But I perhaps different ideas about what compassion is for animals.

Many people, for example, belive it is merciful to lock dogs up in crates for their whole lives so they can call have n0-kill shelters. I believe that is the cruelest way possible for a dog to live and die, I would instead prefer someone with experience shoot a dog of mine than lock them up in crates for the rest of their lives.

What kind of humane life is that for a dog?

If I am ruthless, so is Maria, but it doesn’t seem to follow that if she is compassionate, then I must be too. I guess the rather sexist assumption is that Maria bends to my will and would act differently. They do not know Maria. They manage to offend both of us.

They do make me think, these messages.

What is compassion, and what do people think compassion means when it comes to animals? I’ve been through this with Simon, Rocky, Rose, Lenore, Frida, Rocky and most recently Red. I call these people Sorrow Thieves; they are vampiric in that they feast off the blood of others. They are certainly Drama Queens. They will steal anybody else’s trouble to feel good about themselves or be dramatic about other people’s business.

I am an advocate for all my animals.

I put Rose down right away when she had a tumor in her brain, I felt strongly she would not wish to be impaired in that way. We put Rocky down to spare him another harsh winter after his home was invaded by other animals. We put Red down to spare him further pain and disorientation.

We’ll put Zelda down to share her the hardships of another winter. She is too weak. On a farm, you deal with compassion every day, you come to understand it in a particular way.

My belief if that my job is to see that the animals in my care suffer the least in any circumstance where I have some control.

Any vet or animal behaviorist knows that it is often very frightening for an animal to die on the linoleum floor of a vet’s office, or on a Pole Barn dirt floor,  held and injected by strangers.

Dogs are very tuned into their humans, especially when they are dying.

It is usually stressful for them to go to a vet’s office for any reason, let alone to die. I do not believe the most compassionate way for Zelda to die is to have Jack Kittel, a lovely and very  good vet, to come to our farm, catch her and hold her down, stab her with an IV needle, attach an IV tube, inject her with a powerful and disorienting sedative, and then give another long needle in the neck that will kill her.

Jack is a human vet and knows his business, but he is still a stranger to Zelda, who will be anxious the minute he approaches her, let alone sticks a needle in her leg.

When I shoot one of the sheep, I load my rifle, come up quietly behind them, fire four-five bullets in rapid succession right through the back of their head and into their brain. For good measure, I fire four more directly into the animal’s heart.

My gun has a 12 round magazine, and  I usually fire all of them quickly. I took lessons when I got my rifle, and have used my rifle often and safely.

The animal drops to the ground, twitching for one or two minutes, and is already dead.

It takes about eight to 12 seconds.

They are in familiar places surrounded by their flock. They have no chance to try to run or be frightened. They never saw it coming, never felt much of anything. I’ve done this between 15 and 20 times – chickens, roosters, ewes, even sick baby lambs. I couldn’t do it to a dog, but I have no trouble doing it to sheep.

If you live on a farm, you probably understand that this is the most compassionate way for farm animals to die. In nature, their deaths are likely to be slow and painful or violent. I can spare Zelda that.

Maria may be right about my feelings about Zelda, she usually is, and I am happy to trust her. But I don’t believe it is necessarily the most compassionate choice for Zelda.

I wish the people who say they are advocates for animal rights would know something more about animals than they do. All animals are not pets. All animals are not people.

Their greatest right in my mind is to survive in our world and be treated with dignity and true compassion, not political compassion.