— She helps them do it at home.
Veterinarian Karen Meyers pulls her black minivan into the driveway of a townhouse in Maryland’s National Harbor. The home, in a gated community, is perched on a windy bluff not far from restaurants, bars, a casino — places of revelry.
The vet carries her brown doctor’s bag inside. There, she meets her patient: Xochitl, known as Xochi, an 11-year-old boxer-Great Dane mix weighing around 80 pounds.
Xochi, recently diagnosed with cancer, is struggling. A film covers her right eye. She had been bleeding from her mouth, refusing to eat. Now she stands in the townhouse’s living room, mournfully greeting family members who have come to say goodbye.
Xochi climbs onto the living room’s leather couch and lies down. Owner Eden Gaines and her family gather around her. Meyers opens her bag.
Meyers explains the procedure. First, Xochi will be injected with a sedative to make her fall asleep. Five to 10 minutes later, Meyers will administer sodium pentobarbital, which will euthanize her. But Xochi would feel no pain, Meyers assures the family.
She asks whether anyone has any questions.
No one does.
“Here we go,” she says.
Pet adoption spiked during the pandemic, with nearly 1 in 5 American households taking animals in and spending far more on them than pet owners did decades ago. With more beasts in our lives — as companions, as emotional support animals, as the beneficiaries of pet trusts — it only makes sense that their owners want their final moments in their lives to be as peaceful and painless as possible.
That’s where Meyers comes in. Working with Lap of Love, a company that provides veterinarian referrals for at-home pet euthanasia, she travels from house to house in the D.C. region offering grieving families’ animals what the word euthanasia means: “good death.” In four years, she has euthanized 1,500 animals: cats, dogs, rabbits, rats. Some had been with their owners since childhood. Some had traveled the world with them. Some were their owner’s sole companion.
Meyers has observed death rituals that include praying, burning incense, wrapping a deceased pet’s body in a white sheet, and opening a window for a pet’s spirit to exit. She has listened to owners read poems or letters to their pets and cried along with them.
“When people hear what I do for living, it sounds sad,” Meyers says. “But it’s strangely rewarding. … You give pets a peaceful experience. It’s a final gift.”< Meyers has been surrounded by a menagerie all her life. Growing up, she usually had a dog and one or two cats; at various times, she’s also had two hamsters, two turtles, a guinea pig, a bird and four chickens. Right now, she has Wren, a 6-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel; Travis, a 3-year-old pug; Brinkley, a 13-year-old rat terrier Chihuahua; and Pablo, a red-belly parrot. Right before the pandemic, Meyers decided to shift to doing euthanasia full time. She had been a veterinarian for more than two decades, and pet euthanasia turned out to be less stressful than working in an office while raising two children. In-home euthanasia can be easier on animals and their owners than office appointments with other sick animals and their distressed owners crowded around.
Meyers administers the first shot in Xochi’s back. The dog, already lying down with her head on Gaines’s lap, turns to glance at Meyers as if mildly annoyed.
Then, the dog relaxes.
Minutes pass.
Using a hair clipper, Meyers shaves an inch-long strip of one of Xochi’s legs and inserts a small IV line. After confirming that the family wants to continue, Meyers administers the second shot, the one with the fatal dose.
Gaines looks at the spot on Xochi’s leg where the IV had been inserted.
“It’s amazing how gray she became,” Gaines says.
Meyers holds a stethoscope to Xochi’s chest. “Xochi has her wings,” she says.
The family cries.
So does Meyers.
She and Gaines embrace.
Meyers maneuvers Xochi onto a stretcher and covers her with a blanket. With the help of Gaines’s sons, she loads the dog into her car. Eventually Xochi will be cremated and her ashes returned to the Gaines family.
Death is a part of life, Meyers says.
“Many times, people will comment how a human family member passed, and it was so painful at the end, and this is peaceful by contrast,” she says.
They tell her, she says, that they wish they could go the same way.
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