Point of View - A Hippo Essay

by Sue Alexander

 Aug 14 2020

What a wild ride! As we approach 7000 members, I am prompted to write again and remind us all about what Losing Lulu is all about. It is a bit tricky you see, because of what I think of as me, you and us. In any relationship, I am going to see my point of view, and you (whomever you might be!) are going to see your point of view and we, together are going to see a joint point of view. What does this mean for Lulu? It means that we need to recognize that within certain parameters, each of us sees this place a little differently. We do need to know some basics however. Let me give you an example.

If you want to go to a baseball game, you are going to REALLY surprised if there is a large sheet of ice and a few dozen men on skates with hockey sticks. No matter how much I might tell you that it is a baseball game, you are most likely going to tell me that it looks a whole lot more like a hockey game! We, together, might have to discuss what we are each seeing, and then come to a joint decision about what it is that we are looking at!

So it is with Lulu. Our “sheet of ice” so to speak is behavioural euthanasia. Not euthanasia for medical reasons, or due to old age, but euthanasia because of a behaviour problem. You may be here because you lost a dog. Or a cat. Or a snake, rat or rabbit. Or a hippopotamus. My personal most recent loss was my beloved horse. Whatever the animal species, if you have been touched by the death of an animal friend or family member due to a behaviour problem, then this is the place where you can discuss that loss with the certain knowledge that your grief will be accepted, and supported, and you will be cherished, and your animal friend or family member will be recognized as having had value and presence. You WILL be respected and people will be kind to you, even if they don’t agree with all the things that happened to you.

What we are not, is a grief support group for any other loss. If you had to give your animal away, or if the animal was rehomed, we recognize that you will be grieving, but that is not what we are here for. There are groups out there for that loss, and we hope you can find those. We are also not a general euthanasia loss grief support group. Again, there are other lists that specialize in that, but behavioural euthanasia is unique with unique challenges to face, and THAT is why we show up; to support anyone who had suffered the loss of an animal friend or family member due to a behaviour problem.

To that end, we have some boundaries. The first of them is that we don’t name, blame or shame. This means that when a vet may have done something that the original poster doesn’t like, they can say “this action has difficult for me”. Or when a trainer has recommended a method that the original poster was uncomfortable with they can say “my trainer suggested something that I could not ever do” or even “I tried using this tool that my trainer suggested, and it backfired and I would never do that again”. We may also see people in sheltering or rescue do things we disagree with, and we may see the original poster say something like “the shelter placed this animal with me, and I reflect that this animal should not have been placed” or “I disagreed when the shelter or rescue chose to euthanize the animal I fostered and I am hurting now”. What we do not permit, under any circumstances is any judgement statement about those others who have done anything we disagree with. Again, let me give you an example.

Suppose our hippo Lulu came to us from a famous hippo rescue organization. She was experiencing a lot of anxiety in the hippo rescue, and we want to do something helpful, so we bring her home. Right away we notice that her anxiety increases a lot any time we leave her alone. Twice she broke out of her nice three car garage, and once she ended up rolling over a vehicle on the street, causing her to experience cuts and bruises that required veterinary attention. We love our hippo and we hate seeing her suffer, so we hire Johnny McHippopotamus to come out and help us.

Johnny decided to use a special new gadget designed to contain hippos, a series of large beehives you place around the perimeter of your property that contain hippos. He also suggests a special feeder you fill with Hippo Chow that limits how much Lulu can eat at a time. After we set this all up, we introduce Lulu to her new habitat. Lulu is happy, because we are right there with her, and for a few minutes we think this is a great plan. We decide to go in the house for a minute and let Lulu explore. At first, everything seems fine. Then we hear a terrible hippo noise and we see Lulu rush towards the back door of our house. Lulu crashes into the door, breaking the glass of the sliding door and damaging the door frame! Lulu stands there against the house, cowering and wimpering! Lulu heard the bees and panicked. We go outside and show her the new feeder. She is too scared to eat!

We work for a few months, and Lulu gets more and more anxious. She loses several hundred pounds of weight, but Jonny McHippopotamus assures us that we must not give in to her-the only food she can have must come from her new feeder. Lulu is damaging fences, the landscaping, and the walls of the house. We go to the vet, who prescribes Lulu some calming medication. We have to give her 74 tablets a day, and she won’t take her medicine. The vet throws up her hands and eventually points out to us that Lulus welfare is terrible. Eventually, the decision is made to euthanize her.

Now, after Lulu dies, we notice that our friends in the hippo fancy are whispering about us and about all the choices we made. Our neighbours don’t ask us how Lulu is any more and it seems like we don’t have anything else in common any more. Even our close friends and family members seem to be at a loss about what to say or do, and they are avoiding us. And we are so, so sad because our beloved hippo died.

So we come to Losing Lulu, and we outline the facts about what happened. We know that Losing Lulu is founded upon the premise of #keepitkind. We know that Losing Lulu is a safe space to speak our truth. And we have expectations about what we will get in return.

Most likely you have read this and you can point to one or more points that does not mesh with your particular point of view. I struggle with the idea that a rescue or shelter would place a hippo who was so anxious. You may be angry with Johnny McHippopotamus and his use of bee hives and food deprivation. Maybe you are upset that the veterinarian did not try more interventions to help Lulu. It is so very tempting to get on and say “that isn’t fair” or “I would have taken Lulu for you” or “your vet is unkind”. So very tempting to rant and rage and get angry with one or more (or even all!) aspect of this case. Maybe you feel like the original poster who told this story needs someone to just agree with her about how awful the situation was. Here is the thing. Doing so doesn’t alleviate the grief. It can in fact make it worse. And it won’t bring Lulu back. This is an internet list! We are limited by the constraints of being a virtual community to doing things that involve words, and mostly words will soothe or harm, but they won’t change the situation when we are on a list.

Words sure can get people stirred up though. And worse than that is that the list itself has a huge following, with people who all believe different things about what is a good idea and what is not. Everyone here needs to know the real Lulu’s story. She was a foster who inflicted damaging bites on another dog and who was euthanized because the highly ethical rescue believed that placing a dog with damaging bites is unethical. They also believed that keeping a dog like her in isolation to protect others was also unethical. We were formed to support Trish, our co-administrator, as she navigated the online bullies who said things like “my little dog is every bit as aggressive and we would never euthanize him, so you should not have euthanized her”, or “you should have found a trainer to help you (in case you don’t know, Trish is an internationally recognized specialist in canine aggression!)”. Trish had people dumping on the vet who performed the euthanasia, and making remarks about how Trish should be harmed. Both Trish and I have received death threats after having euthanized animals with behaviour problems. Losing Lulu was formed in part as a way to stop the bullying. Trish was grieving and so were the many people who loved Lulu. Nothing anyone could say would bring Lulu back, and Trish believed (as do I!) that euthanizing Lulu was the kindest and most humane thing we could offer. Keeping a dog alive who was causing harm to another dog in that way is in both our opinions unethical in the extreme. And we have both been bullied because of our position. On Losing Lulu, we don’t tolerate that ever.

If your position is that every dog must be placed, this may not be the most comfortable fit for you. You will find many thousands of people who chose to euthanize rather than place a dangerous dog. If you believe that the training method contributed to the animal’s behaviour, this is not the place to discuss that. There are literally thousands of lists where you can go and discuss that, both civilly and with full on anger and angst. Losing Lulu is about grief, not about how to train. You cannot train a dead animal, so this is completely off topic here. If you think vets have misdiagnosed, mis advised or otherwise done their jobs differently than you would in their shoes, you are more than welcome to your opinion, but you are not welcome to express that here; we are about grief, not about how medicine is practiced.

You. You matter. Your opinion matters. Your education, understanding and empathy matter. What matters on Losing Lulu though is how you conduct yourself. The modmin team is clear that we are here as a grief support group, and that is pretty much all we will allow on the list. If you think that no home is complete without a hippo, and you want to go start a Facebook group to make that come about, then feel free to do that. But that is not what we are about.

Me (and the modmin team!). I/we matter too. Our mission here is to keep the discussion on topic and kind. We work hard (I figure that it takes between 100 and 150 hours each week to run this list; we have between 10 and 15 moderators active at any given time, and about 20 of us total-we try and take days off, go on vacation and work in between, so we need extras to cover the list when any one of us is unavailable) to keep this list safe for our members, and we moderate very actively. I/we have a pretty clear vision of what Losing Lulu is all about.

Jointly, YOU and I (the modmin team) make up a collective WE. We all make Losing Lulu a wonderfully diverse, kind place to be. WE work hard together to #keepitkind. If YOU err and go off topic or behave unkindly, the modmin team will remove your comment; we hate to do it, but we must. We will also remove any comment that breaks any of our rules; that includes comments with graphic descriptions, naming, blaming, shaming, arguing, calling out, advertising, or posting links without permission. It is important to keep everyone safe here, and we WILL keep it kind. The modmin team depends on you to help us, and in part that includes being kind when you err and we remove your comment. If you think we erred in our removal, please reach out to a member of the modmin team and explain. We will come back to you with a reply and we can discuss. Sometimes you will use words that you felt were kind, but we felt were not. You can then reframe and comment again using different words. Just make sure that you are here to support the grieving process of those on the list. If you feel uncomfortable with anything in a post or comment, please report that to us by using the report feature. Working together to support the goals of the list is what Losing Lulu is all about. Doing anything else is showing up to play hockey with your ball and your bat and a short-sleeved shirt. You will find that a fairly uncomfortable time in the arena!

Today's image is a selfie of me paddling in Northern Ontario. As a paddler, I need my hat, my bug jacket, my life jacket and my paddle. I am dressed and ready for a far north adventure in my canoe, and because I was ready and prepared, I had a wonderful time!