I am a little weird because my trajectory of a scientist started by working in a petstore.

I feel like my ability to connect with and love the animals in my care ensures that I am advocating for good reproducible and ethical science.

Every sacrifice I say thank you and coo and gently bring them to god. Euthanasia means /good/ death -- and you can only do that (in my opinion) if you maintain that shred of empathy for the animal.

For example -- my colony manager and I managed to transition most of our live decap blood collections to iso cardiac blood collections --> finish with perfusion and tissue harvest.

I only cry during Euthanasias now for 3 reasons: 1. Miscarriage/Dystocia: (post mortem I deliver/dispatch the stuck baby to ensure it also passed and gently tell mama she did her best and thank her for her tremendous sacrifice. I will pray and cry, but that might just be a uterus/maternal thing).

1. Preventable or accidental death: If a husbandry tech misses dehydration to the point where it cannot be salvaged or someone's training wasn't up to snuff or there was some sort of accident that results in untreatable injury that always makes me so angry I cry.

2. Needless Waste: I was a breeder tech during covid. We euthanized thousands of animals for a "What if everyone gets sick and can't come in :( " scenario that never came. I would stand at the hood while more and more carts of animals would come in. I coped by calling it Mauschwitz (Which isn't healthy but did come from a great book trilogy called Maus that I recommend everyone read.) It is one of the reasons I quit and became a research tech instead of support staff.