I've sadily had be in the room where a few animals were put down over my life.
The pricy vet drug was great. My dog felt no pain. Died in a millisecond. I died a bit that day too. The worse pain I have ever felt was over a pet.
My point is my Humane Society used a drug that slowly killed the animal. The animal did not look content. She looked at me, like "What's going on?". It wasen't my animal, but I felt it's misery. The only reason I was there is the owner couldn't handle the prolonged death. It was a good 8 plus minutes of dying.
My point is I don't know if the Humane Society purposely used a drug that didn't kill the animal immediately so the family could spend time with a dying pet. I don't know why they didn't use a drug that would stop the heart completely?
The horrid reason these dogs were put down was due to Section 8 housing laws. A busybody in the complex didn't like my friend who fell on hard times, and was trying to get her to move in abusive verbal ways. This horrid human just didn't like my friend, and had pull at the housing complex. She turned the dogs into Sec. 8 authorities for being a few pounds over 25. My friend put the dogs down. I still recall her asking me if by putting the dogs down was she being egocentric. I didn't say anything because she was literally living in a beach parking lot a few weeks before.
(Sorry about going on, and on. The death of any animal just tears me to pieces. Oh yea, I looked at the 42 page Section 8 lease. Yes---42 pages of "You can't do this, and you can't do that." My main point was I feel the Humane Society should use the most effective, fast acting, drugs available when they put an animal down.)