I have still been thinking about Jamie.

One thought foremost in my mind is - was he in pain.

We had been so adamant about not putting animals to sleep cos of the fear that euthanasia becomes a convenient solution, the presence and capability of which may point you down the path of wrong decisions. Go back to the time when euthanasia does not exist at all. What then would we do?

Are we fair to say that sometimes professional advice may not be correct? Maybe the question to the vet should be: If Jamie is your own dog, what would you do now? Would euthanasia then be the prompt answer? Or will he/she come up with other solutions?

But to me, somehow the key answer I needed to know is if Jamie was in pain.

We all know and I've heard vets confirm that animals are very good at hiding pain. Your very own pet may be masking his/her discomfort and pain and you may never know about it. Therein lies the dilemma when you decide whether to hold on or to let go.

Cos when we look at Jamie, to me, he doesn't look that bad. He did not show any clear indication that he was in pain - no groaning, no whining, no crying or writhing. He was just lying still and weak. But how do we know whether he was in pain or not?

And if he was in such pain and yet we held on, how selfish would we be?

I find myself turning that question in my mind: How do we know if an animal is suffering in pain silently? I needed to know. And this is what I chanced upon in Animals in Translation:

PAIN AND SUFFERING

"An injured animal in terrible pain will actually eat food...something all our theories of stress tell us shouldn't happen....there is no way to know how much pain an animal is in when you're right there in the room with him. Animals mask pain."

Just this few lines jolted me.

What if we go about our attempts, trying to keep an animal alive, cos we think that is the right thing to do. To never give up. To never consider euthanasia. But what if, by going headlong in this direction, we have actually been letting Jamie lived on in pain?

"Fear is worse than pain. The single worst thing you can do to an animal emotionally is to make it feel afraid. Fear is so bad for animals I think it's worse than pain...An animal who is completely alone and giving full expression to severe pain acts less incapacitated than an animal who's scared half out of his wits."

Reading this, I understand why trapped animals will endure horrendous pain to chew off their trapped paws just to escape. They must be driven by immense fear and all their mind could comprehend then was to escape this fear. Pain took second place.

We can't look at ourselves when we make a decision. We must look only at that animal. But how do we truly, truly know?