I asked a young woman to kill a raccoon for me the other day, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. It took me back to other, sadder occasions when I felt it necessary to take an animal’s life.

I can still remember the occasion, nearly a half-century ago, when I came across my son’s small puppy lying in the garage gasping for breath and covered with ants. I didn’t know what had brought him low, but I knew he would not survive, and I couldn’t bear to see him suffer. So I borrowed a cousin’s .410 shotgun and quickly dispatched him.

I replaced him with another dog about the same age. A week or two later, my wife called me at work (I was on the night shift at a morning newspaper) and told me I needed to take our son to the emergency room for a minor accident. The mission over, I backed out of our dark driveway (it was before back-up lights were standard on cars) and felt a sickening bump. I got out to find that my rear tire had passed over the little dog’s body, hopelessly crushing it, though leaving it alive. There was no shotgun handy, so I used the closest weapon to end his suffering: I crushed his head with a cinder block.

It was a long time before I obtained another dog. My household seemed to be a danger zone for the creatures, and I didn’t want to have to resort to violence to keep them from suffering. My latest dog lived safely with me for nearly 16 years before old age overtook her. This time I was able to get her to a vet, who gently put her to sleep.

Which brings me to the case of the raccoon.

Our house is on the market, so while a real-estate agent was showing it, Miss Peggy and I went out to a view a house we were interested in buying. It’s in a nice new neighborhood, and as we pulled into the driveway I noticed what first appeared to be a large, gray cat in high grass on a vacant lot next door. Closer inspection revealed it to be a raccoon.

I watched as the coon struggled to its feet, wobbled, then fell again. It would lie quietly for a few seconds, then struggle to move. It never managed to take more than one or two steps.

I couldn’t tell what was wrong with it, and I knew better than to get too close to a wild animal, even a dying one.  I knew that coons can carry rabies.

This being the 21st century, I carried a cell phone, so I opened it and dialed 911, an option not available in the distant ’60s. I asked the dispatcher to send animal control to put the raccoon out of its misery.

The animal control representative told me that dying coons weren’t within its job description, but if I would hang on, the Wildlife Service could come on the line.

I got someone at National Wildlife Service.

“Is it endangering anyone?” I was asked.

The coon was no danger to anyone who had the good sense to keep his distance.

“Then we can’t do anything about it,” the Wildlife Service told me. “If we came out every time somebody found a wild animal in distress, that’s all we’d be doing.”

Miss Peggy suggested that I try to find a neighbor with a weapon who could relieve the coon of its suffering. I went to the nearest house. I may have reeled a bit as I walked onto the porch, because I was just recovering from a nasty bout of the flu. A child peered from the window, and somebody decided it wasn’t a good idea to open the door to an old man in rumpled jeans and a denim shirt.

A buzzard was circling overhead, and I was hoping the animal had expired on its own, but Miss Peggy told me that it still moved occasionally.

I looked over to the next street and saw a woman in her 30s working in her yard.

I walked over and introduced myself. She said her name was Meghan. I told her about the dying coon and asked whether she knew anyone who had a weapon and would be willing to dispatch it.

“I have one,” she told me, “and I work in wildlife preservation.”

The coon had a savior, so to speak.

She went into her house and came out with a black automatic pistol.

We walked over to the vacant lot, and she watched the coon struggling to move.

She quietly took aim, and I heard the crack of her weapon.

The coon thrashed a few times, then lay quiet, and we were satisfied that it was at last at peace.

I thanked Meghan, and she said she was glad to do it.

A few thoughts ran through our minds as we left the raccoon to the pleasure of the circling buzzard.

One was that a gunshot had just rung out in the middle of a nice middle-class neighborhood in broad daylight, and not one head appeared to see what was up: not even at the house where the occupants had declined to answer the door when an old man rang the bell.

Another was that the coon’s ordeal is probably repeated millions of times daily in the wild woods and in semi-wild suburbia, but without a compassionate Meghan to end the suffering.

Another is that I am not a gun owner and don’t want to become one. But maybe I should carry a cinder block around in my trunk, just in case there’s a need for a mercy killing.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625 or  at WadesDixieco@AOL.com.