Well told story, sorry for your dog. It reminds me of a very similar story my dad used to tell us as kids (which he claimed was true). He grew up on a farm and one of their dogs started killing chickens, so my grandfather finally decided they had to put the dog down. My grandfather shot the dog with a shotgun but he didn't die, and he ended up having to beat the dog in the head with the end of the shotgun to put it out of its misery. Definitely a different mindset, if you come from a rural environment, in terms of the value and role of animals/pets. But yeah, apparently shotguns are not at all an effective method for putting a dog down, if you really have to do it.