Before we got all modernized there was an old saying that “Every man gotta kill his own dog and iron his own apron.” It was usually done with a buttet to the head or heart...That was back in the old farm days...But a man did not sluff off the hard stuff to someone else..
My dad grew up in rural Maine. Our childhood pets (and there were many) went, after a favorite meal, and much loving, and petting, with a bullet to the back of the head.
Striking “maybe two or three times” with the claw end (!?!) of a household hammer is not the same thing at all.