u/balaurvestic

My problem is, I like rats a lot, and I am also critically unable to kill an animal on purpose, especially in a more involved way, but a family of rats made a home in my dog's enclosure so they had to be dealt with. I was wrongly under impression that capturing them in live traps and releasing them somewhere far was the most humane way, until I've found not even an hour ago that it may be more cruel since they're under a ton of stress from relocation and usually die soon after anyway, either from stress, predators or starvation. So now I have two very alive and very scared rats in live cages, and a dilemma of how to dispose of them quickly and (ideally) painlessly without crying my eyes out for the rest of the week. Drowning seems an option but while relatively painless, it's long and they'll be terrified all the way, and I do not trust myself to not stop mid-way out of pointless empathy. Unless I can give them something to put them to sleep and then do it. (Which will still leave me agonizing over potential offspring that may be left to starve to death. Autistic hyperempathy is not a fun thing, I hate it very much).
So main question now: how to best put them down? Would it make sense to temporarily release them back and invest into proper snap traps instead so when they're caught next time it's quick? Can I feed them something to knock them out and then kill them?

I've just caught two rats with humane cage traps but I can release them only in the morning at best, which is still hours and hours away. The problem is, one of them is very nervous, won't even take bribes, and tries to get out again and again, and it has scratched its head bloody pretty bad. Not only I dont know how to help it (the scraped part is p much between its eyes, so just spraying it from afar with some antiseptic won't be of any help), I dont know how to get them to calm down before they hurt themselves even more. I hope they'll accept food, can I feed them anything that'd make them fall asleep or calm down? Maybe a bit of alcohol? (And before you say that eh, it's just wild rats, dont bother, I like rats a lot and if they were not a danger to my dogs/didnt make a mess in the yard all the time, I'd be chill with them, and since I plan to relocate them safely, I want to at least help them as much as I can first).

My elderly shepherd (15yo) has chronic osteoarthritis and spinal issues, I've recently been recommended to start giving her Evexia to relieve pain, been on it for two days only so far, but coincidentally she's been having more trouble walking recently, barely has any appetite and is whining every time she has to walk. Unfortunately, the package pills came with dont have much instructions other than when to use the pills, dosage, and that it's a supplement and not an actual medicine. Bc of that our local vet also doesn't know much, since evexia is quite rare and very expensive here. So my question is, can I combine evexia with cimalgex or any other NSAID to relieve her pain? Or maybe at least not at the same time but one in the morning, one in the evening?