Over the years, I’ve gotten thoroughly sick and tired of the repeated use of the myths surrounding pet euthanasia as an argument in favor of providing the same “service” for humans. The latest of these is from a column by Dr. Gifford-Jones (I guess “Dr.” is his or her first name) published in the Edmonton Sun on February 7.
From the column:
Who was Debbie? If you missed her death notice, she was the world’s oldest polar bear at Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Park Zoo, who died at 41 years of age. Due to a number of strokes, zoo keepers decided Debbie had suffered enough and painlessly ended her life. But unlike the polar bear, a friend of mine recently experienced an agonizing death which has prompted this column.
I’ve often written that if I were allowed a committee to oversee my final hours, I’d want a veterinarian to be part of that group. I’m hoping they would treat me the same way as Debbie, or a loving pet. (emphasis added)
In the column, Gifford-Jones mentions being moved Sara McLachlan’s video to raise funds for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Unfortunately, the SPCA spot really does help Gifford-Jones make a case, because in its emphasis on “rescue,” of abused animals, it avoids telling viewers the ultimate fate of the majority of the animals that end up in shelters. This open letter from a shelter manager paints a very different picture — one that McLachlan would be hard-pressed to provide vocal background for:
Odds are your pet won’t get adopted & how stressful do you think being in a shelter is? Well, let me tell you, your pet has 72 hours to find a new family from the moment you drop it off. Sometimes a little longer if the shelter isn’t full and your dog manages to stay completely healthy. If it sniffles, it dies.
Please note that the author is referring to pets that have been abandoned to the shelters by their owners. There’s every reason to believe that pets rescued from abuse have even lower chances of being adopted.
This is not a new phenomenon or limited to one particularly undestaffed and underfunded shelter. Last July, Dick Sobsey posted his own critique of the animal vs. human euthanasia argument in “Euthanasia, pets & people.” Here’s an excerpt, sharing some statistics on animal euthanasia:
- They are abandoned and unwanted. (According to the American Humane Association, “56% of dogs and 71% of cats that enter animal shelters are euthanized,” that was 2.7 million animals in the 1000 shelters who responded to their survey. The total number is likely at least three times as high because another 2500 shelters provided no data.) [Editor’s 2023 note: Newer data is available HERE.]
- They have a personality or behaviour problem. (According to the SPCA, this is the single most common reason for euthanizing dogs accounting for as much as 60% of cases, as many as 6,000,000 in a single year)
- Their caregivers are no longer willing or no longer able able to continue caring for them.
- They are considered to be unattractive.
- They have a treatable health condition but euthanasia is a cheaper alternative.
- They are getting old.
- They have physical traits considered to be undesirable for their breed.
- They have untreatable terminal diseases and are in pain.
- In many cases, there is no single, clear reason.
Please notice that very few of the animals are abandoned or killed because they have painful terminal illnesses.
Note to Gifford-Jones – we kill our pets because we can – the law only requires that we do it humanely and doesn’t really care why we do it.
I can already hear objections from Gifford-Jones and people who have approached this argument in a similar fashion. Thaddeus Mason Pope, whose post on this column alerted me to it, might also object, since he agrees with Gifford-Jones.
After all, one might object, people who abandon their pets to shelters don’t even care enough about their pets to take them to a vet to have them “put to sleep.”
In order to answer those possible objections, I’ll discuss at least one case of a person who did go to a vet to have his pets put down – a story taken from the annals of the euthanasia movement itself.
Then let’s talk about what a great thing it is to treat humans in the same way we treat animals, even the ones we claim to love. –Stephen Drake