I must start by saying that I am not a professional “anything”. If you have read my other posts, you already know this to be my cone of safety. I must also say that I dislike weighty blogs. The kind that spread serious faces rather than smiles. This blog references research and common sense. That is all. My hope here is to bring you some value. Present you with some info that may be useful to you or someone you know. My hope is to be a publicist of sorts for our local shelter. To give a voice to those who can only woof or meow.
Approximately 1.6 million dogs & 1.3 million cats are adopted from shelters in the United States each year. Awesome?
It IS awesome! However, the number euthanized due to disease or aggression is also higher than I would like to realistically come to terms with. I never thought this day would come, however, it has. I am about to be realistic about what must happen in ANY shelter that cares about saving the lives of as many animals as possible. This is not my opinion, it is fact. I would fall into the category of people that screams “no animal should be euthanized!!”. But wait……I made the hardest decision of my life…twice…when I required myself to be selfless and asked that my vet put my dog to sleep rather than watch him suffer. So, does that make me a hypocrite regarding animal shelters? Indeed, it does.
Here is WHY.
I love my dogs like I love my kids. Judge if you will. I’m ok with it. I stopped caring what people thought of me in about 6th grade. When my vet, that I trust with all of my heart, informed me that my Keedo was suffering I selfishly told myself for about a week that he would be ok. He wasn’t ok. It was clear that he was NOT ok. I sucked it up and did the right thing. Do I still have guilt? Yes. Do I know I made the right choice? Yes. Then it happened again with my Buddy. Like punishment for every wrong I had ever done- I had to make that choice again.
The TRUTH and FACTS behind euthanasia
A no-kill shelter, in my head, sounds like THE BEST SHELTER EVER. Right? Most would agree. It’s rainbows and unicorns there. Everyone gets to live and be free (sort of). The reality is that none of that is true! (which gags me) Picture this- you, as a human, are in a cell at an establishment where the people are kind to you but you have no idea why you are there because you didn’t do anything wrong. They feed you, talk to you, play cards with you. The person in the cell next to you gets really sick. The doctors come. They can’t help her. She has a disease. A disease that she is now going to inevitably give to you and every other person in every other cell. YOU have a chance to live and find a home with people that will love you. IF you don’t contract that disease. What do you want the people that are caring for you to do? Let the woman in the cell next to you suffer and spread her disease? She is suffering. She is spreading her disease. Someone may come for you tomorrow…if you LIVE.
The TRUTH is that deciding what kind of shelter to be is not an easy decision to make. The TRUTH is that one can only hope that a shelter makes the right choices. The humane choices. My opinion is that no shelter should euthanize because of overpopulation. EVER. I understand that a no-kill shelter produces good public relations (rainbows and unicorns), however, it does not do what is best for the whole (crooked rainbows and black unicorns). It’s like one of those “greater good” sci-fi books and as much as I hate it, it is total truth and, in the end, about compassion. Sadly, it is important and the right thing to do to euthanize animals that are terminally ill or irreversibly aggressive. It makes me cry just thinking about it. But is truly the most humane thing to do. I would be even more saddened by 30 dogs dying because one dog was sick and spread that to all of them. THAT is a tragedy!
I guess what I am getting at here is that the more we speak for the animals at our local shelter, the more we find homes for…….and fewer will be euthanized.
How do you speak for them? You share blogs like this one. You spread posts on social media about the dogs and cats that are adoptable at the shelter. You donate food, cleaning supplies, etc. to the shelter whenever you are able. You attend fundraisers. You support anything that supports the shelter. You choose to be positive and supportive of an establishment in your community that functions solely on donations from the public. You ask questions of the director or board of your local shelter so that you are knowledgeably spreading accurate information. You can be a responsible, level-headed human that is well-informed.
How do you help lower the population of euthanized animals? You spay or neuter your own animals. You, as mentioned above, share posts of adoptable animals (the more those posts are shared the quicker those animals are adopted and the less likely they are to become diseased). You volunteer (the more people there are to watch after the animals and spend time with them, the quicker a problem can be addressed, potentially avoiding the instance where an animal must be euthanized).
Crooked Rainbows and Black Unicorns,
The brunette
PS- please, PLEASE know that these truths sadden me. I don’t want to see any animal put down. I also don’t want to see 30 die because of the fate of 1. 😦 We are not trying to sway your opinion of any shelter. We value and respect everyone’s opinion. Always. It’s what makes us who we are. THE NEXT BLOG SHALL BE A HAPPY ONE!
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