The United States has a pet problem. Specifically, a pet overpopulation problem. While shelter euthanasia rates have plummeted over the last decade, they remain at around one million cats and dogs every year. This is a drastic improvement from the upwards of ten million shelters once killed; but still, we have a long way to go. Oftentimes the many shelters which still euthanize healthy animals are chastised by the public, who look down upon shelter staff and directors as heartless, cold blooded killers. This can take an immense toll on workers who take on already emotionally challenging positions in shelters because they love animals and want to improve their lives.
A devastating example of this lies in the story of Chien Chih-cheng, a Taiwanese animal shelter director and veterinarian who dedicated her life to the welfare of abandoned and unwanted dogs. Chien made several media appearances encouraging the Taiwanese public to adopt shelter animals through raw and emotional interviews expressing her distress at having no choice but to euthanize hundreds of animals for space. Online activists called her a “beautiful slaughterer”, “Dr. Death,” and “the dog butcher”. In 2016, Chien couldn’t take it anymore. She committed suicide using the same drug she had administered to the countless animals she’d been forced to kill.
Just like Chien’s shelter in Taiwan, many shelters in the United States are given no choice but to euthanize healthy and adoptable animals when they reach capacity. This is not because shelters want to euthanize animals, it’s because publicly funded shelters are forced to take in all animals from within their legal jurisdiction. If you have forty cages, intake ten animals per day and only see ten adoptions per week, what are you going to do with those extra twenty animals? You can seek rescue placement, but rescue groups are full, overwhelmed, and depend on public participation in foster programs. You can seek foster homes through your own volunteers, but will it be enough? And how long are you willing to fund foster supplies when funding is already limited?
Animal shelters, like any other public institutions, are paid for with taxpayer dollars. In low-income regions, funding and capacity are inherently going to be low, and sadly, these areas tend to have more stray animals and higher rates of owner surrender. In these situations, euthanasia becomes the only feasible option.
Even “no-kill” shelters are faced with similar scenarios. “No-kill” only implies a live release rate of over 90%, meaning that nine out of every ten animals makes it out of the shelter alive. I work as an animal care technician at an incredibly progressive, well-funded, high welfare shelter with an astoundingly impressive live release rate of over 97%. Some of the very small handful of animals we euthanize are behavioral euthanasias, an extremely controversial practice that generates high emotions in the animal rescue world.
The facility I work for will choose to euthanize a dog only when all options have been exhausted, every rescue in our contacts has been pleaded to (we have arranged transportation of behaviorally problematic dogs several states away to save their lives), and our highly experienced team of behavior and training staff has determined that nothing can be done given our limitations as a shelter. We seek out behaviorally challenging animals from shelters with less resources, and for many who come to us, we are the last chance. While every animal’s life obviously has value, when a shelter has resorted to “warehousing” (keeping an animal for extensive and ongoing periods of time with no plan in place or end in sight) they must consider options. While some- very few- dogs can thrive long-term in a shelter environment, they are pack animals by nature, and regardless of how much love, enrichment and stimulation a dog is given, a dog’s behavior will eventually begin to deteriorate in a shelter environment.
Dogs are housed in large cubicle-style rooms with a constant stream of classical music, comfortable beds, toys, and daily enrichment in the form of stuffed Kongs, food puzzles, scenting games, broth popsicles and more; they receive an average of three to five walks per day, during most of which they get to run off leash in large play yards filled with kiddie pools and toys galore; some volunteers even take their favorite dogs offsite to local hiking trails, coffee shops and parks to give them a break from the shelter, and staff sometimes bring dogs home for sleepovers to break the routine of shelter life.
But though it may seem like paradise, it isn’t enough to keep a dog happy forever. Dogs want consistency, a human to call their own, a home to sleep in every night rather than being alone when the lights turn off at the end of a shift. Some dogs with preexisting behavioral issues will begin to deteriorate after several months in the shelter, showing aggressive, unpredictable and potentially dangerous behavior towards staff. It is at this time that a rare and difficult decision must be made.
I have held a Mastiff/Pitbull mix in my arms, feeding him hamburger patties and rubbing his belly as the on-duty veterinarian did not feel comfortable handling him alone; I felt him take his last breath after placing his solid block of a head on my lap, rubbing his velvet ears as he drifted off into a deep, peaceful sleep. He knew me well, and he loved and trusted me, wagging his tail enthusiastically as I approached his habitat, likely anticipating a romp or game of fetch in one of the play yards. Instead, I led him into a room where he was killed.
Does that make me a bad person? What else could have been done? He was a dangerous dog who could not have safely been adopted out to the public without extensive training and rehabilitation, which is simply not always possible in a shelter environment. For months attempts were made to contact dozens of rescues and sanctuaries. For them, it was a tale as old as time, a plea they receive every single day. As his behavior continued to decline, he posed a danger to staff and his quality of life had declined drastically. In an ideal world, rescues and sanctuaries would jump at the opportunity to save a dog because shelters would be empty, and lifelong sanctuary housing could be reserved for behaviorally challenged dogs such as this one, rather than perfectly adoptable dogs who simply cannot find homes due to the pet overpopulation issue.
I challenge anyone who would criticize this decision or shame me for my participation in the killing of a healthy young dog to ask themselves: did you buy your last dog from a breeder, or did you adopt from a shelter? Have you ever given away or surrendered a pet after things didn’t work out? Is your dog spayed or neutered, or have you contributed to the massive backyard breeding problem we face as a country? Have you ever stepped up to foster a dog? Have you considered volunteering at a shelter, or providing transport for rescues? Do you donate to animal rescue organizations?
This particular dog’s severe behavioral issues landed him in the fraction of a percent of animals my work chooses to euthanize, but the vast majority of shelter animals do not display behavioral issues.
In fact, a study conducted by the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy found that the most common reasons for surrendering animals are as follows: caretaker is moving and cannot take pet, landlord has discovered pet and will not allow their presence, caretaker has too many animals in the household, caretaker can no longer afford to care for a pet, caretaker is facing personal problems, and caretaker’s animal had babies who caretaker cannot find homes for. Divorce, new babies, and allergies are other common reasons. These reasons all share a commonality: none are the animal’s fault, and none imply that anything is wrong with the animal at hand. Most shelter animals have simply found themselves at the wrong place and wrong time, and make excellent companions for those willing to adopt them. An estimated 25% of shelter animals are purebred, and I have seen a wide variety of rare and desirable breeds in the shelter and rescue system. Puppies and kittens are widely available in shelters and rescues, too. Whatever it is that you seek in a new pet, it is likely that you can find it in a shelter or rescue.
I ask people to reflect on their own role in the pet overpopulation issue rather than condemning shelters who have no choice but to make incredibly difficult decisions because of a problem perpetuated by those who buy puppies from backyard breeders, neglect to spay and neuter their pets, or fail to follow through in their commitment to an animal by surrendering them when they grow boring.
It may be an inconvenient truth, but if you paid $5,000 for a Goldendoodle puppy from a less-than-reputable backyard breeder yet point the finger at a shelter forced to euthanize a perfectly healthy and adoptable puppy who no one wanted, your room to criticize is marginal at best. Someone has to do the dirty work, and those who made the mess in the first place have no place to denounce.
Until the animal lovers who talk the talk start to walk the walk, pet overpopulation will remain an issue, and euthanasia will continue to occur in shelters. If we want to bring an end to this serious problem, we have to work together, be proactive, and become part of the solution. If every person who righteously condemned the killing of animals in shelters stepped up to volunteer, foster, transport, donate or adopt, euthanasia in shelters would be a relic of the past.
Commentaires