In rescue, sometimes you come across tough cases – animals who go months, sometimes years, before finding a forever home. It’s always sad. Less so when the dog is in foster care, but always unfortunate when they’re in a shelter or boarding situation.
It’s obvious these animals want nothing more than a warm bed and human companionship, but sometimes it’s a long time before they get it.
However, those who make the argument that these animals would be better off dead (PETA, for example) are horrendously misguided.
PETA believes, for instance, that bully breeds are better off dead because they’re so often mistreated, abused or used for fighting. But this reasoning is fallacious and sadistic. The Vick dogs prove that even animals abused beyond belief are still capable of recovery. But according to PETA, “We can only stop killing pits if we stop creating new ones.”
This is a ludicrous mentality for an organization supposedly dedicated to animal welfare. Even the dogs who have faced the worst kind of hell still demonstrate the will to live.
Think about human beings. Foster children, for example. Few would argue that it isn’t worth the temporary sadness or hardship that comes with being a foster child to reach the end goal of adoption (not to mention the goal of growing up).
Or prisoners. They endure months, years, sometimes decades of incarceration before earning their freedom again. But would they rather be dead? I think not.
The same is true for animals. If they could communicate their wants, undoubtedly they’d tell us they’re willing to endure a less-than-perfect situation in order to reach the light at the end of the tunnel. We do them a grave injustice by ever assuming otherwise.
Who are we to judge an animal’s level of “suffering”, and make the irreversible call to kill them?
God knows the concept of “suffering” is subjective. Some would argue that an animal in boarding for a month is “suffering”, and should be killed to alleviate it. Or that an animal who has suffered abuse should be killed rather than rehabilitated. I would absolutely disagree. We’re not the ones who should be making life and death decisions based on these arbitrary concepts.
Truly, only in a case of extreme and incurable pain or illness is an animal EVER better off dead.
Death is final. That life is gone forever, with no chance for redemption; no chance for love; no chance for a happy ending. They’re simply gone. As long as they’re alive, they have a chance. And each and every animal deserves it.
Beautifully written and something to remember when speaking to those who believe in “better off dead”. In light of discoveries today about the similarities between man and animals, there is another similarity–hope.
I agree with you almost point for point save one. There are some dogs whose minds are so tortured by their experiences that living is nightmarish. I fostered one of these types and it broke my heart everyday. Especially given, he came to me as a three month old puppy. I called him Shyiah. I cannot even begin to imagine what this poor animal was subjected to in the three short months of his life before finding refuge, but suffice it to say, two years of love, care, patience and more patience could not free his mind from his torture. He was only happy when he was beside my big Newfy mix Murphy. I thought to myself, well, if this is to be his existence and if this is where he finds his happiness, then so be it.
Then Murphy passed away from stroke. He was 13.
Shyiah was a dog that could find no comfort. No security. He paced the yard incessantly. He would not eat. He drank only when his pacing drove him to the bowl for survival. I had hoped, with Murphy gone, he would turn to me or even perhaps one of my other three dogs, but it was not to be. There was no peace on this earth for him. I began thinking he of euthanization but he took the decision from me. He began jumping the fence in search of his friend. The ensuing dog hunt would sometimes last for hours. When I found him, I would throw open the back door to my truck and he would jump in enthusiastically, thinking his long lost buddy might be in there as I often took them with me for truck ride.
One day however, I came home to find the back yard empty. I searched in vain. Nobody had seen him. When I came home my other dogs found him. He was hanging on the backside of my fence by his collar. He was gone. Oddly enough. There was not the panicked choked out look on his face you might expect but almost a serenity. I bawled like a baby. I felt incredibly guilty but could not figure out why. I had done everything humanely possible to release his brain from his anti-human prison but it was just not meant to be.
I know he is far happier now where he is at, than he ever was here on earth. His search for Murphy is over and they are together again.
I know this is a very rare incidence as, like you mentioned, most dogs are incredibly forgiving of what we as humans put them through. Shyiah was a different kind of dog. What he experienced left permanent and possibly biological damage. His life was torture without Murphy and really not very enriched even with Murphy. I truly believe he is a rare exception where the phrase, “better off dead” is applicable. I prefer to think of it as “better off free’d”.
Hi Becky,
That is an incredibly tragic story. I’m so sorry. I agree that there are very rare occasions where dogs may not be able to recover from their past. Poor Shyiah.
The prison analogy is ironic– I have often thought about how we, as a society, reserve the death penalty for the most heinous of killers, and then only after they are convicted and have exhausted the appeals process. It is said they “deserve to die”. What have any of the thousands of animals killed in pounds done to deserve to die? We often forget that the local Animal Control is a subcontractor for the city/county government, they work for us and theoretically are hired to carry out our will. It has become so easy to end the life of an animal, to treat them as disposable simply because we can, that it seems forgotten that these are living, sentient beings with the same life force running through them as we have. I wonder who we think we are to make a decision that they no longer have a right to live because we, humans who are assured that their lives are sacred, have decided that there is not enough room for them here.
yOU KNOW THIS SHIS PISSES ME OFF TO KNOW END NO WHAT ABOUT POEPLE IF WE COULD SAY THAT AGOUT POEPLE THAT HURT THESE BEAUTIFUL DOG AND OR ANIMAL ……AND THEY DONT, SO HOW CAN THEY SAY THIS ABOUT OUR PIT BULLS YOU KNOW ITS THE SICK PEOPLE IF YOU EVEN CALL IT THAT.MABEY WE SHOULD PUT PEOPLE DOWN THESE DOGS BREATH ,SMILE, LOVE ,CUDDLE ,HELP, LOVE.UNCONDITIONALY .MY DOG IS MY BEST FREIND,ONE OF THE LOVES OF LIFE. HES MY EVERY THING .HE GOSE UP TO EVERY ONE HE MEETS WITH A BIG SMILE ALWAYSE HAS A KISS LOVES EVERY ONE NEVER HAS SHOWN ANY KIND OF AGRETION OR EVER WANTED TO HURT ANY ONE .HE HAS A VERY LOVING .GENTAL HEART aLWAYSE CHECKS ON ME TO MAKE SURE IAM OK.MY BOY I SAVED HIM AS A LIL BABY AND HE SAVED ME RIGHT BACK MY REX HAS LITTERLY SAVED MY LIFE.I HAVE NEVER,NEVER HAD ANY REGRETS.I KNOW SO MANY PEOPLE WITH PIT BULLS AND THERE DOGS ARE JUST LIKE MINE.THERE ARE GREAT DOGS.SO DO THEY THINK MABEY THE PEOPLE THAT ARE DOING THIS MABEY THEY SHOULD BE PUT TO SLEEP I JUST SAYING. NO WE DONT KILL THE PEOPLE DOING THIS HORIBLE THING TO OUR BREATHING, VERY MUCH A LIVE.AMIMALS MY DOG FEELS I DONT CARE WHAT ANY BODY SAYS I KNOW WHAT MY DOG NEEDS AND IF I NOT SURE HE LETS ME KNOW PIT BULLS ARE SOME OF THE SMARTES DOG EVER AND THEY DESERVE TO LIVE ALL THEY DID RONG IS BE BONE AND WE DONT KILL OUR PEOPLE SO WHY OUR ANIMALS.I LOVE PIT BULLS AND EVERY LIL ANIMALS THERE IS GOD DONT MAKE JUNK SO STOP
Three ideas. Punctuation, spell check, caps unlock.
There are no spelling errors, punctuation errors or uppercase letters in my blog. Please explain your comment,
I could not have said this better myself. A lot of people in rescue will say a dog is better off dead than being in a cage, etc., etc. Drives me crazy. Thank you for writing this.
Julie
Sorry Hannah. My comment was directed at Tracy. I found her comment difficult to get through and understand fully.
Ahhhh, I see!
I once adopted a cat who was a special needs behavior case. She had been adopted and returned to the private shelter where I spotted her, and she had spent around 3 or four years mostly in the shelter’s care. They provided her with food every day. They cleaned her room and her litterbox. They offered her enrichment — feather toys, and other play opportunities, alone and with other cats. They offered her picture and a little character sketch on the web. I fell for her photo, but she was not immediately sold on me when I went to see her. The adoption counselor was patient, realistic, and offered as much information as possible about her. I decided to take a chance. Still, I wasn’t really sure if I was making much difference in that cat’s life, until, as we worked on the behavior issue (she would urine-mark in certain circumstances), I started to notice things she liked a lot, and what she just tolerated. I started to keep her with me when I worked on my files and computer. She loved to talk! A few months or perhaps even a full year after the adoption was finalized, I told the rescue group and adoption counselor, that she was being much more social and playing finally, and that she seemed really happy, and appreciated my affection. (She had mostly avoided me when I had sat down on the shelter floor and tried to entice her to come for pets and cuddling. She was a beautiful calico, but I was longing for time holding and bonding with her, after losing a cat who had spent 14 years by my side). I think that Carrie always had had hope that she would get a home, and when she realized FOR SURE that she had found one, she really did, in the words of the adoption counselor, “blossom.” And at any of hundreds of public pounds, she would not have been given anything like this chance. Her behavior, on intake, would surely have pegged her as “unadoptable,” IF the pound staff bothered at all to evaluate how she behaved (many don’t!). Carrie spent almost twenty years with us, and while there were definitely challenges — we worked with pro behaviorists on her litterbox issue — I have no doubt that Carrie loved life and only chose death because her little body was shutting down. We had a real love between us, too. That is what all of us hope for in life, I think. All you need IS love.
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