Animal Shelter and Euthanasia Essay Example

📌Category: Animals, Environment
📌Words: 1094
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 06 June 2021

There is multitudinous amount of animals lovers all around the world and those of us with animals are attached to them and feel as if they are an actual human being. But what most people do not realize is how many animals are without homes. There is anywhere from 6-8 million animals in shelters without homes due to numerous reasons. Out of those of animals, 2.7 million animals are killed every year due to euthanasia. Animals just like those you love and are attached too, are killed due to avoidable problems. The procedure of euthanasia is erroneous and should be put to a halt.

Many people defend euthanasia for numerous reasons. Some of these reasons are exemplified by Source B, “Overpopulation due to puppy mills and lack of spaying/neutering, owners surrenders, pets being dumped like trash, dog fighting, and laws that do nothing about this problem.” All of these problems create a slippery slope for animals that leads right to a shelter. There are no laws to help with stopping euthanasia whatsoever. If laws were established, think of the effect it would have on preventing euthanasia. If a law was made to spay/neuter any dog that does not breed puppies and to stop puppy mills the population would decrease drastically.

As highlighted by Source F, “6 to 8 million animals are handled by animal shelters in the US each year. Even though some are reclaimed or adopted, nearly 4 million unwanted dogs and cats are left with nowhere to go.” You can even see in Source C that six dogs are crammed into a cage and might stay like that for up to years. Those two quotes shows how big the issue of overpopulation is, but if those laws are made, imagine what those numbers would be in years to come. After handling overpopulation, the next step is trying to stop dog fighting. If a law was made to stop dog fighting, there would not be so many un adoptable, aggressive dogs in shelters that no one wants. These problems could simply be avoided if lawmakers got off their high chair and showed some empathy towards these poor animals, it would create a wide open gap to end euthanasia.

The definition of euthanasia means “safe death” but in some cases this is not true. There are still practices that kill the animal by gunshot, gas chambers, and electrocution. These tortuous methods are inhumane. Source F criticizes the methods of euthanasia by saying, “Bullets are often not placed precisely in the struggling animals head or are deflected, and some animals survive the first shot only to be shot again and again.” How can the people of America stand by and let this abuse and torture happen? These methods used by shelters are downright disgusting, no creature should have to endure this pain.

Another quote from source F explains the horror of these cruel methods, “Even the “best” gas boxes can expose conscious animals to the horror of watching other animals in the box suffer from convulsions and muscular spasms.” This is why euthanasia needs to be stopped, animals are trapped in a box and killed slowly one by one just like gas chambers in the holocaust. On the other hand, some shelters do use the typical method of lethal injection. But most shelters do not use that because of the expenses and those other cruel methods are easier. This is why shelters are selfish and think only of their particular needs instead of the animals. Shelters needs to see the see what’s right in front of them and come together to stop these terrible methods and put a ban on euthanasia once and for all.

Euthanasia is not only terrible to the animal, it is also inflicting pain towards the vet doing the practice. Source E highlights, “regular feature of many veterinarians’ days and the stress they call may be exacerbated by veterinarians not easily accepting death as an outcome.” This actively illustrates that a regular feature of a veterinarians day consists of this life or death decision and it takes a toll on the person. Veterinarians are trained to heal animals, but when they have to to end their life, it is never an easy process.

I have experienced this head on. I used to work at an animal clinic and one week a stray dog showed up at the door. We tried to find a home and surrender it to a shelter, but with its behavioral issues and sickness, no shelters wanted the dog. The head veterinarian decided that we should put the dog down. This impacted the aroma of the entire clinic after that. The doctor was remorseful and very quiet the rest of the week because of having to end this dog's life. Euthanasia causes stress on so many levels when it can be avoided. This stress could impact the way a vet makes a decision determining either the animals fate who is being put down, or other patients of the veterinarian. The riddance of this will be able to not only reduce stress for both the animal and veterinarian, but also bring about more adoptions.

If euthanasia was illegal, More animals would have a chance to be adopted. A once in a lifetime opportunity happened for this dog named Roxy, who was adopted after being in the shelter for 8 years. As explained in Source A, “And now Roxy has found her forever home and spent her first Christmas at home, after being picked by dog groomer Leanne.” Without euthanasia more animals like Roxy would be able to find their forever home without the pressure of time weighing on their shoulders. If euthanasia stays, then a chance like this will probably never happen again. Roxy was incredibly lucky to be able to find someone who would take a chance on dog who has stayed in a shelter for almost a decade. Most dogs though, are not as lucky as Roxy. With shelters being more strict on animals taking up space, most animals who stay for as little as a couple of years is killed. These animals did not choose to end up in a shelter, they did not choose to take up space, they did not choose to be treated like this. People however, have chosen ignore this problem, have chosen hide and cowher instead of facing the problem head on.

There is not a need for euthanasia, we can come together to stop this immoral act and help to influence lawmakers to establish laws that will help decrease the main issue causing this procedure. Society has also put on a blindfold whenever the harsh reality that is euthanasia shines in their face and what does this say about us? We need to take those blindfolds off and protect the innocent creatures that are animals in this world. If this crisis does not stop where will we be in ten years, in fifty years? Society needs to take in this world need to put a end to this before it becomes to big of a problem no one can fix.

 

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