The
“Humane Society” Kills Pets?
How organizations adapt their mission
The Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is about 150 years old. Its mission is simply stated in its name:
preventing Cruelty to Animals. And they do accomplish their mission in a
way—actively promoting the passing and enforcement of anti-cruelty laws. And they
spawned thousands of local animal shelters committed to prevent cruelty to
animals.
However the curious thing to ponder is how these
organizations became such efficient killing machines for the very pets they
claim to protect from cruelty. Isn’t killing animals the ultimate cruelty? They don’t call it “killing” of course. The
pets are “put to sleep” or “euthanized.” In the end the dog is just dead.
How did this happen?
Starting with a lofty mission of gathering stray or abandoned pets and
making them available for adoption, they wound up with more pets than they
could feed. I wonder who first suggested
the solution of killing the overstocked pets as the “most humane” thing to do. I
suppose there was a logical argument made—killing these prevents them from
making more pets to kill later? I don’t think they asked the dogs. Most dogs I
know of would rather run loose and half-starved than get killed.
But imagine a tender-hearted animal lover signing up
for work at the animal shelter thinking they were preventing cruelty. As they
worked their way into the organization and got on the board they begin to discover
the troublesome practices of “killing to prevent cruelty.” IN a board meeting
this new volunteer starts asking embarrassing questions:
“So, how many pets do we kill each year?”
“We don’t kill
pets—we euthanize them.”
“Whatever—how many pets do we ‘euthanize’ each year.”
“We’ll have to
get back to you on that.”
“I want to know if I’m serving on this board—what percentage of pets do
we kill?”
“Too
many—people won’t adopt them.”
“But if our mission is preventing cruelty to animals what is crueler than
killing?”
“We don’t kill
them—we put them to sleep in a humane way.”
“How can you consider it ‘humane” to kill pets?”
“We don’t want
to euthanize them but the people won’t adopt them.”
“So what percentage do we kill?”
“We kill a
lot—but at least they won’t breed then and create even dogs and cats—its best
for them.”
“How can it be best for a dog to get killed?”
“Maybe you
might want to join Habitat for Humanity when you drop off this board?”
It’s odd isn’t it? An organization can wind up
participating in the very thing they were founded to prevent. (But I’m not
really thinking about the SPCA here…. I’m thinking about the church.)
So what do you
think?
During the first few weeks click
here to comment or read comments