You can't keep your pet? Really?

It's a little-known fact that euthanasia en-masse is not the "peaceful" affair we see when we pay our own vet to do it. People must know the raw truth or nothing will ever change. The author of the following letter is a shelter director who, understandably, prefers to remain anonymous. His text has been abridged and microedited for readability; the facts are unaltered. It was first forwarded (I believe) by OK Save A Dog Society, on 13 February 2011. Brace yourself:


You can't keep your pet? Really?

As a shelter manager, I am going to share a little insight with you all.... People who have ever surrendered a pet to a shelter or humane society should be made to work in the "back" for just one day. Maybe if you saw the life drain from a few sad, lost, confused eyes, you would stop flagging the ads on craigslist and help these animals find homes. That puppy you just bought will most likely end up in my shelter when it's not cute or little anymore. There's a 90% chance that a dog will never walk out of the shelter, purebred or not! About 25% of all of the dogs that are "owner surrenders" or "strays"are of pure breed.

The most common excuses: "We are moving and we can't take our dog (or cat)." Are you also leaving your kid behind? Or "The dog got too big". Can you spell: German Shepherd? "We don't have time for her." I work a 10-12 hour day and still have time for my six dogs! "She's tearing up our yard." How about making her a part of your family? They always tell me "We just don't want to have to stress about finding a place for her; we know she'll get adopted, she's a good dog".

Let me tell you what "stressful" is. In a shelter your pet has 72 hours to find a new family from the moment you drop him off. Sometimes a little longer if the shelter isn't full and your dog manages to stay healthy. If he sniffles, he dies. Your pet will be confined to a small run/kennel in a room with other barking or crying animals. He will have to relieve itself, eat, and sleep in the same enclosure. He will be depressed and cry for those who abandoned him. If your pet is lucky, I will have enough volunteers that day to take him for a walk. Otherwise he won't get any attention besides having a bowl of food slid under the kennel door and the waste sprayed out of the pen with a high-powered hose. If your dog is big, black, or any of the "Bully" breeds (pit bull, rottie, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much dead when you dragged him through the front door because those dogs generally get adopted by those who will tie them to a fat chain for the rest of their life, fight them, etc. regardless of how sweet or well behaved they are.

If your dog doesn't get adopted within 72 hours and the shelter is full, he will be destroyed. If the shelter isn't full and your dog is good enough, and of a desirable enough breed he may get a stay of execution, but not for long . Dogs can become kennel protective after about a week and are destroyed for showing aggression. Even the sweetest dogs may turn in this environment. If your pet makes it over all of those hurdles, chances are he'll get kennel cough or an upper respiratory infection and will be destroyed because the shelter gets paid a fee to euthanize each animal and making money is better than spending it on an unlimited supply of unwanted animals arriving every day.

Euthanasia 101 -- for those of you who never witnessed a perfectly healthy, scared animal being "put-down". First, your pet will be taken from his kennel on a leash. They all think they are going for a walk and wag their tails. Until they get to "The Room." Every one of them freaks out and puts on the brakes when we get to the door --it must smell like death or they can feel the sad souls that linger-- it happens with every single animal. Your dog or cat will be restrained, held down by one or two shelter workers depending on the size and how freaked out he is. Then a euthanasia tech (not a vet) will try to find a vein in the front leg and inject a lethal dose of the "pink stuff." In the likely event that your pet panics and jerks, the needle will tear the vein and we will all be spattered with blood; there will much yelping, thrashing, and probably several attempts at injecting the vein or the heart directly. It can take a long time. When the poison is finally working, they don't just "go to sleep," often they spasm for a while, gasp for air, and defecate. This is all so brutal and cruel because we don’t tranquilize the animal beforehand, but just inject the burning lethal drug in the vein and let them suffer until dead. To do this procedure correctly would cost more money so we do not follow what is right for the animal, but what is more economical, ensuring that shelter employees and the board of directors get their checks.

Then it all ends, your pet's corpse will be stacked like firewood in a large freezer in the back with all of the other animals that were killed. What happens next? Cremated? Taken to the dump? Rendered into pet food? Or used for the schools to dissect and experiment on? You'll never know and probably don't want to know. It was just an animal and it became inconvenient.

Between nine and 11 MILLION animals die every year in US shelters alone. I deal with it every day. I hate my job and the fact that it will always be there. I just hope I changed one person's mind about taking their dog to a shelter, a humane society, or buying a dog. For those of you who care -- please repost this in another city/state. Let's see if we can get this all around the US and have an impact