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Pamelyn's thoughts on her favorite cause - the suffering of animals:
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They're Neutered! |
| Who can understand a number that big? To appreciate the magnitude of the companion animal crisis, one must look into the eyes of the individual dogs and cats, waiting to be killed in the hallways of our shelters. I have seen them myself, with ropes around their necks, their legs literally shaking, they looked up to me as if to say "I just want to be loved. Please help me, don't want to die." They watch as the others who go before them are slapped on a stainless steel table, a needle filled with poison thrust into their beating hearts and then (sometimes while they are still breathing), dumped onto a cement floor like a cheap commodity, as if they were a pound of lead or a can of baked beans. |  |
Who is responsible? Why DO animals die? The responsibility for the mass execution of animals in our shelters each year is a responsibility shared by us all. It is the fault of one uniquely powerful, incredibly myopic and self-centered species, the human. Many of us treat animals like a cheap commodity and take them for granted. They are not accorded the intrinsic value that they deserve; the value that a caring, compassionate viewer may begin to understand if you look into the eyes of the animals just moments before their deaths. But their are three things that you can do to prevent these unneccesary deaths.
First,
we must all be aware that breeding equals killing. There is no
adequate justification for the purposeful or accidental breeding
of any owned companion animal no matter what the commercial value.
SPAY and NEUTER surgeries, taking the responsibility to stop
companion animals from giving birth to more and more kittens
and puppies is one very practical step in our efforts to stop
the killing. It's not only healthier for the individual animal,
but it will stop the killing of those in the shelters. Their
are low cost spay neuter facilities if a person can't afford
to pay the usual $80.00 it costs to spay or neuter a companion
animal. Also, most shelters (if they care anything about the
crisis) will spay and neuter the adopted dog or cat before they
are taken home by their new family. With the advent of "early
spay/neuter programs" a puppy or kitten can be neutered
starting as early as eight weeks of age.
Secondly, only go to an animal shelter to adopt your companion animal, NOT to a pet store or breeder. Behind the facade of the pet store window is hidden the gruesome puppy mill industry. Within these breeding farms, puppies endure extreme deprivation during their first weeks of life. At six to eight weeks of age, puppies are crammed two to a crate and shipped to any of the thousands of pet shops across the country. These puppies, jostled from truck to truck and finally to air cargo bays, may endure days in transit. The adult dogs who are used to produce the "cash-crop" of puppies are forced to spend their entire lives in cramped cages or pens. And because "profit" is the ultimate goal of the puppy mill owner, these poor breeding dogs are kept under the most inexpensive possible conditions that will keep them alive and producing. When the adult females are so worn out from giving birth to litter after litter, she is many times killed because she is no longer profitable to the puppy mill owner.
| Even AKC breeders who let you see their facilities are in fact putting a price on the heads of animals who look a certain way and have a certain blood line. But how can a person base a dog or cats worth by this criteria? That's what the Nazi's did in Germany. They too placed a high value on an individual only if they had blond hair and blue eyes and were of a "certain" blood line; the other individuals were "worthless." A dog or cat's value is NOT in what their AKC papers say. Each dog or cat is a unique individual. And those dogs and cats, puppies and kittens who are waiting at your local shelter to be rescued and given a chance at life, will be killed if people continue to frequent pet stores and breeders instead of rescuing a companion animal from your local shelter. |  |
Last (but certainly not least), the hope for the animals is to be found in a human culture which learns to feel beyond itself. We must learn empathy, we must learn to see into the eyes of an animal and feel that it's life has value. Nothing less will do.
these animals to live in double leg chains
all night and day except during performances and when they are
on public "display". Some "lucky" elephants
get to spend some time in a small electrified corral, but even
those elephants may spend 10 hours or more a day in double leg
chains. Aggressive male elephants may have their head and trunk
movements restrained with additional chains. Most of us would
be outraged to see a dog tethered in that manner. Yet a wild
elephant (or even one who is born into captivity), has an immense
instinctive need to roam, take mud baths and interact with their
own social community.
In nature, elephants sleep only four
hours a night and move great distances daily. The confinement
of circus animals is meant to prevent incidents of aggression.
But the frustration, boredom and loneliness of such confinement
is instead, a likely additive to the animals' motivation for
aggression. When I think about the effects of rampaging elephants'
(as has happened in cities world wide) I wonder why traveling
animal acts have been tolerated for as long as they have. A visit
behind the scenes of traveling circuses can be an eye-opener.
One sees tigers kept in cages equivalent to what an airline carrier
would be for domestic cats (where the tigers can't even turn
around let alone express their natural behaviors), hippos in
tiny containers with scarcely 6 inches of water, and bears with
muzzles around their mouths, while harnessed onto the backs of
horses. I've even watched keepers practicing such inappropria
te care techniques as purposely feeding
moldy bread to "aid digestion." I've heard trainers
describe the aberrant repetitive movements (such as pacing and
rocking) often seen in circus animals as a sign of contentment,
when in reality it's the symptoms of complete boredom and isolation
in a totally unnatural environment. Many keepers may truly care
for the animals, but they sorely lack zoological or behavioral
education or training. Then there are caretakers who don't really
care or, worse yet, go out of their way to abuse animals.