Death by carbon monoxide gassing is more humane? Isn’t it still death? See, that’s the bit that gets me - it’s not the fall but the sudden stop at the end.
I had a python for six years, so I’m a bit biased on this one. Of course I had that gut “oh no, not a puppy!” reaction, but then reality set in and I realized, hey, a puppy’s just a rat with cuter features. I fed my python three large rats every two months for six years–should I be charged and arrested?
Granted, this woman’s job was to care for the animals–but let’s not pretend that her final act of “caring” wasn’t going to consist of throwing them into a 4’ x 4’ gas chamber where they would die a slow and excruciating death. Snakes, on the other hand, are generally very efficient killers. It would have struck quickly, seizing the pup with its fangs and then whip-wrapped its coils around the body. Between crushing the midsection and preventing further breathing, the prey is killed fairly quickly and then consumed in toto. I can say from experience that, while it can be a bit disturbing, a snake striking and eating can also be absolutely facinating, so I’m not going to blast those who stood by and watched.
One article I read on this went on and on about the puppies being “eaten alive”, which is pure bullshit and very irresponsible journalism. Those animals were dead within four or five minutes of meeting that snake, and–in my book at least–they died a much more natural and purposeful death than they would have otherwise.
bella
Yes. Carbon monoxide poisining isn’t exactly mustard gas, you know. It’s likened to falling asleep, not (per belladonna “a slow and excruciating death.” That’s why so many suicides happen by running car engines in closed garages.
Dead is dead, but the manner of death matters when the agency is supposed to be doing it humanely.
“We’d all be outraged if the animal control worker fed a baby chimp to the snake.”
—Well, if the chimp was on roller skates and trying to outrun the snake, I’d be highly entertained . . .
I agree with minty regarding the manner of death. However, I still disagree with the attitude, which I perceive in the article and the OP, that the crime was particularly heinous because it was puppies (awww!). Yes, it was a betrayal of the trust placed in an animal care worker. Yes, they should be fired. But NOT because feeding puppies to a snake is any worse than feeding it rats.
Large mistake in the “but puppies are really not any better then rats crowd” posts. Those puppies were not ever given the chance for adoption. Those puppies were placed in her care to be placed for adoption, not as snake snack food. Putting down the animals in her care is the last option on the list, not the convient solution to 2 problems.
Puppies are much easier to adopt out then nearly anything else in a pound (that cuteness goes a long way- its the older dogs that are the hard ones). Given a chance, many of the puppies could have found homes. They never were even given the chance, just so that these sick fucks could get there jollies off watching the snake eat them. Come on people. A much better case could be made for just putting the snake to sleep and saving the puppies (one animal in your care vs. 10- simple math). This had nothing to do with efficiency or relative merits of one death over another. These puppies were not scheduled for death as unadoptable, they were just born for christ’s sake.
Further, dying of predation, being biten and crushed to death as being equal to passing out and dying in your sleep- spare me. If you dig your snake fine, but don’t throw logic out the window for it. “slow and excruciating death” is much more likely what your snake is doing- not the CO2. Bella I respect you, but IMHO you are way off base on this one.
What this person did was wrong, very wrong.
I’m baffled.
If you don’t object to feeding rats to snakes (i.e., the means of death isn’t the problem), and if you don’t object to gassing puppies (i.e., the death of puppies isn’t a problem), why do you object to feeding puppies to snakes?
While you’re at it, those puppies were probably going to be fed dog food made from cows and pigs. Those cows and pigs would have a lot worse death than the puppies got; is that a problem?
FTR, immature animals take a lot longer to die from CO poisoning than mature animals; for this reason, the Humane Society of the United States does NOT consider CO gas to be a humane method of euthanasia for puppies and kittens.
Daniel
OK, I’ve never posted this before, but Eve, that was so damn funny I spewed coffee on my monitor. No wonder I adore you.
Sorry, minty–but being gassed with CO is not like falling asleep. I work in a lab, and while I don’t want to go into it too much, I can say from first hand experience that animals being gassed don’t just lay down with their little paws beneath their heads and drift off to dreamy land. They gasp, they scrabble, they fight each other trying to force their way out of the box. Sometimes after five minutes or longer, you still have animals convulsing and trying desperately to breath. It isn’t pleasant, and I can’t imagine that being slowly suffocated isn’t painful.
Suicide by car fumes is a bit of a different situation I’d imagine, because the CO is diluted by the relatively large amount of “fresh” air. The person then would pass out rather peacefully and then die in their sleep. Much different than having concentrated amounts of CO forced into a small area filled with other breathing creatures, IMO.
I get that people are upset about this. I also think it was wrong for this woman to do this to puppies that might have found homes. But the fact is that it happens millions of times every year across the country, and it is simply the mechanism of death that differs.
Oh – and Elf6C, far more than 10% of the animals that come into your average full-access humane society are juveniles. Literally millions of puppies are euthanized in the US every year because there’s no home for them. If the shelter is only adopting out 10% of the animals they take in, that means they’re euthanizing plenty of puppies already.
Daniel
Hmmm…okay, I’ve changed my mind, and now I agree with bella. Anyone else want to have a go at converting me? I’m feeling particularly flexible today. 
elf6c, I pretty much agree with the first two paragraphs of your last post. My only point of contention is that it would have been wrong for the workers to feed any animal under her care to the snake. It doesn’t make it worse because it was cute little puppies.
I’ve heard in certain parts of the US, animals are routinely subjected to inhumane treatment, in some cases tortured, then gathered into a pen and killed with a pneumatic rod thrust though their skulls.
But we’re not talking about beef, pork, or poultry (a.k.a. cows, pigs, and chickens). We’re talking about cute, fuzzy puppies. That were slated to be gassed and either incinerated or disposed of in a landfill. Heaven forbid the snake eats, too.
The hypocrisy in this thread is so thick, I can cut it with a steak knife.
People seem to be more horrified because IT WAS A SNAKE!!! than because a public service worker violated protocol and public trust.
See, now, this is the sort of thing that really gets to me. Just because you have been spoon-fed the notion that snakes are evil and icky does not mean they don’t have to eat. It doesn’t mean we should start destroying all the snakes so we can make room for all the cute widdle puppies. Who, as has been stated numerous times before, are more than likely going to be gassed anyway. Sorry to break it to you folks, but a ‘weeks-old’ puppy confiscated by animal control has about a snowball’s chance in hell of being adopted. These puppies were obviously taken from an abusive, negligent, or criminal home, or were found on the road as strays or ferals, and seperated from their mother. This does not lead to a healthy pet-quality dog, at least, not the friendly, calm sort the majority of people want to adopt. Shelter people and animal control certainly know this, and these puppies were almost certainly doomed from the start.
The snake, on the other hand, could well be adoptable. And before you start, let me tell you that I personally have seen several large snakes adopted into loving homes. Just because you don’t like to think about a snake in your house doesn’t mean the rest of humanity feels the same way.
And I’ll second belladonna in saying that death by CO is not the pleasant way to go many people think it is. It produces symptoms similar to a severe case of the bends in scuba divers, causing violent muscle spasms alternating with periods of paralysis, gasping for breath, vomiting, and excruciating pain, not to mention the fact that these animals’ last moments on earth are spent in terror and agony. But this all okay, because at least they’re not being eaten by a snake. Which is, in case you’ve never been able to resist flipping the channel during that segment of ‘Wild Discovery’, a remarkably quick death.
And to all the people making that tired old “But dogs are higher on the evolutionary scale!” argument: Welcome to the 21st century! We have telephones without cords now! There is no such thing as a “ladder of evolution”, with microbes on the bottom rung and good old homo sapiens on the top, despite what your high school biology teachers and religious leaders may have desperately wanted you to believe. As it turns out, meat is meat, and we’re all made out of it. Even the cute widdle puppies. :rolleyes:
Just curious, but if the people who watched the snake eat the puppies are “sick fucks,” am I also a “sick fuck” for watching a lion take down a gazelle on the Nature channel?
Naw Miller, you’re a sick fuck for a whole slew of entirely different reasons.
Puh-fuckin’-leeeez. You know how a dog thinks? And a mouse? Cite? (Personal experience, I dare say?)
While you’re at it, why don’t you rank dogs, mice, you, and me on your “higher order of thinking” scale. No, no, I’m not worried at all, I know exactly where I fit in. I suspect that you, however, don’t.
After that, please list all mammals in order, highest to lowest, according to your “higher order of thinking” scale, then please indicate the line at which you think those above or below are either “food” or “not food”.
Are humans “food” or not? Please consult great white sharks, some bears, the occasional dingo, and report back to us.
Grow up. Nature is a Mother. Animals, “high thinking” and otherwise, are necessarily killed and eaten in vast quantities every day (by other animals, human and otherwise).
Yes, I find the idea of a puppy being strangled and swallowed highly unpleasant. For that exact same reason, my wife and I avoid many episodes of “Nature” on PBS, which we euphemistically call “The ‘Things Eating Other Things’ Show”. I don’t like to watch male lions or bears killing other lion & bear cubs (it happens), or any other predator hunting and killing their prey for whatever reason (hmmmmm… survival, maybe?). But it happens, and it must happen.
The snake needs to eat, or it will die. Kept in captivity, it has no choice but to eat what the human captors feed it. As long as the human captors are feeding it an appropriate diet (as defined by the snake, not your), then I think you need to accept the facts of life as they are. Puppies are food, just not to you.
belladonna after reading your post, I amend my posts to state that both ways to die quite possibly are sucky. Not sure if the method used by you and the pounds are the same, but that’s splitting hairs more then likely. Seems like we will have to agree to disagree on this issue. Thanks for your thoughtful posts, even if I do disagree with them.
DanielWithrow- thanks for the information, I guess the local pounds around here just have more luck. I would ask for a cite, except: (a) People who do that alot annoy me at times, (b) whatever percentage is correct still would be depressing, and (c) it doesn’t matter as these puppies were never given the chance for adoption in the first place.
Ferrous ya flip-flopper! Pick a side and stick with it. 
You said:
I agree with you. Even annoying little yappie lap dogs would be wrong, no matter how tempting.
She was put in a position of trust and care, and she horribly abused it. Hence the firing and pending charges.
Also, I have been impressed by the quality of the discourse on a sensitive issue like this. Even with all of you dead wrong folks .
The good part of this story is that it is bringing attention to the fact that a freaking boatload of animals are killed every year because there are just too many of them.
Spay and neuter your pets, people. And don’t get a dog in the first place unless you’re committed to taking care of it and raising it up to be a pet-quality companion. If you ever have to get rid of it (god forbid) you’ll be dooming it to death at an animal shelter if it’s a barking, jumping, bolting pain in the ass. Don’t kid yourselves about someone wanting your dog (or its puppies), because the market is flooded with cute animals desperate for homes.
No shit gobear. Eve’s post just embarassed me in front of some people that are actually working. Bitch.
I swear Eve, on a fairly regular basis, you put just a real humdinger out there.
Gotcha ya. Bwhhaahhhaahhaaa!
Only so many puppies are going to adopted in any given time period. The shelter in question has far more puppies than they have demand for puppies. Let’s say all the puppies that ended up as snake chow had been adopted. That means that five* other puppies would have ended up in the gas chamber. Either way, we have the same aggregate number of dead puppies. And at least deaths of the five puppies in question were put to some use, instead of ending up being shoveled into an incinerator.
*Or however many puppies got fed to the snake.