That damn near made me spill my coffee. I would be willing to bet that such a sign really wouldn’t make much of a difference. IMHO why not let the snake owners come in and pay a small fee for “feeders” from the animals slated to be gassed later that day. Mammal solidarity is all great and wonderful but I have a hard time crying foul over a 80%+ chance that any given critter will die in the shelter then getting picky about how. The worker has broken company policy and should be disciplined but its not like she upended the food chain.
Also of note: Almost any “predatory” creature is more intelligent or somehow better adapted to stalk and kill prey.
I respecfully submit that the general public is woefully ignorant of what goes on in an animal shelter. Anyone who “trusts” that the animals are destined for anything other than a sad death is stunningly ignorant. Yeah, it happens occasionally, but don’t count on it.
EVERY animal is “on the euthanasia list” in a shelter, some just beat the odds. Not the other way around.
It’s not like human prison where some are on death row and some are not. After a certain amount of time, and it’s much shorter than you may think, EVERY animal is euthanized, if only to make room for the next one.
(Yes, there are “no kill” shelters which are usually run by a private organization. These hardly make a dent in the overall population of domesticated animals who are currently without
Like everyone here I can only speculate about why the worked did this. But I do know some things from personal experience with animal adoption as my former fiancee was a voulinteer.
Exotic animals have a high rate or inquiry and adoption (meaning people call and ask deliberately “Do you have any snakes/Japanese Bobcats/etc up for adoption right now?” wheras dogs are much lower. Cats get adopted more here than dogs do (probably thats uniform through most urban or semi-urban areas.).
It costs a relatively large amount to euthenize an animal. Some places don’t do gassing, and even when they do some do specialize cremation which can be expensive.
Any money not spent to maintain or to dispose of an animal can be spent to feed animals which are more likely to get a home.
So you could reasonably conclude that feeding puppies unlikely to find a home to an animal which is highly likely to find one would save money on several fronts and in the end serve to allow more puppies to survive.
As for those who think it should have been rodents or chickens. A dead animal is a dead animal. Raise a calf to slaughter age and then moralize about what we feed to what. I eat meat, and I have raised cows. If i knew how to cook it and where to get it I’d eat dog if I like the taste, cat too. Animals are animals. Don’t ask me about cannibalism, I don’t think it’s a moral issue either.
P.S. You can raise a snake to eat thawed chicken or any other frozen dead animal. I had one Burmese that I got to eat canned dog food. I don’t know why people think you have to live feed them. It can be more healthy, and it IS more natural but it’s not all important. And whoever mentioned a snake eating a chimp, well you set a chimp next to a giant boa and see how the chimp reacts. That fear ain’t from a wild guess on the part of the chimp. Unlike humans, most animals don’t mourn or moralize food. If it tastes good put one on my plate, if not then you didn’t cook it right.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by partly_warmer *
The difference between dogs and, say mice, is that dogs have a higher order of thinking. We’d all be outraged if the animal control worker fed a baby chimp to the snake.
[quote]
Just as an aside I’ll note that people hunt and eat chimpanzees in Africa. To many it is just another game animal, no different than a deer.
But I agree here. It is to some extent cultural. Folks may relish chimpanzee in some parts of Africa ( and monkeys all over the world ), but as adventurous a palate as I have ( I’ve eaten insects and reptiles and wouldn’t hesitate to try dog ), I’d likely flinch at trying one myself. We all have our own peculiar biases.
The puppy incident doesn’t particularly horrify me, but it did show a lack of good judgement. If the puppies hadn’t been even offered up for adoption ( i.e. weren’t yet slated for euthanasia ), it shows particularly bad judgement ( and five weeks? that is very young to be separating puppies from a mother, six or older is the norm - I wonder what the circumstances here really were ).
I will note however, as another aside, that contrary to some comments, most commonly kept snakes ( including the commoner pythons like the Burmese ) can be trained to accept pre-killed food most of the time ( including thawed chickens, rabbits, et al ) and as someone mentioned it is indeed better for them - Less chance of injury. Especially as introducing a live prey item into a smallish enclosure sometimes induces a defensive strike rather than a prey strike ( depending on the animal ), which can prolong the whole ordeal. Not to mention it’s much more convenient for the person keeping the snake.
Many years ago I had upwards of a dozen snakes ( I don’t have any now, I grew tired of the hobby ) and none of them, best as I can recollect, were ever fed a live prey item with the exception of the first meal of a few hatchling corn snakes.
[Obligatory vegetarian argument summed up in one line to prevent a big flame war]
Doesn’t anyone else think that lambs are cute? Or that pigs are brighter than dogs?
[/Ovasuioltpabfw}
Wow, its a bullshit state fair. Ratty did you bother reading the well thought out posts of others before you started making up your “facts” and absurd assumptions about me and anyone else who doesn’t support whatever blather you spewed about the thread.
You posted so much moronic bile, that I can only hit the highlights.
When asked to point out where people said things you attributed to them in your last post- you didn’t. Why- because you made them up. That’s what small stupid people do when their not smart enough to make a cogent argument. See Belladonna et al for a well reasoned post arguing for the other side. We didn’t agree on everything, but I was able to respect her opinion.
So, even after being pointed out as a dim-witted weasel who randomly makes up facts and opinions of others in the vague hope of not sounding like a idiot, you do it again.
Bullshit- where did I say that? Putting quotes into other people mouths around here will lead to a very short stay.
Cite? None- because you made that up too. Also an unfounded assumption and a bout of circular logic all in pathetic little rant. Wow that some skill. So who turned on the computer for you? Lets get to the lying again.
Fuck you I dont. Asshole, show me where I said that. Can’t. Why because you are putting words in my mouth that I never said, and never would have said . If you you are going to be a troll who violates the basic rules here don’t get too comfortable. I won’t dignify this with more than a piss off you lying sack of shit.
Again- where? Keep looking asscarpet, as these are more inventions of your feeble mind.
Look chumpsly- basic rules- don’t be a jerk, don’t attribute quotes to people they didn’t make. You violated both. Everyone else in this thread managed to comport themselves like adults, except for you. :smack:
Sorry for this slight hijack, but I don’t feel like starting a new thread for this question.
While I’m definitely not an animal rights fanatic, I do believe that unnecessary suffering should be eliminated when possible. There were some comments on page 1 about how gassing animals with CO is cruel due to the high concentrations used. Is that true?
I’m just having a problem imaging that any given shelter on any given day has such a huge number of animals to euthanize that they couldn’t use an appropriate CO / O2 mixture to cause a more or less painless death. Sure it would take a bit longer and the animals may get nauseous and throw up, but that sounds preferable to having them feel the terror of suffocation.
Also, how expensive can it be to use lethal injection. It’s not like they need a sterile needle for each animal. I would think that the appropriate chemical(s) wouldn’t be that expensive when bought in bulk.
You’re damn straight we’re a “shelter.” If we weren’t around, those 9,500 animals (count 'em, almost 30 animals every single day of the year) that we take in wouldn’t be sitting in cozy little dogie beds right now. They wouldn’t be luxuriating in a ritzy “no-kill” shelter.
No. They’d be wandering the streets and woods of Appalachia. They’d be getting in fights wtih raccoons, and losing. They’d be spreading the rabies that is already a big danger in our county. They’d be getting hit by cars and dying of internal hemorrhaging. They’d be eating people’s pet cats.
Or else they’d be drowned by their owners, put in sacks filled with rocks and thrown in rivers. They’d be shot in the back yard. They’d be clubbed to death.
You think we live in a world in which shelters are “lying”? What the hell is wrong with you?
Yes, shelters kill animals. Yes, we kill millions of them. If the damn fools out there who didn’t spay and neuter their pets would do so, then we wouldn’t have to kill so many animals.
Or maybe you’re willing to take in your fair share of the animals born in the US every year. You’ll get more and more animals every year, but eventually your household will even out. You’ll have, if I remember the stats, 2 dogs and 6 cats by the time the population settles down. Every single man, woman, and child in the US will have 2 dogs and 6 cats. Got a spouse and a kid? 6 dogs, 18 cats in your house.
And “no-kill” shelters? Give me a break. They’re “no-kill” in the same way that Target is a no-kill store: they don’t kill animals themselves, but they don’t do anything about the animal overpopulation problem, either. THey have a limited number of spaces in them – 50 kennels is a big no-kill shelter. And when they’re full, they turn animals away. And where do you think animals end up when they’re turned away from the no-kill shelter?
That’s right. If they’re lucky, they end up at a full-access shelter like ours. If they’re unlucky, their owner drops them off on the roadside, so that they can die a slow death from starvation, exposure to the elements, or attack by a wild animal.
No, we’re not lying. We tell people exactly what goes on at the shelter, and we tell them who’s to blame. We work our asses off to make sure that everyone can afford to have their animals spayed or neutered, to make sure that everyone knows why they should do so. We work with the “limited-access” shelters (a much more accurate name that “no-kill”) so that they can help the small number of animals that they do help – every little bit counts.
But when an animal has nowhere else to go – when its only alternatives are gruesome suffering – we’re available. And if we can’t find a home for the animal, despite our best efforts, we try to give it a painless, caring death. If you’ve got a better idea on what we can do, I’m all ears.
I guess my husband and I are doing our part. We’ve almost reached quota (not that we intended to. It just happened.)
And just as an FYI, I feed my python (also a rescue) a product called Mice on Ice. No, I’m not making this up. It has a picture of a cute little mouse with a scarf and hat, ice skating
“No kill” animal shelters should be more aptly named “displaced kill”. Someone else (“kill” animal shelters) do the hard, shitty, heartbreaking work while “no kill” shelters have the luxury of picking the cute animals and keeping them until they’re adopted. In more than one instance, I’ve seen valuable kennel space taken up by unadoptable animals, just because the staff has grown to love them. Not that this should be an argument between “kill” an “no kill”. I just believe “kill” shelters are more noble places, as they’re the ones doing the most to end animal suffering.
Oh, and Jim, I think you are way off base with the death camp analogy. Yeah, only maybe 10% of the animals that go in to a “kill” animal shelter come out alive. The difference here is that death is much preferable to the other outcomes that unwanted domesticated animals face (see Daniel’s post, above).
(The board has been giving me trouble today. I may have forgotten some parts of the article while waiting for page 2 of the thread and the new post screen to load)
1-How did the shelter get the puppies?
Found on the street? Dropped off by owner of mother? etc
I we don't know how they obtained the puppies we cannot state that the worker was violating the trust of the previous owner.
2-What was the puppies's status?
Did they have a month or so before they were due to be euthanized? Were they due to be euthanized in 5 minutes? Did they possess some terminal condition which would have killed them soon anyway(but which was not communicable to the snake)?
A worker was taking the puppies to the CO chamber for their scheduled deaths and suddenly getting an idea while passing a large snake is quite different from a worker grabbing healthy puppies who were just dropped off.
3-Will this particular snake eat dead food?
Yes, some snakes will. Some won't. The article gives no information on the subject. Had they tried giving the snake chicken and failed?
4-What was the snake's status?
How long did the snake have before being euthanized? How had the shelter obtained the snake?
5- The article says other workers "witnessed" the event. What precisely did they mean?
Were the other workers sitting in a circle, elbowing eachother for a better view, and making bets on which puppy would lats the longest? Or did they witness the worker feeding the snake in the sense that they were nearby and could detect what was happening? The other workers could simply have been feeding or attending to other animals closeby, notice their coworker feeding puppies to a large snake, shrug and continue with their duties.
RE-Shelters In General
I reccomend Pure Silver by AC Crispin and Kathleen O’Malley. The protagonist is a woman who works for animal control. It’s a werewolf story. But the descriptions of the shelter and it workers is exactly what several Dopers have seen first-hand and posted here.
No offense, Doc, but I believe questions 1-4 are all irrelevant. 1] There is no trust that is created between whoever drops off the animals initially. Anyone who believes that every single puppy they drop off will go to a loving home is delusional. These are the same folks who drop off their unwanted pets in the middle of the country, with the intent of them living on a farm for the rest of their days. Ain’t gonna happen. 2] See 1. Most animals going into a shelter are going to die. If they do not, they will displace another animal from a good home. That displaced animal will die in it’s place. These puppies’ death did nothing to affect the limited supply of good homes. 3] Even dead stuff was once alive. Just because the worker wouldn’t have to watch the snake kill the chicken, frozen rat, etc. doesn’t mean that it died any better a death than the puppies. 4] The snake was sent to a refuge. Where it is happily eating things that are now or were at one point alive, as it should.
Yeah, but they do have a right to expect that the shelter will make a good faith effort to have the animal adopted before killing it. That’s the implied contract, that the animal at least have a chance. Not that it will immediately be used for snake food.
I’m a dog-lover and a snake-o-phobe (is that “herpetophobe”?), but we all need to take a cold, hard look here.
The “previous owner’s trust” has nothing to do with this. If in fact the puppies had a previous owner, that person gave up all input when they gave the puppies to the shelter. And if they didn’t want to have puppy-blood on their hands, they should have spayed/neutered their pets, like any responsible pet owner.
Puppies are no better and no worse than rats. Just cuter.
C’mon, don’t you people remember The Lion King? This is the dark side of the Great Circle of Life: Everything dies. Most things die painfully.
In 150 years, every single animal–including humans–now on the planet will be dead, with very few exceptions (sturgeon, some turtles, probably some others I can’t think of right now). Most will die painfully, being eaten by something else. This happens all day, every day. Kill the puppy, feed the snake. Give the puppy dog food, kill whatever animal goes into dog food. For one thing to eat, a lot of things have to die.
Sucks. But there it is. You can feel queasy about it until the cows come home, but you can’t change it.
This is where we disagree. Although some workers may try to make you feel better when you dump animals at the shelter, they are blowing smoke up your ass. I’ve actually seen workers go the other way, and I commend them for it. Actual conversation with animal dumper:
Animal dumper: “Here’s my six year old dog. We love him, but have to move. You’ll find him a good home, right?”
Animal worker: “He’ll be killed, most likely. Surrendered animals usually go down first. Six YO dogs probably won’t be adopted out. People want puppies. He’ll spend three days in that cage, then I’ll take him to that back room and give him a kill shot. We’ll incinerate his carcuss in that big machine back there.”
AD: “That’s horrible! But I love this dog!”
AW: “I know. It is terrible.”
AD: <<<Starts crying, but still leaves dog.>>>
The only point I can make in this thread is that if you’re giving a dog to the animal shelter, it’ll probably be killed. If you believe they have a chance, you probably also believe you’ll win the lottery. It’s possible, but not likely.
elf6c–I don’t mind agreeing to disagree one bit. I think, minor details aside, everyone here agrees that our unwanted animal problem is a grave one, which doesn’t receive nearly enough attention.
Also, I hope that every single person reading this thread remembers it when it comes time to add a new animal to their family. There’s plenty of good pets out there just waiting to be saved. Preaching to the choir, I know, but it can’t be said too often, IMO.
DanielWithrow, you seem to not only agree with but validate my statements: the purpose of most “shelters” is, indeed, to euthanize the majority of animals that come in. Do you want to do this? I suspect no. Do you enjoy doing this? I suspect motherloving hell no.
My “death camp” comment was meant to shock the naive into a different perspective on what actually happens in a shelter. The difference between you and the Nazi death camp operators is your motive and means: I fully believe your motive is benevolent and means are as humane as possible (while I believe theirs were anything but).
I apologize to you. I chose words that were too inflammatory for their purpose. For the record: I do not equate “those who work at or operate animal shelters” with “death camp operators”.
You have 9,500 animals sitting in cozy little beds??? God bless you.
I know, I know, which is exactly why shelters perform euthanasia. Gassing, or feeding to snakes, ranks well above everything you just mentioned (in my opinion). There is no elegant solution to this problem (yes there is - SPAY/NEUTER), only various unpleasant options.
I don’t think shelters are lying, I think the general public is naive about what really goes on inside them. Some people (you know who you are) seem to think that all adoptable animals are kept until they are actually adopted. That is simply not true, and there is nothing the hell wrong with me for saying so.
We are clearly of the same mind, DanielWithrow.
Don’t you dare. The four cats and two iguanas who are currently my pets are all, ALL (motherloving hell), rescues. I box-trap stray cats on my street in Queens, NY, pay for them out of my own pocket to be spayed/neutered, get their shots/wormed/flea bath at a local vet (I get a volume discount now), I’ve kept 4 and adopted out 3 others (cats, I wouldn’t trust anyone else to care for my igs, whom I got half-dead from an idiot. I’ve spent close to $2000 at the Animal Medical Center (Dr. James Morrissey) on their care (one needed spayed, egg-bound) so far (7 years)) . I contribute $$$ to www.citycritters.org and worked part-time for a vet who also donated his services. Don’t you dare try to be holier-than-me. I love animals, dearly, care for them preciously, and “save” as many as my meager resources and floor space will allow. Am I a saint, or the solution to the problem? Hardly. Am I holier-than-you? I doubt it, but I do my best with what I have. You and I are on the same side, DanielWithrow, I regret you misunderstood my earlier post.
You really, really, drastically misinterpreted my post. I know exactly what goes on in a shelter, I and bless you for it because I don’t think I’d be strong enough to work in one myself. A significant percentage of people, however, are apparently under the misconception that “shelters” consist of “9,500 animals sitting in cozy little beds” who would all eventually be adopted if it weren’t for that one nasty worker who dared feed one to a snake.
Now quit shootin’ up with Buthanol and try to compose yourself. (Requisite insult in response to your “motherloving hell”-type comments.)
I think, minor details aside, everyone here agrees that our unwanted animal problem is a grave one, which doesn’t receive nearly enough attention.