It’s not that PETA doesn’t care, it’s that they believe pets are better off dead than being enslaved as pets. So why the hell WOULD they adopt them out? The seem to adopt a token amount out, probably for PR purproses, but PETA’s entire stance on pets is that they’d be better off never having existed in the first place.
I don’t get how you get from point A to point B, drewtwo99.
I also agree that it would have been better for them if we didn’t domesticate cats and dogs. It’s hard to quantify, but I think the amount of suffering unwanted and abused pets have endured has outweighed the benefits of domesticating them.
That doesn’t mean that I support killing adoptable pets. Where do you get that PETA wants that either?
All over their website I see advice for taking care of your pets.
(By the way, I am talking about the official organization, not just one or two employees or supporters.)
If we haven’t domesticated them, we wouldn’t have dogs or cats.
Read the articles presented (including the one in the OP and the one from The Atlantic). Most shelters, even “will kill” shelters, would do everything they can to have better adoption rates and kill less animals. The articles publish documents demonstrating a really low adoption rate, even when compared to “kill shelters”. If their goal is to eventually get rid of pet ownership and pets altogether, fine, let them say so. But they’re hiding behind a facade, and do a lousy job at placing adoptable pets in good homes.
This is totally wrong. The previous link starts:
IOW, the PETA nutters HAVE PETS. They wish the institution had never been started, but they don’t think current pets would be better off dead. That’s just something you made up (or got from Mr. CCR). And given their operation, dollars to donuts the miniscule number they adopt out are adopted internally by staff members.
Yes, obviously. That is my point and PETA’s point.
It is unfortunate that we have these animals, millions of whom are suffering and homeless.
But now that they have been domesticated, it is up to us to do the best we can to make sure they are treated humanely.
I checked out the links. I said in another post (not that I expect you to check all of my posts, I’m just pointing it out) that I do think if they are to call themselves a shelter, they need to have an adoption floor. What they are doing is extremely strange.
However, it can also be argued that they are taking in mostly animals that are old, infirm, et cetera. Sometimes death is a more kind fate for those animals. Even if you could find someone to adopt a 20 year old pug with tons of health problems, is that right? Or is it better to just let those pets die so that other dogs can have a chance at being adopted? A dog surrendered to PETA and killed is a dog that is not taking up space in a no-kill shelter for 10 years or whatever.
Furthermore, does it really matter? With millions of animals being put down each year, I can’t see how I should be outraged about a few thousand that could have possibly been spared. It is not because I think pets live a terrible existence of slavery, but I just think this is a small issue that is distracting from the much larger problem of homeless pets.
I don’t see any of this as evidence that PETA wants to take everyone’s dogs and kill them to spare them a life of ‘slavery’. More that they might not go to heroic measures to spare the lives of unwanted dogs.
And what about all the millions of domesticated pets, companions, livestock, and working animals as well? Saying that domestication is unfortunate and shouldn’t have happened means that we have none of that either.
And make no mistake, without domestication of animals, human civilization would not have gotten beyond the hunter-gatherer stage of technology.
Oh, I meant the domestication of cats and dogs only.
I realize that the domestication of other animals was important to human progress. I am not sure what PETA’s position on that is, but it doesn’t really matter to this discussion.
[edit] I do admit, this is a position I just formed today, so I do need to research it more anyway. So if I’m mistaken and domesticating dogs and cats was really important to human development, I will concede that point gladly.
So basically you think that pets should not exist.
But cats and dogs did plenty of work too. Herding, hunting, sled-pulling, vermin control, guarding.
Companionship might not be classed as work, but it is undoubtedly important, in my view.
Great OP/username combo!
You do realize that dogs and cats were domesticated as working animals, right? “Pets” is a very recent invention.
Dogs were one of, if not the, most important domestications, in terms of human evolution.
I have no problem with euthanizing abandoned animals, if necessary. I hate the fact that it has to happen, but I recognize the need. In fact, I have argued against the policies of some organizations that (IMO) waste resources on extremely ill or completely unadoptable animals.
However, it sounds to me like PETA is committing fraud. Claiming to be a rescue shelter but with no adoption facilities or lying to people about what will happen to their animals once surrendered is just wrong. If you’re going to euthanize the animals, then say so.
For the record, I have no problem whatsoever with their other policies such as humanely euthanizing diseased feral cat colonies, litters of pups with parvo, or animals from shelters who use less humane methods.
Other than the Ahoskie goons who got fired (and I don’t remember being convinced even about them when I was following the trial), I’m not sure anyone at PETA has lied to anyone about what will happen to their animals once surrendered. Do you have clear evidence that they’ve done so?
Claiming to be a shelter but not having adoption facilities is a bit weird, I agree. I’m wondering if it’s more of a legal term: the “shelter” classification might be necessary for running an animal holding facility that doesn’t sell animals or rent space for boarding, for example. Without knowing why they chose that term, I’ll reserve judgment.
It doesn’t look like fraud to me, though, because it’s not like they’re advertising adoption services or anything.
That’s why I used the phrase “it sounds to me like”.
I don’t have evidence nor do I have enough interest to track any down. I based my opinion on the info provided.
Contained in those articles were several different people who said that PETA lied to them about what would happen to animals. If you tell me “we will take your dog and find it a home” and I give you my dog based on that statement, but then you walk inside and immediately put it down instead of even attempting to place it - that is fraud.
The “shelter” designation is a bit more iffy, but I believe that even the state is questioning their use of the term (again, based on the info provided here). It certainly is a meaningful term in common usage, and their usage completely contradicts that common meaning - which puts the burden on them to clarify their intent in order to avoid misleading their customers, aka defrauding them.
While I agree with you that there’s no coherent argument in favor of the position “domesticating animals should never have happened”, note that the fact that human societies in the past were crucially dependent on domesticated animals is not an argument in favor of maintaining domesticated animals now, especially in developed societies.
I disagree with PETA about the morality of keeping domesticated animals, but they make a valid point that just because it was necessary in the past doesn’t automatically make it okay now.
And I second everything LHoD said about the so-called “Center for Consumer Freedom”, which is an astroturf group fronting for a public relations firm whose clients include fast-food chains and industrial and pharmaceutical testing laboratories. These people are not criticizing PETA because they care about adoptable puppies being euthanized; they simply want to discredit everything about PETA as much as they can so that the public won’t listen when PETA accuses their clients of cruelty to animals.
Again, I happen to disagree with PETA’s extreme views on the morality of animal testing, and I oppose a lot of their positions and activities. But I resent being puppeteered into anti-PETA outrage at the instigation of a bunch of cynical shills running a front group for industry PR.
That’s logical only if you believe that keeping any pet is slavery, which is PETA’s position. It shows how radical they are.
If they don’t have any actual adoption facilities or adoption hours they are just plain fucking lying that they will try to adopt out the pet. They ain’t even trying at that point.
“Our goal is total animal liberation and the day when everyone believes that animals are not ours to eat, not ours to wear, not ours to experiment, and not ours for entertainment or any other exploitative purpose.” - Ingrid Newkirk YouTube video
“The bottom line is that people don’t have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats… If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind.” - Ingrid Newkirk, Animals magazine, 1 May 1993
“In the end, I think it would be lovely if we stopped this whole notion of pets altogether.” - Ingrid Newkirk, Newsday, 21 February 1988
I tracked the trial real-time when it was happening. PETA central did not appear to intend to send the message that they were going to find a home for the animals; rather, they were saying, “if you can’t house the animal or euthanize it humanely, give it to us.” Their goons may or may not have misrepresented the deal. Tellingly, there were no written contracts between the vets, shelters, etc. who surrendered the animals to PETA and the PETA goons themselves. When I first encountered that tidbit I was astounded: what idiot surrenders their animals without a written contract, and what idiot accepts the animal without a contract? Sample contracts for animal surrender are available free online with a thirty second google.
Precisely. I also resent being puppeteered into defending a group that I really find pretty loathsome overall, just because CCR insists on telling lies about them when the truth is bad enough.
THAT IS NOT PETA’S POSITION.
Again, the idea that they said they’d try to adopt out the pet is hearsay. During the trial no evidence of such a promise surfaced at all. At best, a couple of goons previously in PETA’s employ (fired once the news surfaced) misled some local yokels who were themselves, despite being vets and shelter managers, too stupid to get a signed surrender contract.
Look at that last quote: what does “in the end” mean? Yes, they want eventually to abolish the institution of pet ownership. However, I wasn’t calling that wrong. I was calling the statement “they believe pets are better off dead than being enslaved as pets” wrong, which it is.
In the end, I think it would be lovely if we stopped this whole notion of armies altogether. Surely you all agree that that’d be lovely, if we could end war. But if you interpret that as a call for the execution of all enlisted personnel, you’re a liar or an idiot.
“Thank you for doing the right thing for animals.” - PETA to a no-kill shelter in Shelby County, Kentucky, after they thought it announced that it would start killing animals again due to space issues.
From the cite:
There are excellent reason to support open-access shelters (rather than no-kill shelters). PETA’s support for such shelters does not apply the sort of wacky doggy-death cult that some folks are implying.