The Pound, aka Animal Death Camp
also see: What! Dogs and Cats in pet food?

There was an article on the Dept. of Animal Care and Control entitled "DEPT. OF CARE AND COMPASSION, " which appeared in my local newspaper (The Antelope Valley Press) on Oct. 8th, 1995. This was my response to their idea of a "compassionate" system.

No one doubts the tireless efforts of shelter workers or the complexity of the problem, however, using the word "compassion" to describe the reality of the situation is definitely pushing the truth of the animal's lives and deaths at these county concentration/death camps. I believe shelter workers do care about animals and in their heart of hearts they realize the killing is morally wrong. Therefore, the animals and shelter workers are caught up in a system that is in emergent need of true "compassionate" change.

Approximately 27 million animals are handled by animal shelters in the United States each year. Of them, about 10 million are reclaimed or adopted, leaving 17 million dogs and cats to be killed and tossed into trash cans where they wait to be cremated or picked up for commercial uses. In some cases rendering companies get the bodies and sell the dead animals to corporations who use them in everything from cosmetics to even pet foods. In 1990, 40% or 5.2 million animals were sent to rendering factories. "When you read pet-food labels and it says meat or bone meal, that's what it is - cooked and converted animals, including some dogs and cats," says Eileen Layne, of the California Veterinary Medical Association.

All animals killed at the local animal shelter are cremated, according to a county official. Although, the Lancaster shelter has been under investigation for animal abuse and neglect in the past. While doing research for this article, I came across a photo that appeared in the Animals' Voice Magazine. This photo shows a live dog lying on top of several dead dogs that had recently been killed at the shelter. This dog was soon to join the stockpile beneath her and from the expression on her face, she knew it.

Man's best friend has become man's biggest victim. The salient question is not whether "euthanasia" is presently necessary, but what can be done to hasten the day when we end the killing of millions upon millions of our closest companions. And that question will never be answered by avoiding our own responsibility.

We need to get away from the phrase "put to sleep" and the word "euthanised" when describing the "killing" of animals because it desensitizes and hides the truth. We need to face up to what happens to these animals if we are ever to fully accept the responsibility of finding an alternative solution to their early and unjust demise. Too many people accept that because this is the way it is, that there is not a better solution or something they can do personally to help alleviate the suffering. We hide our eyes and pretend that it is not happening. It may be out of sight and even out of mind for most people, but it is not out of the minds and lives of our companion animal friends. If you do not believe me, go spend an hour visiting them - and make sure your eyes meets theirs. I recently visited the local animal shelter, and in my view "shelter" is about all you can say for it. In the eyes of the animals I am sure that it is prison. Paws reaching out from the metal cages and pathetic cries of desperation for some loving human to liberate them from the cages of doom.

Of course spaying/neutering come to mind when thinking of ways to keep our animal friends from getting a lethal dose of sodium pentobarbital injected into their bloodstream and spaying/neutering is still the best preventative measure. For the living, we must look for other solutions such as the many "No Kill" shelters that provide more natural and humane living conditions. In cities like San Francisco and many others across the U.S., all adoptable and healthy animals are no longer killed in county shelters. This is proof that when enough people care and speak up, the system can and will be changed. We must no longer accept "killing" as an option to pet overpopulation. We need to understand that breeding equals overpopulation; overpopulation equals killing; killing equals moral complicity among those who continue to breed (reinforcing the concept of individual responsibility for perpetuating the unconscionable slaughter) - and the remedy is to stop breeding animals, stop buying animals who have been bred for profit, adopt animals from nonprofit shelters, and tell your family, friends, neighbors, and professional colleagues to do the same.

People genuinely want to be close to nature and animals - and we need to be - but we can't because we have been destroying them for our own benefit for far too long. We have insulated ourselves from the pain of that exploitation by building a culture of human supremacy and dominionism. As throne-sitters, we are alienated, disconnected - warped - in our relations with animals and nature. Our obsession with pet-keeping, then, is a mixed bag. It is at once a sign of our deep-seated psychic and emotional needs for animals/nature and of the degree to which the needs have been twisted, mutated, rather than met.

In keeping pets, we get both to love nature and to control nature; we want/need to love nature, but our culture directs us to control nature. We have taken the nature out of nature and with that, the responsibility for the mass execution of animals in county shelters is a responsibility shared by us all and not just the person holding the needle.