TOTALLY GEEKED!

My father worked as a hospice volunteer and would sometimes help dying patients record their life history. He formed a particularly close relationship with “Larry,” a curmudgeon of a man who outlived his 6 month hospice term several times over. My father really liked Larry, despite his cranky moods. But one piece of Larry’s life story got under my father’s skin. Larry often reminisced about his dog, who he had for many years and loved very much. When the dog got old, Larry took him out in a field on the farm where he lived and shot him. Larry was unsentimental about the event: the dog was old and shooting him was a mercy. In rural Colorado where we live, this way of dispatching old or ill or uncooperative dogs appears to be fairly common among farmers. Is it wrong for pet owners to kill their own animals?

I was reminded of Larry and his dog by a news story(link is external) published on Tuesday. The headline read, “Anderson County promises changes after case of blind dog Amara.” The Anderson County (South Carolina) Council is considering passing legislation that would make it illegal for owners to kill their pets. The Council was moved to act by the recent case of Amara, a boxer who was shot and left for dead, but was picked up by animal control—very swollen in the face and 20 pounds underweight. An X-ray showed that Amara had been shot in the head, leaving her blind but still very much alive.

The dog’s owner was investigated by the sheriff's office. He claimed that Amara had become increasingly aggressive after her puppies were born and that she bit his pregnant wife and that that was the last straw. He took her out to a wooded area, shot her, and left her body. No charges were filed against the owner because what he did was entirely within the law.

The Anderson County council believes that South Carolina law needs to change, to protect dogs like Amara.

Anti-cruelty laws vary from one state to another, but in general it is not considered “cruelty” to kill an animal, as long as the killing doesn’t cause “undue suffering.” For example, the animal cruelty statute in Washington state tells us that “a person is guilty of animal cruelty in the first degree when, except as authorized in law, he or she intentionally (a) inflicts substantial pain on, (b) causes physical injury to, or (c) kills an animal by a means causing undue suffering.”  A man accused of blowing up his daughter’s yellow Lab could not be accused of cruelty because, as the undersheriff explained, “the dog died instantaneously and didn’t suffer before it died.”  (Slaughterhouses and other industrial killing businesses fall outside this law, since they apparently don’t cause “undue suffering.”) “

What are some of the possible justifications for home killing?

1. Animals are property, and we have a right to do with them what we please. We have a right to kill our own animals as we see fit, as long as we kill them without unnecessary cruelty.

Conclusion: there is nothing wrong with what Amara’s owner did.

2. Animals are property, and we have a right to control the circumstances of their death and have a right to kill them, if they are suffering. We shouldn’t have to pay a veterinarian to do something which we can very well do ourselves. There is nothing inherently more “humane” about lethal injection than a quick gunshot to the head. Indeed, gunshot is listed(link is external) by the American Veterinary Medical Association as a humane method of euthanasia. (“A properly placed gunshot can cause immediate insensibility and a humane death.”) It is likely less stressful for the dog because their last moments are spent running around outside rather than in a veterinary clinic or animal control center.

Conclusion: There is nothing wrong with shooting a dog who is suffering and close to death, but Amara wasn’t suffering. If the owner was concerned about aggression, he should have called animal control (or an animal behaviorist).

And two possible counterarguments. (There are many other possibilities. These are just the two that come first to mind):

1. Animals may be legally classified as property (for now), but they are not things. The manner of their death matters. Although shooting may, under ideal circumstances (with a highly skilled shooter) be relatively painless, most pet owners are not going to have the shooting skill required to kill well. Amara’s owner, for example, didn’t seem to know what he was doing. Killing an animal well requires veterinary knowledge and skill and should be left to the professionals.

Conclusion. It should be illegal for pet owners to kill their own animals, because the chances are too high that home killings will be botched.

2. Animals may be legally classified as property (for now), but they are not things. Killing an animal is simply wrong.

Conclusion: It should be illegal for pet owners to kill their animals, or for them to hire veterinarians to do the killing for them (with possible exceptions made when an animal is experiencing unrelenting suffering that cannot be adequately addressed).

What do you think? Should it be legal to kill your own pet? Is it ethical?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-dogs-go-heaven/201603/should-it-be-legal-kill-your-own-pet