Pet Food Stamps

[IrishAyes]

I hope it's okay to post my request in this forum, because it has as much to do really with human beings as pets.

PetFoodStamps is a nonprofit seeking to outlaw FORprofit High Kill Shelters, and they have a petition going on the WH website:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/outlaw-profit-high-kill-animal-shelters/w3hS2CpH

Only 3 days remain to gather over 95K MORE signatures for this to qualify for WH consideration. So please everyone, urge every contact you have to get out the vote!

These are the folks who send free dog food to pet owners who otherwise cannot support their pets. Even if the petition does not succeed, I cannot think of a better place to donate some of your extra dough. You know those folks in Oklahoma are going to need help feeding their pets, and they need those pets even more now that many have lost everything else. So it's a two-fer.

[magical thyme]

1. how is this lining veterinarian's pockets, as they claim in their petition?

Every bad euthanasia I've ever read about (whether inhumane or oops -- killed the wrong dog before owner could arrive) has been committed by shelter workers, not veterinarians.

I would be happy to have euthanasia for healthy, adoptable pets banned. I just don't understand the claim that high-kill shelters are somehow profitable for veterinarians.

[IrishAyes]

2. In at least some places I know of

The clinic is reimbursed by the state for those services, sometimes at a profit, so naturally some vets would needle or gas with abandon. Not being sufficiently versed in this, I'm not the person to give you the best answer. But maybe someone more knowledgeable will reply. Or you can ask PFS themselves.

Sadly, not every vet is like the angel we have where I retired in RedNeckLand. He alone is worth half the town in my view. When my 16-yr-old Chows finally had to be put down, I had no vehicle to take them to his office so he came to my home for no extra charge and did what was necessary, then helped lower them into the 8' deep grave in the backyard that a neighbor with a backhoe had already prepared. It almost killed me, but I believe it would have if I couldn't have laid them to rest here at home.

[magical thyme]

3. in which case the vet is providing a service, not deciding who to kill.

And at least if a vet is doing it, it won't be gassing or heartstick.

Again, I am against euthanasia of healthy, adoptable pets, but at high kill shelters they kill regardless of health and temperament and, unless an animal is seriously ill or injured, the killing is based on how long they've been there, not whether they're adoptable given sufficient time.

I read the petition and I was not comfortable with how it is written. Even high kill shelters are not run with the intention of providing profit to veterinarians, and to suggest so is disingenuous. It's not a surprise to me there are so few signatures, with so little time left to get to 100,000.

They would have done far better to have simply tried to outlaw kill shelters, but that won't happen. There are some animals that are so ill or injured that euthanasia really is that.

[undeterred]

4. Signed.

[IrishAyes]

5. Bless you.