Animal stories always stir powerful emotions, we know that. Michael Vick's pitbulls; the largest fighting dog bust in Missouri where over 400 damaged animals were confiscated; New Orleans dogs chained to porches as they were sinking; people being told by rescuers in the flood zone to leave their small dogs by the roadside and just 'get on the bus'; puppies burned by teenagers; the cat with a bullet lodged above an eye; kittens with firecrackers stuck in their anus; puppy mill busts and on and on.
A recent news item about a man who 'rescued' 36 cats from his local animal shelter just before they were to be euthanised created a mini firestorm of response from supporters and detractors after the story was re-posted on Facebook. What some including the man himself consider 'rescue', others including the Sheriffs Department which happens to run that particular animal shelter consider 'theft' and he is now being prosecuted. I have strong feelings about this. I met a man once, Ronnie Lee, a slight soft spoken man with large glasses who served two jail sentences in Britain, totaling 18 months - for liberating 125 mice from a research lab. But it isn't the mice that had any value to the authorities. It's the vulnerability of the lab, the scaling of the wall, the 'breaking and entering' that had to be punished. Right?
How does one steal something that had no 'value' to the owner and was due to be killed and stuck in a barrel to be dumped into the back of a truck to go to a rendering firm, or which might have been cremated in a large oven in the back of the shelter. Animal shelters are one of the last places you can see and smell the stench of death in such a visceral way. I have photographs, though I won't post them, of a pile of dogs bodies - collies, shepherds, Aussie mixes - with blood and piss seeping from their bodies while the oven waits silently in the background and another dog is walked to the euthanasia table past his former kennel mates. Euthanasia can be the most humane, the most gentle act. The most generous act we commit on the souls of our animal companions. Animal shelter euthanasia ranges from the most humane to the most grotesque. Different cities and different states have wildly differing policies. Urban shelters and rural shelters function differently. Shelters run by law enforcement operate differently from those run by civilians.
And in every case - we have communities - us, we, you and me - who want someone else to clean up our mess. The mess of pet overpopulation. Like the paper bags filled with kittens left on the front counter at the local animal shelter, like the dog tied outside the shelter at night because the night drop boxes are already filled. Like the person unknown who placed two chickens in a cage and left them on the side of San Pablo Avenue, or the family who pulled up quickly at the entrance to the Albany Bulb and threw the Easter Bunny into the bushes and drove away, mission completed.
But even allowing for the fact that we don't seem to be able to end the breeding of unwanted animals - that doesn't let the animal shelters, the police departments, the city managements, the politicians, the supervisors and the animal control officers off the hook.
But where is the convergence point? Where is the place we reach a consensus about how to deal with this problem. Because it isn't that all animal control is 'bad'. It isn't that everybody who surrenders an animal to a shelter is 'irresponsible', animals rescuers can range from the most rational to the most troubled, animal control officers can be sadists in a pale green uniform wishing they had made it into the police academy, or tender souls who wade into sewage mud to save a puppy stranded and sinking. They might even be the same person - on different days.
For me, the issue really does come down to the structural - the way in which agencies empowered by us, do the job they are charged with. And for me that comes down very firmly to whether we ask law enforcement or civilian management to handle the issue of pet overpopulation.
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