Not that long ago I was having a conversation with myself, as I tend to do, and it came down to the fact that I proclaimed I wouldn’t be paid to do something that was against my morals. While I don ‘t have the largest code of morals, one thing that instantly came to mind was killing animals in a shelter—I could never do that no matter how much I was paid. This lead to a number of questions, which never got answered because they never got asked because in the end, they really don’t matter.
My first question was as to who exactly did the killing in shelters—who was the one to actually pull the proverbial trigger. Was it a veterinarian? Did you have to be somehow certified? Or is it something any ham and egger could do?
This idea really intrigued me, but also made me quite angry. Why would someone, if able, work for minimum wage killing animals when they could go work in fast food or retail instead? It even seems like waiting tables would be a better option. The opposite of that would be if it were a trained professional, such as a vet or someone with some sort of certification. Imagine how that must come about. “Well, I was fired from my last practice because someone brought in a dog with fleas and I wanted to kill it…” “You’re hired!” If you’re a vet and you’re working somewhere making, say, fifty grand a year, does the shelter then try and outbid you and make you an offer of sixty grand a year? Do they try and get you to sell out, or do they just bid lower and try to offer you “perks”? “Now, I know this job won’t pay as much, but think of all the time you’ll save by not having to run tests and just killing for any and all reasons!”
Some shelters actually have a vet built into them, which helps them deal with sickness and altering. Why this somehow can turn into “Well, these animals all had fleas and it was easier to kill them than to treat them” when they have a vet specifically to do that kind of thing, I don’t know. But is that the same vet who pulls the trigger? If he does, how does he get that job? How does he deal with it, day in and day out? Where is that moral sense that you must have to get into medicine where you want to do more good than bad? Okay, maybe I’m being a bit too hard on vets. Maybe before I get on my “first do no harm” soapbox, I should consider whether or not the vets are the ones doing the killing. I believe 99% of the time (And I say that because I know there are still gas chambers) that the way they kill the animals is by lethal injection. You don’t need any training to do that. Hey, there are heroin addicts who drop out of school that can do that. It’s not like performing a life saving act for an animal—it’s something a junkie can do. (And a gas chamber is probably just pushing a button) So I doubt vets actually do this, but I’m really not certain.
The only certainty that I have is that I don’t care who does this. Whether you’re a recent high school graduate making eight dollars an hour or a certified veterinarian making fifty grand a year, you need to have a moral conscience. And if everyone would just stand up and say, “I’m not killing this animal for no reason” then we would be a no kill nation. No matter what you paid me, I wouldn’t do that job. Not for any amount of money in the world. Why doesn’t everyone feel that way?
On a side note: In movies it says “No animals were harmed in the making of this film”. Yes, I could tell that Jack Black did not punt a real dog in Anchorman, but who are the people that regulate such things? Why don’t they go put their stamp of approval on shelters? Surely if they can hold Hollywood accountable, they can take their actions to the street as well.
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