No sane person wants to see dogs suffer or have to be put down. Even people who are not canine lovers understand that dogs have a special relationship with mankind where they often seem to have a special intuition about people’s emotions. The moniker of “man’s best friend” is certainly deserved.
Yet the problems usually come when man doesn’t live up to his end of that relationship. That leads to situations, such as exist in Columbia and Marion County, where many neglected dogs roam the streets, causing a nuisance for neighbors and breeding offspring that become the taxpayers’ responsibility. That’s the sad but true situation that the city finds itself in as it tries to run the animal shelter.
Criticism arose last week when volunteers at the shelter objected to the city shooting dogs that it had to euthanize. While that’s not something any shelter wants to do, it’s an unfortunate necessity when pens are full and more dogs are coming in daily. Often the dogs that are put down are unadoptable, either because of illness or because the way they’ve been treated has made them hostile toward people. It’s a situation the animal shelter inherits rather than causes.
The only way to run a no-kill shelter is to limit how many pets you take in. Those shelters often hold onto dogs for years waiting for them to be adopted, and unadoptable pets often live the rest of their lifetimes in such places. It’s admirable for those who run those organizations at their own expense, but it’s not practical for a municipal shelter required to take in every stray. If the Columbia shelter were to not ever put down dogs, it would have to build additional wings every year or so to continue to handle the huge influx of animals that come through its doors. In a city that is struggling to overcome population and economic decline that has stressed government budgets, that’s just not a practical consideration.
As for the means of putting them down, no method can escape the fact that life must be taken. In that sense, no way of carrying that out is ever going to be pleasant. All that can be asked is that it be as quick and painless as possible for the animals and fits within the city’s financial constraints. Shooting the dogs, although sad, is probably the most efficient way to carry out that unenviable task.
Hopefully the city and the volunteers can sit down and work out their differences. Volunteers are a key component to running any animal shelter, and you can’t overstate their importance. Those animal lovers selflessly give their time to care for dogs and cats in need and provide an essential service for municipalities with limited budgets. They usually help pull together fundraisers when needs arise for the shelter. Perhaps the differences between the administration and volunteers can be ironed out if both sides sit down in good faith to discuss potential solutions.
The ultimate fix, though, is for people who own dogs to take responsibility for them. That means having them spayed or neutered to prevent unwanted litters, and keeping them indoors or inside fences so they are not out in neighborhoods.
Also, vaccinations and preventative medicines help stop heartworms and other illnesses that make it hard for dogs to be adopted.
Some rural residents continue to have a view toward their pets that dates to the 19th-century frontier, a time when people were working by the sweat of their brows for their daily bread and they left it to animals to fend for themselves. Dogs went wherever they wanted and found whatever food they could.
But we’ve advanced as a society and need to find more humane ways to treat our pets. As with most societal problems, the buck must stop, not with the government, but with individuals taking responsibility for themselves and their actions.
Charlie Smith is editor and publisher of The Columbian-Progress. Reach him at (601) 736-2611 or csmith@columbianprogress.com.
