Today's Featured Rescue is a Bluetick Coonhound. Jessie is due to have puppies in 3 weeks. Her ad says that "She is really shy at first but warms up quickly". Jessie is at the Auglaize County Humane Society in Wapakoneta, OH. This ad makes me angry ... and of course I'm going to tell you why!Here's what we know ... Normal canine pregnancy is 9 weeks. If Jessie is due in 3 weeks time, plus the minimum 3-5 days that she would have had to be sitting in limbo as a 'stray' (let's add two days for the shelter staff to get the pictures up on the internet plus their vet to look her over and give her a timeline). That makes 4 weeks. Subtract that from the 9 weeks we know most canine pregnancies run for. So, Jessie must have been around 5 weeks along in her pregnancy IF she only just arrived at the shelter.
Here's what really bothers me. WHY HAVEN'T THEY ABORTED THE PREGNANCY?
Puppies are easier to adopt out, right? Like it or not, puppies make the shelter money not to mention the great fundraising campaign you can run with them. Some shelters will let a bitch go to term instead of aborting the puppies. I know many vets who will do an abortive spay provided the bitch isn't too far along. There are also many drugs you could use to terminate a canine pregnancy without spay. From what I've seen and read, you can use the drugs up to the 30 days marker (4 weeks). After that you have to look to an abortive spay. Jessie isn't too far along (or at least wasn't when this ad was posted).
I've often figured the reasoning is either the people are pro-life who won't agree to abortion or that financially, puppies bring in more money for the shelter and so it makes financial sense to let her go to term. Funny thing - I know many pro-lifers in the animal rescue business; most do NOT agree with an abortive spay.
But tell me this, in 6 - 12 months time, when the puppies are no longer cute, how many of them are going to end up at Canine Control or an Animal Shelter where they will be euthanized?
How did that work for the best?
7 comments:
Hm. I'm pro-life, but I'm 100% okay with aborting animal pregnancies. Animal death is acceptable in a variety of situations (as long as it's done humanely), including a lack of resources to take care of them, and I don't see why that shouldn't apply to the unborn. Human death is a very different matter.
Melissa - I agree.
I'm pro-choice.
They should make that choice, it makes the most sense.
But they don't have the cojones to do it.
I agree, DDF.
I'll tend to go more with the animal-abortions-R-ok thing. Pro-choice here when it comes to humans. (Hate it and would rather see it not done, but if someone has a mind to get it done, rather do it safely and in a medical environment than in a back alley)
I do have to wonder though, why would we abort animals if the pups/kittens/foals/etc wouldn't lead a quality life? Human anti-abortion advocates are constantly trying to push adoption on women who would otherwise abort, but how many families out there really take that road? Foster systems are overloaded (both human and animal), and it is considered the pinnacle of womanhood to Breed Your Own Child, while adoption, for the most part, is relegated to the last-ditch effort of parents who are emotional enough that they can't conceive naturally. But just like women need to have their own child, people will want a puppy, so naturally, abortion will be denying someone a new family member.
I'm just trying to understand the dilemma as to why one's OK under certain circumstances, but the other is verboten under those same, or similar, circumstances. I know it's the whole human "superior" species versus animal "inferior" species thing, we have more choices about our reproduction than they do, etc, so I fully expect to hear about that...and that offspring are cause by only one action, goes back to the whole "choice" thing...
This is a very fascinating topic for me and it's intriguing to read what people have to say about it.
Some interesting thoughts proposed on this one.
I'm not saying that they shouldn't have puppies to adopt. I'm saying that if they can, they should abort and then proceed to adopt out others that they were too late to abort.
The problem is that there are already puppies/kittens/foals/etc being euthanized/gas-chambered/shot/drowned/etc.
Why would we encourage more to come into the world? It's not only the older animals that are PTS. Young ones are too.
If the shelter really wants to adopt out puppies/etc that badly, why wouldn't they contact a Canine Control or Municipal Pound location and start pulling puppies/etc out of there? Or perhaps they could contact some of the shelters that are over-run with puppies (I'm sure Calsidyrose knows one or two!!) and pull from there?
It may also have been the vets choice. Some vets won't do pregnant spays, especially in a larger, mature dog with a bit of fat on her. A mature fat dog spey is actually a very difficult, risky procedure. Add heat or pregnancy onto that and it becomes something you'd really rather avoid. If the shelter is busy with other animals to spey and castrate, it may have been decided to let her have the pups (which are in a borderline area of whether they can be aborted chemically or not), they spey her afterwards when she's less of a risk.
It's not just choice, unfortunately. There's economics and time management involved, and the surgical skill of the vet in question.
Myself: I wouldn't be happy to do a pregnant mature dog spey. I'm just not good enough yet. I could do a pregnant cat spey, but a dog would just be to hard for my level of experience.
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