Customer Reviews

Disposable Animals: Ending the Tragedy of Throwaway Pets

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a former SPCA volunteer and longtime vegan animal rights activist, the issue of destroying companion dogs, cats, rabbits, and other animals by humane societies is one of the hardest to deal with. Craig Brestrup's book provides valuable insite and gives a realistic alternative for handling the pet overpopulation problem.

At their best, animal shelters provide room and board, veterinary treatment, food, and a chance for adoption to stray animals who would otherwise be in immediate danger. Unfortunately, traditional shelters have become death camps for owners to conveniently drop off their animals once they become a burden. This book describes the unintended side effects of this practice. Shelters have maintained an open door policy of accepting animals even when they are full. The reasons given by "owners" include but are not limited to: someone in their family is allergic, they are moving, they don't want to clean the litter box, the cat claws the furniture, the family just had a baby, among several others. A full shelter accepting creatures given up for frivolous reasons makes it too convenient for humans to view the animals as disposable commodities. The shelters also have low adoption rates because their procedures overly scrutinize and intimidate potential guardians. Meanwhile, a potential owner can quite easily get fertile animal who will reproduce from a pet store, breeder, or give away thus dooming one more creature in the shelter to be killed. Both the humane societies and our culture as a whole should really look into the entrenched belief that euthanizing is always saving an animal from fates worse than death.

Brestrup provides a solution which all of us involved with animal rights and animal shelters should consider: focus on only taking in stray animals and those who are in obvious immediate danger into the shelters. Do not accept guardian released animals who are not homeless yet. Instead work with the guardians on taking care of their animals, eg. management of allergies and behavior problems, redirection to pet friendly landlords, and assisting guardians in arranging their own adoptions if relinguishing is truly inevitable. Continue to screen adopters, however, be more customer friendly by working with marginal adopters instead of turning them down; once they take home an animal, have volunteers work with them to take responsibility for these sentient creatures. By working with the adopters, the humane societies will show consistency and respect for the lives of companion animals. Through his group in Progressive Animal Welfare Society, the author began his own program as described above. It will be interesting to see how it progresses, hopefully, other humane societies will catch on.

Like many people, I have always hated that millions of healthy adoptable animals were killed, even painlessly by humane societies. Unfortunately, I could never think of any other alternatives on how to handle the pet overpopulation problem. While Craig Brestrup acknowledges that his solution will not be without imperfections, DISPOSABLE ANIMALS is the first book which I have read that gives a realistic strategy.

As a former shelter worker and currently a feral rescuer, I know too well of the owner convenience attitude of Americans. This heart-breaking account of pets which no longer fit into Americans' life-style should be an eye-opener to all pet owners. This book is packed with compassion and sensitivity as Mr. Brestrup gives a compelling argument to stop the killing in our shelters.

In this book, Brestrup argues against a practice that has been widely accepted by animal advocacy organizations such as the Humane Society, the SPCA and even PETA--that of killing "surplus" companion animals in order to save them from suffering. This is not an emotional appeal, but rather a reasoned argument that pulls apart the rationals for killing these animals from a philosophical and practical perspective. He explores how animal welfare organizations have been subtly co-opted into serving a social order that sees non-human animals as objects to be bought and disposed of at will. While preaching responsible pet "ownership," the animal welfare organizations help keep the streets free from pesky strays and provide a place for people to dump unwanted companion animals--regardless of if the shelter has room or how trival a reason is given for no longer wanting the animal. He does not attack shelter workers' sincerity in wanting to save homeless animals from "fates worse than death," but argues that the killing solution undermines the long-term goals. He also refuses to use the word euthanasia without quotation marks when describing the killing of a healthy animal. This in itself is a mental adjustment I believe is important--euthanasia is killing in order to end the pain of mortal illness or injury, and it is overused when applied to killing non-humans, whether at the shelter or the fur farm.

The second and third parts of the book depart slightly from the shelter focus to discuss disposability in context. The second part looks at human relations to non-companion animals and to nature in general, while the third analyzes the broad context of commodity culture. While I found this organization a little disjointed, the material is powerful and as well argued as the first part of the book. Even if you are not involved in animal welfare or you do not have companion animals, this book will definitely challenge how you conceive of yourself in relation to animals and the rest of the world.

Until more of the American public spays and neuters, and there are fewer puppy mills and backyard breeders adding a mountain of pets to the numbers, Brestrup's ideas will never work.

Shelters and rescues are inundated with huge numbers of animals every year. They simply do not have the time or the resources to do things like "help marginal adopters" or "work with a pet guardian."

Refusing to accept owner surrenders just means that the dog or cat will get dumped on the streets to die a horrible death, sight unseen, while someone like Brestrup pats themselves on the back for refusing to euthanize.

And all too often, in their zeal to avoid euthanasia, some people like Brestrup are handing pets over to hoarders or dog fighters. There truly ARE situations worse than death for unwanted pets.

The no-kill movement will only work if top priority is given to spaying and neutering, and reducing the sheer numbers of unwanted animals being born. Until then, naive ideas like Brestrups only mean that more animals will suffer.

Were I writing this review ten years ago I would have scored this book a 4 rather than a 3. However, at this time (late 2009) the greatest criticism I can offer of Brestrup's book is that it suffers from age. Given how much has been written about and how much has changed in animal sheltering and animal welfare since this book was published (1997) one must now view it in light of contemporary conditions.

I'll defer to the reviews by Jennifer and Dandylioness above for a summary of the book's contents, there's no need to repeat that here. I will say that I agree with the latter in that the book is rather disjointed in its composition. Part 1 is the meat of the book, Brestrup's treatise on throwaway pets and condemnation of animal sheltering's intransigent attitudes and practices. In the included Afterword--written in early 1997--Brestrup tell us that the very month his shelter put into place the changes he hoped would bring an end to killing he had to resign his position and move to Texas due to family matters. What follows in Part 2 are some of the author's essays on several animal welfare topics. Part 3 includes essays on commodification and ethics. One cannot escape the feeling that the "unexpected family contingencies" which prevented the author from seeing his shelter's new policies come to fruition also prevented him from completing the book's manuscript. Then, perhaps, in order to meet his contractual commitment to the publisher, an Afterword was added (by way of apology to the reader?) and various essays included in a slap-dash effort to give the book more content? Even more mystifying is that the publisher issued a second printing in 2002 of this same first addition. Surely a second printing begs a second edition so that the author could include the results of his efforts at his former shelter as well as commentary on how his original ideas have in large part become the current trend seen in animal sheltering? Alas, there is none of this in this second printing and one is left to surmise that when Brestrup left the Progressive Animal Welfare Society in Puget Sound he left the world of animal welfare altogether.

I do recommend this book for those whose concern is animal welfare, animal sheltering, animal ethics, etc. I found his review of current (however, now dated) theories of animal ethics by various authors to be a handy bibliography for future reading. I was also able to gain some food for thought from the ideas and practices Brestrup brings to animal sheltering from his previous work in human mental health and counseling clinics, especially with regard to the social worker's Code of Ethics which stresses not abandoning current clients to bring on new ones.

Again, nothing in this book is going to be "cutting edge" any longer but I found it to be good background material for my current work in animal welfare and sheltering. For a current treatment of these same topics I'd recommend Nathan J. Winograd's Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America.

Excellent look into this national disgrace .... "death camps" for
animals is an acurate description of many shelters willingly or
unwillingly. As for animals discarded by owners, it seems to me
that the owner should be required to be present for the "euthanasia"
not allowed to just dump the animal off.