Grandma - we can no longer afford to keep you!

Website: www.helphomelessanimals.com

Tel: 1.888.689.3698

Write: Positive Options - c/o ASRI
PO Box 1815
Westfield, MA 01085-1815


It is thought of as a sign of the times: the dire state of the economy is taking a toll on families across the nation and across the world. Jobs are being lost, incomes are sharply reduced and homes are being foreclosed upon. Almost everyone, to some degree or another, is feeling the effects.

And the animals are feeling it too.

In my own town, a new initiative - Positive Options - has sprung up with the mission of helping families keep their pets through times of financial hardship. A small flyer arrived for me yesterday (courtesy of a utility bill) through which contributions are being solicited. The aim of the initiative is as follows:

"[to] supplement the pet food donations that are collected regularly throughout the City of Westfield and other local communities. The donations are used to help keep a pets [sic] with its' [sic] family by supplying food and necessities that a family may not be able to afford at this time. Our goal is to help people keep their pets."

This is a completely laudable objective and I intend to make a donation but one point struck me when reading through the flyer - the underlying acceptance of the disposability paradigm. It goes like this.....

1) Times are hard and we need to make cutbacks.
2) Certain things are not negotiable - rent, mortgage payments, food - therefore we have to cut back on non-essentials.
3) Our pets - those beloved 'members of the family' in good times - are non-essential.
4) Cutbacks can be made on the expenses associated with them.

In short, the animals go.

I know there's a lot of hand-wringing, tearful discussions and heart-wrenching decisions made along the way to this conclusion. And equally, I imagine that it's not the first option most reasonable, normal people accept as a way through these tough times. However, my point really is that it IS an option on the table, in a way that would never be applicable to human members of the same family. Try as I might, I cannot imagine the scenario wherein a couple decides that their income simply cannot sustain the family and therefore the youngest child must go. Nor yet the case where Grandma is just such a drain on resources that it might really be time to have her put to sleep.....

But it is an acceptable scenario in any case where the family member is a non-human. A cat, dog, bird, rabbit, whatever.....And this acceptance is rooted purely and simply in our perception of animals as property to do with as we wish. They are considered disposable and replaceable; their status that of object, the same as a table or chair. More lovable, perhaps, certainly cuter, but an object - no more, no less.

Recently, I have become increasingly interested in the framing of the abolitionist perspective within the animal rights debate and it seems to me that this current situation is a perfect example of how the welfarist position might indeed be inadequate. Inherent within the framing of this Positive Options initiative is the supposition that it is fundamentally understandable and acceptable to abandon a non-human family member in times of crisis. For the sake of the animal, this organization seeks out a foster home in the hope that the abandoned pet does not end their days prematurely - confused, terrified and alone - in a kill-shelter. However, I think that the abolitionist argument that such short-termism does not truly benefit the animals is valid. What we really need is education, a sea change of social thought wherein the idea of surrendering a pet in times of economic distress is as far from our minds as that of abandoning of our children. Until people no longer perceive companion animals as disposible and replacable, until we all take our life-long responsibilities to them as seriously as we do the human members of our families, the future for the animals will not change.

And, just we judge a society by how it treats its poorest members, it is a measure of our values - of us as individuals - how we treat our non-human dependents in challenging times. And I believe, I can only suspect that we are in grave danger of failing ourselves, of not stepping up and rising to the challenge, in this regard. I hope I am wrong.

And, in case I am, I will be mailing a check to the address above. Perhaps you might too?

Stay together and stay vegan, friends.

The economy is tough indeed.

I don't remember the random trail of links that brought me to this site a couple of nights ago, as I surfed around idly checking out the vegan news. But I came across an article that shook me to the core. But first, a little background....

In Western Massachusetts, we recently heard the chilling news that the MSPCA is closing 3 of its 7 shelters across the state, one of them being in our area. As quoted in a recent issue of the Pet Gazette "'For the good of the entire organization we need to close down certain facilities," MSPCA spokesperson Brian Adams said recently, pointing to a loss in revenue as the reason for the closures." The economy is tough indeed.

And it seems like the volume of pet surrenders is rising as people face foreclosure or the downsizing of income. As the same article points out, "'Foreclosure’ is now a check box on our surrender sheets, when it had not been there in the past.'" Honestly, I cannot think of a worse thing than to lose your livelihood, your income, perhaps your relationship, your home...and then to lose your pet too. It must be the last straw for some people. It certainly would be for me.

There could be nothing worse. Unless, I suppose, you happened to be the animal in question, the one who is surrendered. The pet sacrificed to the 'economic downturn'. For the animals, it is a lot worse. I imagine that the owners let themselves believe that their animal will be adopted. Of course, s/he is a good dog, a great dog with kids, loyal, funny and loves to give kisses....s/he is bound to find a good home.....

And so off they go, leaving the animal in the 'care' of the shelter.

Which brings us back to the article I mentioned at the start of this post. I found it on Eye on the Sparrow, an all breeds/special needs dog rescue website and its raw honesty was painful to read. It is an open letter from a shelter manager in which she (?) lays out very clearly the situation of the surrendered dog:

Odds are your pet won't get adopted & how stressful do you think being in a shelter is? Well, let me tell you, your pet has 72 hours to find a new family from the moment you drop it off. Sometimes a little longer if the shelter isn't full and your dog manages to stay completely healthy. If it sniffles, it dies.

Your pet will be confined to a small run/kennel in a room with about 25 other barking or crying animals. It will have to relieve itself where it eats and sleeps.

It will be depressed and it will cry constantly for the family that abandoned it.

If your pet is lucky, I will have enough volunteers in that day to take him/her for a walk. If I don't, your pet won't get any attention besides having a bowl of food slid under the kennel door and the waste sprayed out of its pen with a high-powered hose.

If your dog is big, black or any of the " Bully " breeds (pit bull, rottie, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much dead when you walked it through the front door. Those dogs just don't get adopted.

It doesn't matter how 'sweet' or 'well behaved' they are.

If your dog doesn't get adopted within its 72 hours and the shelter is full, it will be destroyed.

The author then describes in clear terms the process that turns a surrendered animal into a

'corpse [that] will be stacked like firewood in a large freezer in the back with all of the other animals that were killed waiting to be picked up like garbage. What happens next? Cremated? Taken to the dump? Rendered into pet food? You'll never know and it probably won't even cross your mind.'

I don't have the heart to reproduce it in its entirety here, but it is something we should all know about.

Here's the link.
Please take a moment to read it.
The animals need us not to look away.
Not to retreat into the comparative comfort of ignorance.

Earlier this week, a coworker announced that a friend had just got a puppy, a gangly darling of a baby who hadn't yet even grown into its own feet. Puppies are magic, aren't they? All nose and feet and astonishment at their own tails. I would love to have a puppy, someone I could actually train to behave well - unlike my two rescue dogs, who do as they wish and have *me* expertly trained in the arts of cookie giving and pillow plumping.

But I will never buy one.

Because for every puppy purchased from a breeder, from a pet store, online, from an acquaintance whose dog 'has just had a litter', another dog in a shelter somewhere will take their final walk to 'The Room' where a 'euthanasia tech' will start the process that ends with the life draining out of yet another pair of 'sad, lost, confused eyes'.

Between nine and eleven million times per year.

All that waste. If that doesn't make you think twice about buying that cute puppy in the store window, I really don't know what will.

Stay vegan, Friends.

Vegan on the Cheap - not a moment too soon...

Browsing idly around the blogosphere this lunchtime I was struck by two pieces of news that seemed, in my perhaps warped mind at least, somewhat linked. The first is a report regarding the eating of raccoons - apparently given the collapsing economy, folks have taken to ambushing wildlife behind dumpsters, clubbing the unfortunates to death and offering them for sale as human food. The going rate is anywhere between $3 and $7 per raccoon. My, my, doesn't that tempeh look good in comparison....(Thanks to The Informed Vegan for this piece.)

The second nugget of news is that Robin Robertson - author of, I think, 19 veg*n cookbooks to date - has lodged another with her publisher and has yet another in the works. According to her brand spanking new website,

Vegan on the Cheap [is a book whose time] has come. With the economy in a slump and everyone looking for ways to save money, I’m excited to be working on a cookbook devoted to recipes and ideas for eating cheaply (and well). I’ve just finished the first draft of Vegan on the Cheap, and the recipe testing begins soon. I don’t know the publication date of this book either, but I’ll let you know when I do.

So you see folks, there is hope. Even in this economy there is no need to resort to eating freakin' raccoons! Sheesh!!