When Is Euthanasia the Better Option?
While I love Facebook’s ability to get the word out about animals in need, I often dread looking at my wall due to all the pleas for help. It can be overwhelming and depressing, especially when you read some of the tragic backstories some of these animals have. Take CoCo, pictured above. According to Pet Pardons Facebook page, this beautiful 3-4 year old calico was found a few weeks ago in a dumpster, “strangled with her collar shoved down her throat and emaciated with her tongue rotted off and no teeth.”
Pet Pardons posted a plea to the Facebook community to get CoCo out of the New York City kill shelter she was being held, where she’ll surely be euthanized, and into a foster home. Despite the horrific torture this poor cat endured, she’s, according to Pet Pardons, still incredibly sweet and affectionate.
Initially I was totally rooting for this little girl, but as I continued to read her story I started to have reservations, and of course felt incredibly guilty for not being on team CoCo in the way the rest of the Facebook community seemed to be.
Because CoCo has no teeth and only a partial tongue she needs to either be syringe fed or fed through a feeding tube for the rest of her life. While I know this is doable, what kind of life does this leave a cat who has already been through so much pain? She can’t even drink on her own. While I’ve never cared for a pet with a feeding tube, I have cared for one with a drainage tube in her neck and let me tell you it isn’t easy (for cat or human).
As if to prove my point, yesterday CoCo showed what a pain feeding tubes can be. Since Pet Pardons’ Facebook posting, Another Chance Pet Rescue has taken Coco from the kill shelter she was in, found her a forever home, and are working to get her healthy enough to face surgery to place a permanent feeding tube into her. In the meantime she has a temporary tube in place, which yesterday she managed to pull out of her stomach. She had to endure yet another surgery to correct the situation.
I understand the want to make up for the cruelties this cat had to endure with an abundance of love, but is keeping her alive the best option for her in the long run? Does saving her from the euthanasia list help her or does it help alleviate the guilt we all have that this ever happened to an animal?
Furthermore, and I know this is going to sound incredibly harsh, could the resources donated to keep CoCo alive be better served helping the many, many healthy animals on shelter euthanasia lists?
I’ve been debating this in my head since reading CoCo’s story last week and I don’t know where I stand. I want this poor cat to have a chance at a better life filled with love, belly rubs, and lots of kisses, but I keep wondering if keeping her alive via a feeding tube is the best thing for her in the long run. Sure, she will be much happier than she was in the hands of whoever put her in this state, but at what cost to her quality of life?
8 Responses to “When Is Euthanasia the Better Option?”
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I agree with everything you said here 110% and had the same feelings seeing the progression of events involving Coco. I felt terrible thinking that way, and I felt like I might be alone in my thoughts. I agree with the statement about the funds going to MANY other healthy cats and on the issue you brought up about the quality of life that Coco will have. I too am still debating the issue in my head. Thank you for this article, it really helped me feel better about some of the feelings I have had regarding this situation. I do not feel anything you said was ‘harsh’. It’s realistic and an honest thought process, in my opinion, in a situation like this. My mother is a veterinarian and we have spoken about many issues like this over the years, there is no simple answer and what might be harsh at first, sometimes, might be the best in the long run and not so harsh if you can save MANY lives….either way, it’s a terrible situation all around.
I believe this is a fair question. Unlike a human, this poor baby can not understand why she is being hurt again and again. She doesn’t know that she is being helped. Just because we can doesn’t always mean we should.
I feel that there’s no real right or wrong answer, especially in cases such as CoCo’s. In an ideal world, we would never encounter this level of cruelty and neglect again, homeless animals are near nonexistent, and every companion animal is well cared for.
Barring that dream (which we, as animal welfare advocates, hope and pray is not far off), the issue becomes “what is right” or at least “what is logical.” Again, the answer is not clear. It is a sliding scale, and the answer will be different with each rescue organization, and to a greater extent, with each person.
There’s that famous Vulcan saying, for those familiar with Star Trek and Spock, that goes “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” A very logical belief system, and yet not one that, truthfully, is always easily applied. Why, do you ask? Because we know – just as Spock eventually learns as he begins to embrace his human side – emotion often gets in the way. Love “gets in the way.”
To many, devoting time, energy and resources to one suffering soul – when there are so many out there that could benefit from all three – is just another expression of love and compassion. It is, quite simply, human, to do just that. This is reflected in the oft-said “if I know I’ve saved a single creature, then it makes everything I do worth it” or some variation thereof.
It is easy to follow a logical process in animal rescue when you are not fully emotionally invested; when you know that the smart and logical way is to take the resources and utilize them to save the greatest number of animals possible. But as many animal welfare workers, foster parents, and pet parents know, this works, it happens, but it is not always easy. And when one sad creature looks up at you and your souls connect, when you fall in love, and when you know that – logic be damned – you would do anything to save him/her, where is the logic then?
We, as animal lovers and advocates, all walk the delicate tightrope of logic and love every day. Some days, logic and pragmatism wins. Animals are saved. We feel good. We cheer.
And some days, love and unreasonableness wins. A single animal is saved and learns about love for the first time. What happens then?
We feel good. We cheer.
It’s an ethical dilemma, for sure.
I can remember a local case of a rescue organization, run by two people, spending lots of money to have multiple surgeries on a pot bellied pig, while all their other animals lived in squalor. The owners were eventually brought up on animal cruelty charges.
One final thing: There is the delicate issue of “quality of life” which you so thoughtfully discuss. Again, this is a hard decision, and one that also plays the tightrope balance of logic and love. Ideally we, as caretakers with a modicum of intelligence and compassion, can make the decision that is in the best interest of the suffering animal. But once the animal caretakers make a choice, with a few extreme exceptions, it is not in our right to judge. In CoCo’s case, maybe there is something there that we as outsiders don’t see – a light in her eyes, a will to live and a desire to love. Perhaps that’s what the rescuers see and have responded accordingly, deeming that what they are doing is the right thing.
We are all in this together and we’re all working toward the same brave goal.
Thank you for approaching this important subject so honestly. It’s a tough ethical dilemma, but it’s worth talking about for sure.
I appreciate your honesty regarding the conflicting feelings about extremely ill animals on the euthanasia list at shelters. I also relate deeply to Mo Reyes response and probably could not express that sentiment better. As someone who has run a rescue, the argument that the resources should be allotted and spread around to save as many (quantity) as possible, is logical but rarely the way these things work because, for the most part, animal lovers are not really so practical when it comes to trying to right the wrongs we witness happening to our fellow creatures.
Specific to Coco, I will say that I have indeed had to tube feed a cat. When the cat was ill, it was rather easy…but once he became active again, he pulled that thing right out. Personally I had to tube feeding for myself many years ago when I was ill. It is a painless process and vets say it is the same for animals. I have been doing some research as I wrote this to see how the PEG (which is the more permanent version) is maintained and placed. As long as the PEG can be placed in such a way for Coco to get used to it and not pull it out, this is a painless solution.
I understand the dilemma being expressed by this article, but I think in Coco’s case she is not a terminally ill cat being kept alive in excrutiating pain because a human being cannot do the selfless act of letting her go. Her story is more along the lines of the chihuahuas a few years ago born without legs and forced to learn how to use other methods to be able to locomote. And in the hands of a loving home, she could thrive and know no difference.
That’s my take…
I really didn’t want to read this – something about suffering animals gets me in a way that nothing else does. It reminds my of the wise words of my vet when caring for my first cat at the end of his years – “he’s not a happy cat”. I did everything I could to keep him around longer, but now I do realize that his “extended stay” was much more for me than for him and the caring thing would have been to allow him to pass on earlier.(getting misty and can’t type…)…. so for me it’s finding that fine line between pet comfort/happiness, and human sadness/guilt. And above all to give any pets in your life the best possible care and love while they’re around.