Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 1, 1993 TAG: 9401150009
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Monty S. Leitch
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel: March 19, 1993, ``The Humane Society says at least 8 million cats and dogs are euthanized in the U.S. every year,'' and, Oct. 22, 1992, ``Nationwide, only about 30 percent of animals left at shelters are adopted ... ''
San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News: ``Officials say 4,334 unwanted cats and dogs were euthanized at the shelter in 1992 ... ''
March 16, 1992, Albuquerque (N.M.) Tribune: ``Close to 20,000 dogs and cats were euthanized at the city's pound last year ... ''
Dec. 8, 1991, Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger: ``Some 46,000 cats were put to death in the state in 1990 ... ''
March 13, 1991, Austin (Texas) American-Statesman: ``An average of 84 animals a day are put down at the animal shelter's gas chamber because they have been abandoned.''
Dec. 8, 1992, Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News: ``Close to half of the dogs and other animals brought into the Animal Control Center are put to sleep because no one adopts them.''
And this, from a Jan. 5, 1993, article in this paper: ``Up to 6,000 abandoned or stray cats and dogs are put to death each year by the Roanoke Valley Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.''
Americans, it seems, will throw away anything. Plastics, old newspapers, used motor oil, tires, farmland, rivers, pets, victims of Alzheimer's disease, the mentally ill, even children.
Still convinced that we stand on the edge of some never-ending, mythic New Frontier, we greedily forge onward toward Progress, imagining that our peculiar bargain with the devil insures us against the need to live with anything that's not perfect - ``Just throw that old thing away!'' - because we can always get another one, a newer one, a better one.
Your dog pees in the corner? Bad dog! Take him to the SPCA; they'll find him a good home.
Your cat scratches up the furniture? Bad cat! Get that cat declawed.
That puppy's not so cute anymore? That kitten has gotten pregnant? Oh, good grief! Put 'em out in the woods somewhere, they'll be fine; they're animals after all.
What is wrong with us? Is there no longer any awareness in any part of our culture that all relationships are two-sided, with reciprocal responsibilities, reciprocal rewards, even when the going gets tough? Especially when the going gets tough?
In the words of Vicki Hearne, ``If I have a friend, she has a friend. If I have a daughter, she has a mother. The possessive does not bind one of us while freeing the other; it cannot do that.''
If I have a cat, then he has me, too. Or should.
The essay in which Hearne wrote those words is entitled ``What's wrong with animal rights,'' and it appeared in the September 1991 Harper's. What's wrong with the notion of ``animal rights'' as commonly presented, she says, is that too many ``inept connoisseurs of suffering'' forget that rights arise from reciprocal relationships. My cat is happy and living the kind of life to which a cat has a right if I'm caring for him as a cat; not as a surrogate child, not as part of the furnishings, but as a cat.
Mandatory sterilization of dogs and cats might apply a little salve to the miserable wound of pet abandonment and overpopulation. But this wound is only a surface scratch of what's really hurting us. People who'll destroy the ozone layer so they can have finely moussed hair won't take any better care of neutered pets than of sexually active ones.
``Just say no'' is a stupid and shallow approach to the problem of drug addiction. ``Get a job'' is a stupid and shallow approach to poverty. ``Spay or neuter your pet'' is a stupid and shallow approach to the problem of dog and cat overpopulation.
What is it about Americans that we'll celebrate stupid and shallow approaches as if they were true solutions?
Oh. Wait. I forgot. Stupid and shallow approaches fit so nicely onto bumper stickers.
\ Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB