Animal Voice

I have been living in United States for some time now, and have realized even more what illusionall thoughts I had. How silly to even think that this is a country without many animal problems. In one way the US is very advanced in their technology and rescue for animals; in some states they even have their own animal police. But there is another side of the coin, and that is the stray dogs, and the high number of euthanization, and also many animal health problems.
What many foreign people forget is that America is more than twice as big as Europe, so that will make for more dogs- and thus more problems.

Wherever people live on this planet, evilness and kindness will always co-exist; how we end up is based on how we are raised.
So during this time have I heard and seen a lot of de-clawing, and even de-drooling!? One lady had a Labrador who was drooling so much that she took the dog to her veterinarian and had him de-drooled.

One day, a lady in our neighborhood, came walking with TJ, and her other two dogs. They all looked so happy together that I had to stop and talk with her. She told me she was from another state and had left their big farm were they had owned quite a lot of land. In their old home, the big dog that is a mix of Beagle and something big (“Coon dog”) was barking and howling a lot. The neighbors were complaining, and the farmers were not happy. The lady was afraid that they would shoot TJ and she could not have him locked in the house for the whole day. She had to think of something to save her dog, because she refused to have him adopted away or even worse, euthanized. She spoke to her veterinarian and he suggested that she could have TJ de-barked. Shocked at first, she thought that was cruel to the poor dog, but when she had calmed down; she realized that she did not have any other options. But she felt guilty; who was she to decide to take away an animal’s voice? She did some research and talked to her veterinarian some more and finally decided to let her dog have the surgery.

I can understand a lot of guilt will come with a decision like this, and I had to question myself, would I do the same? I am not saying this should be something that is done for convenience, merely tired of hearing their dog barking. If a problem is something you can remove by training, you should do that. But if my neighbors- that are hunters- were threatening me, and the law would not protect me and my dog?

There will always be different views among people over how to take care of animals, but never forget that they have the same emotional feelings as we human beings. Some humans submit to life altering operations to remain among the civilized world, decisions others wouldn’t even contemplate. Perhaps our animals would choose the same as we do for them, but we can never be sure. As the ones with the ability to choose, we owe it to our dear animal friends/companions to make sure that any choice we make to alter them is for necessity and not convenience or vanity.