Product Description

Ten million healthy dogs and cats are killed in American animal shelters every year. Shelter officials defend this mass killing as necessary to prevent animal suffering and to provide a public service. More animals exist than homes to take them in so a painless death is considered a gift. They call this "euthanasia" or "putting to sleep." Disposable Animals challenges this approach to serving the needs of animals and asks if it may not sabotage animal welfare's message of respect for animal life. When those working for animal welfare say, on the one side, that animals' companions must take responsibility for their lives and that animals are not disposable commodities, but on the other side, they readily take those animals off the owners' hands and into already full shelters and kill some to make room for the new-Are they not contradicting themselves and in the process facilitating irresponsibility and the disposability syndrome? The heart of the book elaborates on this critique and offers sug gestions for alternative and uncompromised ways of caring for companion animals. Following this focus, Disposable Animals discusses other species and their treatment by our society and puts these practices within a cultural context. It concludes with a vision of a new and more inclusive ethic for human relations with animals and nature.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #464031 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

From Library Journal
Although Brestrup deals with a variety of animal rights issues in this book, he focuses on "throwaway pets" in what appears to be the first real effort to deal with the problem. His main thesis is that shelters that kill contribute to a societal attitude that "commodifies" animals. What makes this work different from other animal rights resources is its social/psychological criticism of shelters that kill and their proponents. Brestrup is an excellent writer with a somewhat unusual background. A former social worker, he became executive director of Seattle's Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) in February 1994. Distressed by the killing of homeless pets there, he left in January 1996, just as PAWS officially became a "no-kill" shelter. It is hoped that any subsequent editions will include a foreword detailing the effects of this change on the pet situation in that area. An appendix lists animal rights organizations. For larger animal welfare collections.?Alicia Graybill, Lincoln City Libs., Neb.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
After presenting a detailed discussion...Disposable Animals' author Craig Brestrup offers a meaningful and detailed argument concerning the ineffectiveness of surplus animal control through euthanasia. In it, he highlights the paradoxical predicament in which a humane organization presumes to prove its humaneness by killing healthy animals. -- The Latham Letter, Summer 1997

Craig Brestrup's Disposable Animals: Ending the Tragedy of Throwaway Pets (Camino Bay Books, $14.95), one of the most powerful and provocative animal-welfare volumes to come along in years. -- Seattle Times, June 1997

From the Publisher
Although this book has been controversial among many animal welfare professionals, it has required that they reconsider and improve upon their practices. And many others express considerable respect for the book's message. Tom Regan (author and ethics professor): "Unquestionably the most thoughtful work ever written on the tragic practice of 'euthanizing' healthy companion animals. Not everyone will agree with its findings. But no one who truly cares about companion animals can ignore the daunting challenge the book places before us." Steve Ann Chambers (President of the Animal Legal Defense Fund): "All of our lives are inextricably connected to the lives of animals-whether through personal relationships with companion animals, or by virtue of our inclusion in a species that systematically uses them toward its own ends. Brestrup challenges us to re-examine what animals do for us, and why we do what we do to them." Nedim C. Buyukmihci (President of the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights): "To try to capture the depth, sensitivity, compassion, humility, logic and rightness of thought expressed by this book in a few words would be an injustice to it. Brestrup makes a compelling case for human animals to return to their rightful and natural place in nature, not above nor below the other creatures. He also makes persuasive arguments for discontinuing the killing of companion animals in the name of population control. He points out, with irrefutable logic, that such killing nullifies our plea to those responsible for this tragedy to stop treating these individuals as commodities."

Customer Reviews

First book to give a realistic alternative!
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.

American's Trash System
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.

Destroying animals in order to save them.
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.