Humane life for dogs (1)

Mrs Giovanna Cauchi (The Sunday Times, November 27) says that humane death for dogs exists all over the world. Well, so do animal sanctuaries.

Animal sanctuaries, contrary to what Mrs Cauchi claims, are not "prisons for life". They are places of protection from the cruelty of human beings. Animals in sanctuaries are fed, exercised, and loved by the volunteers, who devote their free time trying to amend the irresponsibility of people who breed or buy animals, and then abandon them in the street. I would not suppose Mrs Cauchi believes that orphanages for children are cruel. Dog sanctuaries are the dogs' equivalent.

As for the supposed cruelty in not letting dogs mate and breed, this misconception comes from anthropomorphism (applying human characteristics to animals), and ignorance of the fact that the purpose of the sexual act for dogs, unlike for humans, is only for procreation and not for recreation.

Incidentally, prolific and irresponsible breeding is what creates the stray problem in the first place. So what is more humane? Breeding carelessly and then killing the animals, or neutering, and thus preventing the creation of unwanted animals? The latter is more humane and in the long term is a more effective form of stray animal control. By killing an animal, the result is one animal less. By neutering, the result is lots of animals less (therefore fewer unwanted animals will suffer).

As for ridding our communities of stray dogs and putting them to "humane death", this is a clear example of choosing the easy way out of a problem, without taking into consideration the animals' interests. Euthanasia is the killing of animals (or humans) by a means that causes least suffering, provided that there is no alternative to the killing. Since sanctuaries are an alternative to killing unwanted animals, the killing of the same animals in this case is not euthanasia, and therefore, their killing is not a humane killing.

As for Mario Cesare's comment (November 27) that he prefers the "faithful friendship, love and joy of (his) fellow human beings called neighbours than those of animals", no one is denying him this friendship. All we ask is that he, and others like him, do not deny friendship to animals where this can be provided. No one should be forced to love or care for animals, but no one should be allowed to hinder the love and care of animals when this can be provided by other people.