Vets’ Guidelines

Like all active members of the humane community, we at Pet Assistance Foundation are pleased to see the veterinary profession exploring ethical guidelines for its constituency (“Pets and Ethics” by Allan Parachini, April 26). But we must strongly urge vets to tread very carefully when it comes to interpreting euthanasia as an immoral end of life for a beloved companion animal.

This is a far from perfect world. Despite Jerrold Tannenbaum’s statement that companion animals are “treated as members of the family,” we at Pet Assistance, who rescue them every day from abuse, abandonment and cruelty, realize only too well that the majority of pets are not treated as family, but as throw-aways, disposed of on the freeways, abandoned on the streets or left to die in dumpsters. These, too, are healthy animals. Their only crime is that no one wants them.

How then, Mr. Tannenbaum, can you believe that when a vet refuses to euthanize a 3-year-old German shepherd with behavioral problems or an 11-year-old healthy cat whose companion human can no longer take care of him, that these animals are going to find second homes? In Los Angeles County alone, less than 15% of the 300,000 animals who are impounded each year in our shelters are ever adopted.

We at Pet Assistance believe that euthanasia is a responsible, thoughtful and kind alternative compared to the irresponsible, cruel alternatives we witness daily.

JAMIE PINN, board member

Pet Assistance Foundation

Van Nuys