Readers React: Call animal shelter ‘euthanizing’ what it really is: convenience killing

To the editor: I take umbrage at our use of the word “euthanize” to describe our merciless killing of shelter animals. Euthanizing is mercy killing, whereas what we humans do to many shelter animals is noting more than convenience killing. (“Sterilizing pets is key to reaching L.A.’s no-kill goal at shelters,” editorial, Sept. 15)

Humans have a horrific record of treatment of animals: factory farming; blinding rabbits to test toxicity of cosmetics; taking calves away from their mothers and forcing them to stay in a crate so they can’t move and, heaven forbid, lose a bit of tenderness in their meat; and the University of Washington torturing infant monkeys to then dissect their brains to see the effect of maternal deprivation.

Surely, given this record of how we treat our fellows on this Earth, we can come up with a better solution for shelter animals than killing them and tossing their bodies in a dump. Let’s start by calling what we are doing by its rightful name: convenience killing.

Louis Cimino, Beverly Hills

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To the editor: Thank you for the thoughtful editorial on spay-neuter as the key to a no-kill city.

As the average person is more apt to follow the law than pay close heed to his or her conscience, it may be time for us to rethink pleas to the public’s compassion and instead enact a campaign that says “Spay and neuter your pets — it’s the law.”

Karen Dawn, Pacific Palisades

Dawn is the author of the book “Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the way we Treat Animals.”

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