PETA: Not The Organization You Think It Is

By now I'm sure you all have noticed that I'm a HUGE animal rights activist, but believe it or not, I never used to be this way. I mean, I definitely supported adoption and disliked puppy mills, but I really became involved in the issues when we adopted our first puppy, Simba. He was a 5-month-old Shiba Inu who was found along the highway tied to a fence, left to face the world alone. Simba was found by a lovely couple that thankfully turned him into a local no-kill shelter and from there he was nurtured back to health and we adopted him! When we brought him home he was terrified of everything that moved or made noise, and hid behind the couch for a week until he decided that it was safe to come out. He slowly warmed up to us, and is now an absolute angel! 5 years later, we couldn't be happier that we decided to adopt this shy, timid puppy that in some peoples eyes was seen as "unadoptable"

Simba at 3 years old, always smiling!

Enough of my story, lets get into the reason behind this blog post! PETA, one of the largest organizations advocating for animal rights, supports euthanasia for animals that, "are often considered “surplus” and unwanted." (Yes, their words, not mine). While yes I understand if an animal is suffering from old age, or a terminal illness, it would be inhumane to make them suffer through the rest of their life, these cases are special. I am mainly talking about the shelters that euthanize animals because of lack of space or because they deemed the animal "unadoptable. Animals with behavioral or minor health issues are not damaged goods! With the proper medical care and training they can be back on the right track and adoptable in no time! I cant imagine what would've happened if PETA had gotten ahold of Simba; his shy, timid mannerisms would've made him "unadoptable" in their eyes, and who knows where he'd be now. When I heard that PETA was known for their euthanasia practices I decided to look a little further into the issue, and I was shocked at what I found.

Euthanisia:The Compassionate Option

As I was reading the article (with an open mind) their reasons behind their support for this topic started turning into misleading facts, giving their readers a skewed and biased opinion. The first thing that really caught my attention was their numerous attempts to state all of the inhumane ways of death to animals, among these reasons were; shooting, suffocating, and electrocution. Let me just start by saying: NOBODY DOES THIS! This isn't the animal version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre! They were merely stating all of these inhumane ways to kill animals, to make their method seem like the "compassionate option." In fact, the other methods were so uncommon that I couldn't even find them anywhere else on the internet, except for websites dedicated to stopping animal abuse, and even then it wasn't pertaining to shelters, but irresponsible individuals. I also found the opening paragraph of the PETA article interesting, it states: 

"Approximately 6 to 8 million animals are handled by animal shelters in the United States each year. Even though some are reclaimed or adopted, nearly 4 million unwanted dogs and cats are left with nowhere to go.(1) Shelters cannot humanely house and support all these animals until their natural deaths—they would be forced to live in cramped cages or kennels for years, lonely and stressed, and other animals would have to be turned away because there would not be room for them "

I found their message interesting here because it focuses on the fact that other animals have to die, in order for others to live. Once again, this is not true! There are thousands of shelters across the U.S., many of them no-kill shelters, so if one shelter is "full" I'm sure there are five down the street that would be willing to help an animal in need. Overall this article is just full of misleading facts and tactics, to make readers think that their organization is doing the "right thing", when in fact they are doing the opposite, and I'm not the only one criticizing PETA for its actions. 

http://www.livescience.com/28091-peta-euthanasia.html

Marc Lallanilla is one of hundreds of journalists and concerning advocates who are exposing PETA's unnecessary euthanization practices in hopes of educating communities on this organizations underlying agenda. In the article Marc states that PETA euthanized 90 percent of the animals it took in last year (at a shelter in Virginia) , and quotes another journalist describing the shelter as a "slaughterhouse". Overall if you are concerned about animal rights and their well-being, think twice about supporting PETA. I once thought this was a great organization supporting a great cause, but after looking further into their practices I have definitely changed my mind. After reading a lot of misguided information from PETA I did find one thing that stands true: PETA is an organization that cares more about their image in the media than their companies ethical and moral standards, and that's a fact.