Quote Originally Posted by areias
Not wishing to get into debate over euthanasia, but it is what it is. Euthanasia is euthanasia. Whatever your thoughts on it, both a newborn and an adult will NOT know what is happening, and the older dog might even take a needle better than a puppy will.

My -personal- opinion on it in regards to shelters...and I hope I'm not bashed for this...is why spend the money and volunteer hours on a sick animal? I would rather that maybe $1000-$3000 be spent on multiple healthy animals. Yes I definately agree that a suffering animal should be taken out of a bad situation, but if it is going to cost a lot, maybe it's better to be humanely PTS to be able to help other dogs. I am saying this strictly for shelters and rescues, there are great individuals out there who do help out injured animals and that is wonderful. I hope you get what I'm saying...

I think it's harsh to say that all shelter puppies should be PTS. If that were to happen, people that want a puppy would go to other sources (BYBs and the like) and maybe not fix their animal and the cycle would continue.
The suffering I referred to was not in reference to the actual euthanasia but the emotional pain of being abused and abandonded prior to the euthanasia.

That's an excellent point about people wanting puppies and turning to back yard breeders and puppy mill sources if they can't find them at the shelters.

I completely agree that even though every individual animal is important; the resources must be used where they can do the most good for the greater number of animals.

We've had several tragic cases recently in my area in which the rescues used horribly sick and injured animals for publicity to increase their donations. One off them was an old sick starving race horse that was already down. The estimated cost of short term treatment was $10,000! Another was a dog that had been horribly injured in a fight. Short term treatment estimates were around $4000.00. Most of his body was covered in stitches and drain tubes. At the time they knew full well that those animals could not survive, yet they kept them alive as long as possible to milk the donations. In my opinion that is animal cruelty. It's even worse when it's done by those who are dedicated to saving animals from pain and suffering.

There will always be animals in need and individuals to help them. And there will always be ethical dilemmas such as those that have been discussed here. Rescue is never an easy task, nor are there any "one size fits all" solutions.