It’s highly controversial, widely held to be archaic and inhumane, but it’s still legal in Texas and the Garland animal shelter continues to use it as a preferred method of putting down unwanted animals. It’s carbon monoxide gas – the same poisonous gas your car’s exhaust puts out – only highly concentrated and about 80% of Garland’s euthanized animals die by carbon monoxide gassing.
Texas state legislators maintain that this method is necessary to enable shelters with only one or two people (generally a town Sheriff and deputy) to be able to euthanize an animal without requiring the skills necessary to effectively use the more acceptable sodium pentobarbital injection.
Garland has almost 20 people on staff, however, including animal control officers already trained in both methods of euthanasia and a full time vet, so there’s no reason for them to maintain an arguably less effective, less humane way to end an animal’s life. But they continue to insist on using the gas option, and now that they’re aware of the practice, and the controversy surrounding it, Garland residents are appalled. Petitions have been signed, comments abound on blogs and news sites, and citizens are speaking out at the Garland City Council meetings. In vain, it would appear – the Garland shelter is standing by it's questionable decision, ostensibly for the good of its employees, claiming it’s less stressful to gas an animal than it is to administer a lethal injection.
When is it NOT stressful to kill a perfectly healthy and viable companion animal? Garland’s efforts to protect their employees are likely well intentioned but misguided. Sure, gassing an animal in another room is less personal than holding it in your arms and watching the life fade from its eyes, but it can be no less traumatic to know that the animal in the gas chamber died terrified and alone, instead of in the arms of someone who truly cared and shuffled them off this mortal coil as gently and lovingly as possible.
Garland City Council needs to listen to their constituents, evaluate the merits of each solution and – above all – keep the animals’ best interests in mind when making decisions about the operations of their animal shelter.
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