Posts tagged "euthanasia"

Erica Daniel, a Florida woman who fosters dogs that need extra care, saved a pit-bull puppy from the trash and nursed it back to health from a debilitating, life-threatening medical condition.

11-week-old Harper was born with a condition called pectus excavatum, more commonly know as "swimmer puppy disorder," according to NBC's "Today." Puppies afflicted with the disorder lie flat on their chests with their arms splayed out, resembling a swimmer in mid-stroke. Most puppies with pectus excavatum don't survive, and Harper herself came very close to being put down before Daniel stepped in.

Daniel had not originally intended to keep Harper alive, but simply to give the puppy one day of love and affection before she had to be euthanized. "I had to show her what it was like to be loved," Daniel said. But as she spent the day with Harper and massaged the puppy's limbs, the deformed dog began to respond and quickly show signs of improvement.

Instead of putting Harper down, Daniel had a vet perform a closer inspection, only to find that the pup was indeed far healthier than first thought. No longer doomed, Harper has received massage therapy and hydrotherapy. Now, only 11 weeks later, she's walking on her own four feet.

"She's a walking miracle," says Bev McCartt, Harper's physical therapist. "She's a real testament to a dog's determination to get up and just go."

It's traumatic enough to have to put your dog down. it's even more shocking to wake up and find the animal you thought was dead still sitting at its food bowl the next day, waiting for you to feed it.

When his 10-year-old rottweiler, Mia, suffered from a debilitating spinal issue that let her barely able to walk, Matt Olivarez made the tough decision to put his faithful friend down. Sure he was making the right decision, Olivarez took his suffering friend to the Westcott Veterinary Care Center for her lethal injection.

After saying his final goodbyes, Olivarez took Mia's body home for a fitting burial. However, before he could get her in the ground, the pouch shrugged off her blanket and greeted Matt when he arrived home from work the next morning. Mia was reportedly waiting at her bowl to be fed, just like nothing had happened.

"For her to just wake up the next morning is very crazy," Olivarez told the Detroit News. "I watch scary movies. It was like a scene from 'Pet Sematary.'"

Every year, six to eight million unwanted cats and dogs enter shelters in the U.S., and three to four million are euthanized according to the animal welfare organization Found Animals.

Now American billionaire Gary Michelson -- a surgeon who has invented hundreds of patented medical devices and procedures -- has decided to tackle the problem with $75 million of his own cash!

Through the organization he created, Found Animals, Michelson is offering $50 million in research grants to scientists with promising approaches for inexpensive, one-dose, surgery-free methods of sterilizing cats and dogs. The first team to succeed in creating a sterilant that works in both dogs and cats, male and female, will walk away with $25 million in prize money, Shirley Johnston, director of scientific research for Found Animals, tells Paw Nation.

Why the need for non-surgical sterilization? Spaying and neutering is important, but the procedures alone can't solve the huge animal overpopulation problem. Surgical sterilization is expensive and it requires access to anesthesia and proper veterinary facilities. That's not practical in many rural areas of the U.S., let alone in the developing world.

"China may have 150 million dogs, and very few are sterilized. India has 30 million street dogs," Andrew Rowan, chief scientific officer of the Human Society of the United States [HSUS], tells Paw Nation. "In places like India and Africa, there's an active rabies problem; in India, for example, there are 20,000 [human] deaths to rabies every year."

In addition to human health impacts and the tax burden of keeping stray animals in check, animals themselves suffer from overpopulation. Rowan estimates that as many as one to two million of the cats and dogs euthanized in the U.S. each year are healthy and adoptable. And around the world, millions of nuisance strays are shot or poisoned, Science magazine reports.

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