The Truth On Heart Stick Animal Shelter Killing
The Truth On Heart Stick Animal Shelter Killing.
Heart stick euthanasia is an intracardiac lethal injection. It is a barbaric and extremely inhumane way to euthanize a live un-sedated shelter animal.
According to Dr. Bonnie Beaver, a national respected veterinarian doctor and professor of veterinary medicine who is considered a euthanasia expert by the American Veterinary Medical Association. “Intracardial injections are difficult to administer effectively on fully conscious animals because, in the animal, the lungs and the heart are constantly moving.”
In heart stick euthanasia, an intracardiac lethal injection a live un-sedated shelter animal is stabbed in its heart with a needle and syringe containing sodium pentobarbital. The long needle is pounded through the chest wall and severs layers of muscle into the dog heart.
On a shelter pet that isn’t sedated or comatose prior to the stabbing into the heart, it is very hard to do because the dog’s body is in constant motion, trying not to be violently killed by the persons holding it down. It’s not uncommon for the shelter worker administering the heart stick injection to miss and accidentally punctures the lungs and causes them to fill up with fluid.
To say the least, this is a barbaric way to kill a conscious and frightened dog this day and age. Will people who are supposed to caring for homeless animals in supposed “shelters” do anything to save time and money?
This is one of the reasons I could no longer be a dog rescuer. I could not physically and emotionally step a foot into an animal shelter. In many shelters the average adoption rate is 50% adopted, 50% euthanized. We rescued as many as we could. As we walked the halls we knew those left behind may not be adopted, and would, in the next day face a tragic end. Today at Green Pets America our work is activism and education.
While many community animal shelters have stopped this brutal way to kill an animal, some shelters still do it as it saves the shelter money. These inhumane acts are complicity condoned by the elected officials that oversee our community animal shelters. The shelter Directors and staff along with our elected officials turn a blind eye to this brutal method of euthanizing live un-sedated dogs and cats.
If a third world country did this everyone would be up in arms, yet we allow this in America. This is not a compassionate way to treat a sentient being that feels pain and possesses emotions just as we human animals do.
We all know the statistics: every year America’s animal shelters kill four million dogs and cats in their care. Killing our homeless and discarded companion animals are inhumane and unnecessary in this 21st century. We are not barbarians; we are a kind and compassionate people who love our companion animals.
We hate to do it, and therefore rarely beg for donations, but frankly, non-profits cannot do their work alone. It takes a Tribe to force the powers in charge to change. Please donate to Green Pets America Charities. Help us continue to ruffle feathers, get in people’s faces, push our elected officials to the walls of truth and spread the word on this and other hidden animal shelter practices.
Together as a compassionate and unafraid tribe of animal welfare activists, we will end the barbaric practice of killing homeless shelter animals: Especially the never disclosed practices of gas chambers and heart stick injections into conscious animals, fighting for their last breath on this earth.
Please donate now to Green Pets America Charities a 12-year humanitarian all-volunteer animal welfare non-profit … dedicated to activism, education and saving the lives of shelter animals. Recognized by our home city and the State of Georgia for working for families and companion animals in need.
Thank you,
Steve Monahan
Founder, Executive Director