January 31, 2004
ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN
Each year, millions of dogs are taken by their owners to animal shelters all across the United States. The majority, close to 4 million, will end up spending the rest of their lives in cages or will be euthanized. These topics and others are the focus of Shelter Dogs, a new documentary which I caught on TV this afternoon.
Filmed over the course of 24 months, Shelter Dogs follows the owner of an upstate New York dog shelter as she and her staff navigate a world in which there are no simple solutions, and where many decisions often involve real life-and-death situations.
Truth be known, I've been overdue for a long and sustained cry, and Shelter Dogs certainly did the trick. I wept endlessly throughout the hour and fifteen minute documentary, which profiles around 10 different dogs, of which three were euthanized. The ones that made it were placed in great permanent homes. But the three that were put down cause troubling dilemmas surrounding important issues for shelters and society as a whole. For instance, if a dog consistently bites, is it ethical to adopt him or her out to the general public? If a dog aggressively guards his or her food, to the point where it snaps at anyone who approaches, can he or she be trusted in a family with children? And what about the dogs who never find homes... is it more humane for them to spend the rest of their lives in a shelter or to euthanize them?
Shelter Dogs tackles these questions and others in a tremendously dignified and compelling way. I highly recommend it to anyone who may be considering getting a dog for the first time, as well as to anyone in need of a heartwarming cry.
Posted by Mikal at January 31, 2004 11:45 PM
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