A tragic story about Target, a hero dog that was killed in error by a worker in an animal shelter, caught my attention.  The story brought to mind my uneasiness with state sponsored killings of all sorts. Additionally, I was intrigued by the way words shape narratives, in this case “euthanize” and “kill.”

Target was a war hero. She was a stray dog who survived gun shots and explosions in Afghanistan.  She and two other strays, befriended by U. S. soldiers, deterred a suicide bomber wearing explosives. They barked at and bit the attacker, and in the process spared the lives of large numbers of soldiers. One of the dogs was killed. Target and Rufus, the other dog that survived with the assistance of aid workers, were taken to the U. S. to live with soldiers who had helped care for them in Afghanistan.

Target became famous after appearing on the Oprah Winfrey show.  Unfortunately, last week, Target escaped from her backyard. She didn’t have on identification tags nor did she have an identification microchip implanted in her. Someone found the dog and called animal control. While Target’s family continued to search for her, she entered the institutional dog shelter system. Through a series of missteps, the owners didn’t get to the shelter  in time.

“Euthanize” and “kill” have been used to shape alternative Target narratives. “Euthanize” and its related terms, “put down,” and “put to sleep ”(or “PTS”) are more comforting, “kill” or “execute” more disturbing.   In Target’s case, the later terms are more descriptive of the case.  Target wasn’t suffering.  She wasn’t in physical distress. She wasn’t aggressive. She didn’t have any severe behavioral problems, and she wasn’t a threat to other people or animals.

Euthanize: Policy Implications

The deconstructed word euthanasia is “good,” “gentle” or “easy” death derived from the Greek. It typically refers to the painless killing of a suffering person or animal which either has an incurable, painful disease, or is in a permanent coma. While Euthanasia is generally considered to be illegal as it applies to humans, it is considered to be humane as it applies to animals.

According to the Humane Society of the United States(an animal-rights activist organization), about 39% of U. S. households have at least one dog. The total number of dogs living with their families is about 77.5 million. Many suffering pets are euthanized near the end of their lives at the request of their families for some combination of merciful and financial reasons.  At some point, additional medical treatment may not be practical, or families cannot afford the treatments. In the hands of caring families and responsible veterinarians, “euthanize” is an option which may be in the spirit of the original sense of the word, especially when it involves a critically ill animal. It frequently involves a tearful last goodbye.

In the hands of governmental agencies, the situation is much more problematic. Societal castoffs are objectified and eliminated.  Target was caught in this machine.

Each year, 6 to 8 million dogs and cats enter shelters–of which 3 to 4 million are “euthanized,” many of which are good natured, healthy animals. Communities make political decisions about how much money will be spent maintaining animals that enter shelters, and unless rescue societies and adopters take the responsibilities for these animals, many are quickly put to death.

Euthanize: Human Implications

Currently, there is a firewall between the way “euthanize” is thought of in the animal and human worlds. In the canine world, the creature is completely in the hands of humans who are presumably acting in the creature’s best interest, the society’s best interest or some combination of both.  In practice, there are many institutional flaws, as the fate of Target reveals.

In the human world, the situation is different. “Euthanize” is frequently characterized as being voluntary, non-voluntary or involuntary. While “euthanasia” is usually considered criminal if done actively, it may not be considered criminal if accomplished through passive methods. The criminalization of voluntary human euthanasia is breaking down. (See the NYT Topics page.)

As the battle for resources continues, I wonder what will happen to the less fortunate. How many resources will be devoted to them and what will happen when resources run out? Will practices from the animal world migrate to the human world? Will humans become objectified as resources become strained? What structures will be in place to deal with these decisions? What will the criteria be? Will the criteria be different for rich and poor?  What entities will be charged with making these decisions?

PS: My Black Lab Beau

I think about these matters as a lover of dogs and specifically of the dog in this snapshot, Beau, my Black Lab. He is a loyal companion.  He is somewhere between two to three years old. Unlike Target, he has been saved. He was taken to a shelter by animal control because he wasn’t being given adequate food and water.

Labs4Rescue, an animal rescue organization, took responsibility for him. He was placed in a foster home where he was nursed back into good health and cared for. Eventually, my wife and I adopted him, and he now is part of our family. Fortunately, for him and us, he wasn’t killed by a shelter. In this instance, Beau was able to escape a “good death” through the efforts of an animal rescue organization and my family. There was a successful hand-off from government to public to private.

Civic engagement helps address serious problems.  Inattention and the sloppy use of words frustrate such engagement.

In my research, I work with military veterans who served in Iraq. For them, this Veterans Day was not a day for parades, but for political action and protests. It may be that many service members find themselves questioning the strategies and tactics of Pentagon privately, but these veterans represent the minority of active duty and former service members who publicly criticize the military.

Protesting in this way has caused them difficulties. Speaking against the military is taboo. Breaking the “code of silence” to talk about abuse and brutality among their fellow service members is a betrayal.

Thinking about the polarizing discourse around the military, I wonder how discussions about means and ends in war can ever achieve any depth. Our portrayal of those who serve in the military remains split between, on the one hand, blanket condemnation of the savagery of men who glorify killing and domination, and, on the other, unqualified, unabashed reverence for the honor and sacrifice of those who serve.

The veterans who I work with struggle between these two extremes. In the US, national discourse has taken an uncomfortable swing toward the latter depiction – any criticism of service members is impolitic, for the left and the right.

But the idealization of soldiers denies the much more ambiguous experience of the men and women who serve.

We should not confuse the economic and personal need that leads many men and women to enlist with the idealism of sacrifice. We should not forget that service members are flawed, just like the rest of us.

That sometimes they act bravely, and other times they act out of fear; sometimes with compassion and other times with cruelty; that they, like anyone, operate in an arena of uncertainty and ambiguity.

Somehow we never fail to be astounded by the My Lais and the Abu Ghraibs, and we insist that they result from bad apples, since it is easier to believe that there are clearly friends and enemies, the good and the bad, right and wrong.

“The distinctive characteristic of practical activity, one which is so inherent that it cannot be eliminated, is the uncertainty which attends it.”  This, as John Dewey wrote in The Quest for Certainty, leads us to construct a fortress of the very things that threaten us with this uncertainty. War is perhaps the most practical of activities, even if we believe it to be irrational.

For military service members today, the “rules of war,” an almost satirical attempt to impose a degree of order in the chaos that is the field of war, can no longer be defined by the strictures of battle lines and uniforms. War has come to better reflect the reality of conflict, where friend and enemy cannot be reduced to an easy dichotomy.

Yet, the desire for certainty remains strong. The film, The Hurt Locker, might have avoided the politics of war, but it brilliantly captured the intoxication of war – both in the physical rush of adrenaline and the psychological security of holding a meaningful role in the world.

It is certainly simpler to construct the world into friends and enemies, heroes and villains. Military service members are certainly not alone in this endeavor. What prevents us from seeing that we’re building the fortress of righteousness out of very wrongness that threatens us?

For me, the issue is not whether the ends justify the means, but how we might live with the uncertainty that there never is an end.