100 healthy sled dogs killed due to slow business

This is what I don't get. According to the Province, this is a post on a PTSD forum from the guy who did the shooting (the operator of the company I believe):

Read more: Campbell appoints task force to investigate sled-dog deaths as Fawcett's story comes out online

If he was callous about the whole thing and didn't care that he'd made the dogs suffer, that would make sense. But he calls them his "friends" and then goes into details about the sloppy sloppy careless job he did.

I mean what did he do, let them all off leash and then start shooting at them??? How can you miss *a* TETHERED dog? How do you make the same mistake MULTIPLE TIMES? He was forced to slit their throats??? Buried one alive? WTF??

No no no no no.

No.

I'm sorry but this has nothing to do with shooting your own dog la la la.

I presume you guys wouldn't shoot your pet who was otherwise healthy just because you wanted rid???

These were healthy dogs. They were not used for meat, they weren't even working in the sense that they had served their purpose and were no longer usable.

This was just a company who couldn't bear to face the inconvenience of rehoming the dogs.

I wonder what efforts they put into it?

Definitely easier and cheaper to shoot first...

No, of course I wouldn't. On the other hand, I don't think it should be illegal to do so. Not because I think anyone SHOULD do that, but because there are real political implications to banning the humane killing of a healthy animal.

However, it is beside the point. The legal issue here is not that the dogs were shot, but that the process was blatantly inhumane. The moral issue, as you point out, is that there may well have been no real attempt to place them, and even if there was, they clearly did not consider what they would do with those living things when they didn't need them anymore before they assumed responsibility for them.

I don't think we're in disagreement . . . its just that a lot of people, including me, feel the need to clarify that we think someone is within their rights to humanely shoot a dog they own, even if we wouldn't do it and would be appalled if someone did without an exceedingly good reason.

I'm appalled, first and foremost at how inhumane this was. But not too far behind is the fact that they assumed responsibility for living things and then disposed of them like unwanted garbage, and, if they did seek help, no one was interested in helping them.

More details and some commentary:

‘Following Orders’ Never a Defense for Immoral Acts | The Moderate Voice

What I still can't believe is that this man actually said that he had PSTD because of this, and claimed compensation, when it was his own incompetence and cruelty that caused his trauma. He is traumatized because he put some of them into a mass grave alive? Whose fault, precisely, is that, sir? I may have a very negative view of your employer, but I do not believe that "bury them alive" was in your instructions, and even if it had been, you could have said "no."

Killing these otherwise healthy animals was bad enough. Killing them in way that they were killed was criminal and horrific. Going and claiming compensation because you chose to follow orders and kill them, then chose to do so in a totally inhumane way, is a level of lack of self-awareness and entitlement that I can't wrap my mind around. Not only is "following orders" not an excuse, but "following orders and then botching them" isn't an excuse either.

Urgh.

KC Dog Blog has an interesting post on this.

On working dogs, culling and stepping up to the plate - KC DOG BLOG

It says that the SPCA there denied helping them twice! And that they tried to contact a vet to put the dogs down humanely, but he declined to kill 100 healthy dogs.

Pound Dogs: Cull culture

That gives the actual play by play from the guy's application for compensation. Some of it makes more sense (and he didn't bury the dog alive) but some of it still sounds absurd.

I still don't understand why he couldn't lead them away from the others, do the piece of meat trick that he usually did. Why, after he shot the first one, wounded her and dropped the leash (understandable) didn't he securely tether them to a tree (cross-tied maybe). Why couldn't he have spread the killings out over several days so he could take longer (leading the dogs away etc).

I would come a little closer to understanding what was going through his head if he killed them all in the same go, but no, after the horror show that the first day was, after he F'd it up, he went home, slept on it for two nights and then went back to do the exact same thing again.

Is he lying about caring for the dogs? Is he really indifferent to them? Did he actually care about them and then do that? I can understand parts of it but the tenacity he exhibited in continuing to kill them when a clean kill was impossible... how after he botched one he didn't do his utmost to securely tether them (especially after he had a day to think about it)... how when the dogs started panicking he continued shooting them in front of one another, instead calling it quits for that day and when they'd calmed down started leading them away to kill them.

I just don't get it.

If I could no longer afford my dogs, and the shelter wouldnt' take them, rescues wouldn't take them, and lets pretend no one wanted all of them, then YES I would euthanize the ones left. What other options would I have? Turn them loose to die slowly, confused and alone? I wouldn't shoot them, because I don't have that skill. But shooting done right is not inhumane, just like a shot isn't humane if done wrong.