Euthanasia vs Execution of Companion Animals Continued

I thought I would follow up on some of the comments from last week. This are in no particular order, I am just throwing my thoughts out there.
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Neva Vegan:

"Dogs don't process time and conditions in the same way we do. So for a dog,
being in a cell all day long is torture. He wouldn't know why he was there, he
wouldn't realize he'd hurt anyone, he wouldn't be able to read or study for his
GED. His whole existence would be staring at the walls, bored and lonely"

This is such a good point and I cannot believe I have never considered it that way. Even a dog that has an absolute hatred for humans (and I have seen dogs like this) doesn't realize that the way s/he is acting is wrong. They are just following their instinct.

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Gary:

"Resource constraints aside, I believe a "doggie prison" could be constructed in such a way that it would be worlds better than execution. We have seen countless times that even the most hardened and violent individuals can change drastically with love and guidance. Doesn't everyone deserve a chance? This seems like the compassionate ideal we should strive to achieve. They say the pen is mightier than the sword; kindness - not to be confused with passivity - may be mightier still."

Gary, although I do think this is a fantastic idea, I am still not sure about it. I am not sure that the most hardened criminals can "get better". Unfortunately, I don't know much about serial killers or rapists, so my thoughts may be weak. I know I have heard or read some where that many of the criminals I speak of are mentally ill. Or were abused (Ed Gein, Jeffery Dahmer) and Neva Vegan mentioned this as well. This is also why I am so against the death penalty.

Gary:

"In the case of human executions, I also often detect a feeling of retribution, and I feel that ultimately perpetuates our violent nature rather than eases it."

You have summed this up so much better than I could have. This is why I will never agree with the death penalty. Even survivors who have watched their son/daughter/husband's murderer be executed have said it didn't provide the closure they were looking for.

It is an odd thought that nurture can have so much to do with it. We often talk about socialization of puppies. Poor socialization is often what may lead to an aggressive dog. Why wouldn't it be the same for humans?

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Neva Vegan:

"I have worked with a lot of animals that were called "monsters" by other people, and while I have met some animals with aggression problems that couldn't be fixed, I've never seen anything in an animal that remotely resembled a human psychopath.

You are very lucky then Neva Vegan. I can think of at least three dogs that something was very wrong with them. One of these dogs was Yoda, who I personally had to escort to the bridge. It is a very hard thing to explain, but these dogs just had something missing in their eyes. It was like a completely blank look. I don't know what it was caused by, but it was scary as hell.

Nearly all the animals that I encountered had fear-aggression, which means that if they feel threatened they sometimes attack. That threat might be something we would not view as a threat, like getting too close or trying to pet them, even maybe being in the same room with an animal who has been severely abused."

Razz (one of my foster dogs) has severe fear aggression. She was terribly abused. We have done a lot of work with her, a lot of counter conditioning along with lots of positive reinforcement training and she is so much better than she was when she first arrived. Something in her will always be on "trigger", as she is very territorial. But as any one who has met her knows, she is fantastic. I train with a clicker. Maybe I will do a post on it some time! ;)

"A few have had fear aggression plus food aggression. Food aggression is 'don't get between me and my food or else.'"

Yoda was also very food aggressive and we did have some success with him, but unfortunately there was too much else going on to hope for a successful rehabilitation.

"Human psychopaths hurt people because they enjoy hurting people and lack the capacity to feel empathy, so they attack without feeling threatened or really having any trigger at all."

This is also an interesting thought. I know that a lot of the interviews that I have read with or about serial killers indicate that they were delusional. One I can think of was a disorder that causes a person to believe they had a relationship with some one (usually some one famous) that didn't exist. The whole relationship was built on one simple smile or wave or an autograph. This is apparently a very common delusion in stalkers. Could it be said that even though we may not recognize a trigger, it may be a trigger for that delusional individual?

Euthanasia vs Execution of Companion Animals

This post has stemmed from a discussion on a forum which I am very active. It got me thinking and we all know how dangerous that is.

The discussion sort of centered around the difference between euthanizing an animal and executing an animal. In other words, helping an animal to die when it is sick or putting an animal to sleep because it has bit or is deemed aggressive. It is also important to note that we also execute animals simply because we don't have enough people to take care of the animals that exist now. Please think about this the next time you think about buying a puppy.

I have mentioned before that I am against the death penalty. I do recognize that people who are in prison and have broken the law have given up many of their rights. Most especially the right to freedom. (I don't want this to turn into a discussion on prisoners rights, so roll with me here). As citizens, regardless of political beliefs, we expect people to behave in a certain manner. Or maybe it would be more correct to say, we expect people to not do certain things. For instance, we expect people not to murder people. We expect people not to rape people. When you perform these acts, you have lost the right to be integrated with society.

What if it is a companion animal? What if s/he has bitten or killed some one? Would it be safe to say that animal no longer has the right to be integrated in our society? I have discussed in the past that I have seen dogs that were aggressive that were simply born that way. (A video of an eight week old puppy that bit a human on the face comes to mind). These dogs are not wired correctly and will not get better with time. A dog that shows that much aggression at such a young age is going to get worse and more dominant as s/he gets older. The question then arises, what do we do with these dogs? There isn't a doggie prison (as far as I know, feel free to correct me if I am wrong) where delinquent dogs can be sent for a life sentence. Because of the overpopulation problem that humans have created with companion animals there aren't even enough homes for all the sweet dogs in the world. What have we done?

The other interesting point that this brings me to comes back to prisoners. If dogs can be "not wired right" isn't it possible that humans could be "born that way" as well? If so, is there a solution for imprisonment of these types of criminals? I don't know if it would have been possible to reform a killer like Jeffrey Dahmer.

The whole topic gets even more frightening from this point on. If we can say that humans are born with an urge to kill (or what ever we want to call it), I am sure some one will try and find that gene, isolate it, and some how abuse power and kill all people with said gene.

I am kind of all over the place tonight. Again, this post puts a bunch of questions out there and not a lot of answers. I am interested to hear every ones views on this.