This is a comment that I recently received under one of my Facebook posts:

I don’t like it either but the real blame lies with those who don’t spay/neuter, and then when their dogs do get pregnant they abandon them. Don’t shoot the messenger. I AM NOT CONDONING PUTTING DOWN ANY DOG, but if you look at what is happening it is the irresponsible behavior of the general public who continues to breed without conscious and repercussions, and those who continue to help them make it happen by buying those pups.

A: That reality doesn’t justify solely shifting the blame off of the shelters. A lot of the stuff that you said, to me, is very valid and (sadly) represents things that happen everywhere. With that being said, when people ultimately choose to abandon their animals they then pay the repercussions of that decision and whatever karmic situation unfolds for them in the future. Yes, many people are to blame for dumping dogs, irresponsibly breeding, not treating their animals as members of the family that are worth protecting, taking the easy way out in many different scenarios, etc. But they have to live with that, and that responsibility shifts the minute they give up on/dump/walk away from that animal and leave it with a shelter.

It’s a shelters job to be a shelter, to transition these dogs into a better situation and work hard to find them a good/better home. That’s their job. That’s what they are coincidentally paid to do. That’s the impression, even though we know that 75% of these shelters don’t do that even remotely to the best of their abilities. Why does this get lost with people? Quit giving pounds justifications for continuing to endlessly kill while at the same time not recognizing the (in many cases) laundry lists of things that these pounds are NOT doing in order to make themselves a more efficient and dedicated facility that really does aim to “shelter.”

You may say, well, that’s not what you’re doing–but in this case that’s exactly what you’re doing. These 5 dogs existed at the Carson shelter and were given 2 days and then killed. That is inexplicable and isn’t justified in any way no matter what the prior “owner” did. That’s not me “shooting the messenger” either, I’m not trying to argue or anything. But I do disagree with your ultimate point of just placing all of the blame in 1 direction. There’s 5 or 10 different directions that probably deserve some of that blame, and the prior owner and the shelter that impounded and ultimately killed the animal are at the top of that list. In my mind they go hand in hand. 2 wrongs are 2 wrongs. We can’t erase history and say, well, “that doesn’t count” because that dog was dumped by a person and so “the shelter had no other choice” but to kill it upon receiving that dog. They do have choices, they have options. It’s their job to create choices, to make options. Their job isn’t just to accept people’s discards and then make them disappear… And if that is the legitimate job description then the sheltering system needs to lay off the PR spin and propaganda and just embrace the fact that that’s what they are paid to do. Which they don’t, they fight that assertion tooth and nail. And there’s a major problem and discord there between a public that either doesn’t know or constantly lets them off the hook with statements like you made, which only allows them to continue to kill and not put any effort forth that is based or birthed out of trying to do something (many things) different.