I have been asked my opinion about this quite often these past few days. It is sad and horrible, to be sure, but some perspective is required here. 70 to 100 dogs is a lot of animals. Killing them as ‘humanely’ as possible with gun and knife and rock is brutal at best. Creatures don’t die easy, not nearly as easy as Disney or other programs would have you believe. The will to live is strong and the kill shot different for each and every individual. That the person who fulfilled this gruesome task has emotional issues nearly a year later demonstrates at least some remorse and his personal torture fits his crime against nature, but what about the cowardly CEO who issued the order? maybe a slap on the wrist or a loss of a few dollars. There is the real criminal in all this.

But some perspective outside of this huge concern for these dogs is needed. First the dogs would have been very difficult to sell. They are working dogs, not couch potatoes. Second no good veterinarian worth their salt would put down healthy animals. Third the dog lot had 300 dogs I understand. A lot of mouths to feed and without much work difficult to control and maintain. Something had to be done. This is not new thinking. It happens in any domestic herd humans control. How many animals are killed for burgers and our tables? How many horses for foreign tables? Goats for feasts? What is humane about their execution? Our dinner table today is so far removed from what actually happens before we carve the roast.

Hard decisions were made concerning this dog sled operation. Awful decisions that if not attended to would have led to starvation and other issues when cost benefit sums would be addressed. Perhaps then after months of suffering with disease, both mental and physical, the vets would have come in and done the dirty work. What bothers me the most, is that the one responsible, the owner of the operation should have done it himself, one by one and face to face. But this is generally not the nature of CEO’s. They make these oh so hard decisions, but farm out the actual action of their decision to someone else. They should do their own dirty work like giving pink slips to thousands of workers one by one and face to face, or telling retired investors that they have lost their life savings one by one and face to face. Business leaders have it far too easy in my book.

Then there is the perspective that I wish we would give the same attention and concern to the 16-20,000 children who unneccessarily die every day in this world. We have plenty of food and medicine to prevent this. We waste, throw away, discard and let rot more food and medicines than it would take to solve this problem. And we don’t. Not even a little bit. It does not make profit to give it all away, better to waste, throw away or burn it than save people’s lives with it. Some day an accounting will come, not by some supernatural being, but rather by the oppressed against their oppressors.The world is messed up. When has it ever not been so?