Monthly Archives: June 2017

A Missouri woman got the surprise of a lifetime after she saved a pregnant dog on the euthanasia list from her local pet shelter -- and it gave birth to 18 puppies!

Mom Ashlee Holland adopted mom-to-be Ava, a golden retriever-chow mix believed to between two and four years old, from Midwest Animal ResQ in Raytown, Missouri.

"She was on the euthanasia list. She had no other choice, no other hope. I was basically her last resort along with Midwest Animal ResQ," Holland told WDAF. "No dog deserves to be put to sleep for space."

Although Holland was aware that her new rescue pet was pregnant at the time of the adoption, she didn't know quite what she was getting herself into.

"I was aware she was having puppies, but X-rays didn't show how many," Holland told the station.

Ava went into labor on June 25 and her first puppy was born at 10:02 p.m. The momma dog went on to have another four puppies within 57 minutes, according to Holland.

"She took a little break, had puppy #6, another break and then puppy #7 at 12:33 a.m.," Holland wrote on Facebook. "All signs showed that she was done having puppies as she had calmed down, wasn't having anymore contractions, and was caring for her 7 new babies."

The next morning, however, Holland and her family would learn that Ava was anything but 'done.'

"Ava got cleaned up and taken care of and her bedding was changed and we called it a night, only to wake up to 8 more puppies!!! We were now at 15!" she wrote. "I had to tend to my kids and get them ready for summer school and came back to find out she had given birth to another 3 pups!"

In total, Ava gave birth to 18 healthy and adorable puppies, all of which Holland's 9-year-old son named after Kansas City Royals players.

See photos of the pups:

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Ava and her 18 puppies

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"We got Ned Yost, Dayton Moore, Buck O'Neil. We got Esky, Royal," she said. "It's heaven. Puppy pile, you can't get any better than that."

Holland told WDAF that rescuing animals has always been a passion of her's and that this entire experience has simply left her over the moon.

"It's overwhelming. It's incredible. I didn't just save one life, I saved 19," Holland said. "It's amazing."

Holland said Ava and her puppies will be ready for adoption in approximately eight weeks, pending medical examinations.

Anyone interested in either adopting a puppy or helping Holland care for them can click here.

More from AOL.com: Puppy pics could be the key to help reignite your marriage's flame 17-year-old dog adopted after family dropped it off at a shelter Dog honored after helping cancer survivor owner emerge from coma 3 days early

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Woman adopts pregnant dog on euthanasia list that gives birth to 18 puppies - AOL

Physician-assisted suicide is facing New Yorks high court, with a ruling due sometime this summer. We can already see the inherent doublespeak that is far too common among supporters of legalizing physician-assisted suicide.

In U.S. News & World Report, attorney Edwin Schallert, the representative of an advocacy group known as End of Life Choices New York, literally said, We dont view this as suicide Its a medically and ethically appropriate treatment. Schallert and his associates, as reported in Newsday, prefer to use the term aid in dying.

Here is the problem. Aid in dying implies that the individual requesting the treatment wants to die. The aid that is being procured is the result of that desire. When someone does not request aid in dying but receives aid in dying anyway, we call that euthanasia or murder.

The intent is clearly what differentiates these two situations, and, to be fair, advocates of physician-assisted suicide understand this. Perhaps they do not understand how their policies can be abused to cover up murder, but very few people would ever advocate that any type of aid in dying should be received by someone who does not want to die and did not request that aid.

However, using the language of aid in dying and operating under the assumption that this aid is only to be provided when the individual with the terminal illness explicitly requests it brings the defender of physician-assisted suicide into yet another explicit contradiction about the situational acceptability of suicide.

When a particular individual is requesting aid in dying, presumably this individual is not able to do it him- or herself. Suicide is an epidemic-level problem in our society today, and with productions like 13 Reasons Why influencing teenagers all over our country, it is obvious that many people do commit suicide without any assistance from anyone else.

Again, though, we need to look at the intent of this situation. We consider an intentional, self-inflicted death to be a suicide in all other situations, but in this particular case, Schallert wants to call this particular act anything but a suicide. Therefore, euthanasia advocates chose the much more positive-sounding aid in dying. This is supposed to be seen as something that helps people get where they want to be. For an individual who is voluntarily seeking out physician-assisted suicide, the end target is death.

The previously mentioned contradiction is rather blatant. It says suicide is permissible in certain situations, and we might call it something else, such as aid in dying. However, it is still a form of suicide based on the fact that an individual is seeking to terminate his or her own life. That is the definition we use for suicide in every other context.

Society teaches it is unacceptable for someone to choose to terminate his or her life when he or she is a teenager enduring bullying and sometimes horrific harassment from peers. In these situations, we provide counselors to help these individuals overcome their suicidal tendencies, and this is a good thing without a doubt.

That same society, by affirming physician-assisted suicide, is teaching that it is acceptable for someone to choose to terminate his or her own life, most commonly in cases of terminal illness. The suicidal tendencies in these individuals minds are apparently not wrong as, rather than bring in the professional counselors to try to help these people overcome their suicidal thoughts, they are allowed to act on them. They want to commit suicide, so because of their particular situation in life, it is somehow magically acceptable to basically not bother trying to prevent this decision.

This contradiction is exactly why Schallert and his camp cannot allow physician-assisted suicide to be called suicide, as it really ought to be classified. The minute they admit that it is suicide, they have to answer the above contradiction, and there is no good reason for saying that one life is valuable and worth support while another life is not. There is no legitimate reason for saying that a teenager needs counseling while saying an elderly, terminal cancer patient does not. One life is clearly seen as valuable and worth preserving, while another is not. It is hard to simultaneously affirm that we believe in equality yet not provide everyone the same supports.

How far do you think any type of physician-assisted suicide legislation would get if it were not covered in doublespeak? Proponents speak about being compassionate, but they are actually agents involved in dehumanizing individuals with terminal illness.

For all of the talk about death with dignity, it is interesting that these individuals are deprived of the human dignity we give to any other individual contemplating suicide. Because they have inherent value as human beings, we seek to help them overcome these destructive tendencies and affirm the value in their lives. By acknowledging physician-assisted suicide for the suicide that it really is, we are stripping these individuals of the dignity they naturally deserve. They deserve our best efforts to help them affirm the value of their own life, just like any other individual who seems to be moving towards suicide.

Helping any suicidal individual to choose life is a true affirmation of the dignity of each person no matter what. Aid in dying and its associated euphemisms do just the opposite and destroy human dignity.

Originally posted here:

Why It's Incoherent To Support Euthanasia And Oppose Suicide - The Federalist

A man on Wednesday approached the Rajasthan State Human Rights Commission (RSHRC) and sought permission for euthanasia, alleging that doctors at a government hospital here had refused to carry out an orthopaedic surgery on him as he was an HIV patient.

RSHRC chairman Justice Prakash Tatia, however, has assured him that the commission would look into the matter and arrange for his surgery as soon as possible.

According to the patient, admitted in the orthopaedic ward of MG Hospital here since June 17, the doctors had expressed the need for a surgery in his hips based on an MRI report.

But when they learnt that I am an HIV positive after the blood test, they have been constantly avoiding the surgery. They said that the arrangement of the kit and other material related to surgery would take about a month-and-a-half to arrive, the patient alleged.

He said that he was admitted for surgery twice before but then too, he was discharged the moment doctors learnt about his being HIV positive in order to avoid surgery.

The acting superintendent of the hospital, Ajay Malviya, said that he did not have knowledge of any such issue.

If a complaint is given to us, we will get it enquired, said Malviya.

Dinesh Joshi, the president of the Jodhpur Network for Positive People, a non-profit organisation working for the HIV positive, said that people with HIV had been facing this problem since long and warned that if the issue was not resolved, the organisation would stage a demonstration.

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HIV patient in Jodhpur seeks nod for euthanasia | india-news ... - Hindustan Times

When cow-calf producers talk about the need to euthanize an animal, their first thoughts turn to those that are sick or injured and whether the animal is likely to recover. If it hasnt responded to care and is suffering, then there is really no other option.

This decision isnt made lightly, as Dr. Melissa Moggy learned from interviews with 15 producers as part of a larger research project for her masters of veterinary medical science at the University of Calgary.

Many cow-calf producers rely on advice from their veterinarians and some have their veterinarian do the euthanasia. The final call, however, is entirely in producers hands.

It would be remiss not to consider whether an animal is still strong and healthy enough to be transported to a local abattoir or packing plant. Concerns in this situation revolve around meat quality, withdrawal times for medications, the animals well-being and the likelihood of it arriving in adequate condition.

Producers tend to think of an animals ability to freely access feed and water as a good indicator of its quality of life. It follows then that animals most likely to be euthanized on the farm are those with a broken leg or unable to stand.

Cow-calf producers spend a lifetime caring for animals, so its not surprising euthanasia is a topic they dont talk much about even though its almost inevitable when raising cattle. So Moggy wasnt surprised that this was a sensitive subject for many producers, and some acknowledged it was a topic that should be discussed, and an area of weakness for them.

The 15 were drawn from 84 producers who responded to Moggys full-length questionnaire exploring management practices associated with pain and stress in cattle. All are participants in the Western Canadian Cow-Calf Surveillance Network, a collaborative effort between the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon and University of Calgary faculty of veterinary medicine to recruit cow-calf herds representative of the sector across the Prairies for the purposes of gaining insight into production practices through surveys such as hers.

The weakness overall wasnt with the methods chosen for humane euthanasia of an animal. Those are clearly laid out in the Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Beef Cattle (the beef code). The shortcoming showed up in how they confirmed insensibility and death. Most used at least one approved method to confirm death, but only a quarter of them followed the beef codes required process in its entirety.

Of the 73 producers who said theyd euthanized an animal in 2014, 68 per cent followed up by checking for breathing, 62 per cent checked the corneal reflex, 47 per cent checked for heartbeat, 38 per cent checked for limb movement, 15 per cent checked for vocalization, seven per cent checked jaw tone, and eight per cent didnt do any of these. Producers were allowed more than one answer to this question.

The updated beef code offers guidance on this subject.

The first step is to confirm insensibility during the several minutes it takes for respiration and cardiac activity to cease. An insensible animal wont blink when the eyeball is touched. Signs that an animal is not insensible include eye movement, vocalizing and attempts to lift its head or get up.

Confirming death by checking for both heartbeat and respiration is important whether an animal has been euthanized or presumed dead from natural or accidental causes. Feel or listen for a heartbeat in the left lower chest area, just behind the elbow. An insensible animal may have slow and erratic breathing as respiration and chest movement come to a stop.

It was surprising, too, that approximately 13 per cent of the 84 producers had not euthanized any animals on the farm that year.

On the optimistic side, it could mean that they had no sick or injured cattle, or they shipped them while they could still make the journey, says Dr. Claire Windeyer, who supervised Moggys research.

What I worry about is producers might be letting animals die naturally or shipping unfit cattle. I dont think anyone would do this intentionally. In the case of natural deaths, they may be reluctant to euthanize a favourite cow, hoping it will recover. In the case of unfit cattle, they may be unaware of how stressful the trip might be or not recognize the fitness of the animal to travel. Either way, we need more dialogue in the industry on the need to euthanize animals on the farm.

Several studies evaluating the well-being of cattle arriving at packing plants indicate there is still room for improvement. The beef codes transportation section includes an appended illustration of the decision tree and lameness descriptions for handy reference when evaluating whether animals are fit, compromised or unfit for transport.

There are three issues surrounding on-farm euthanasia: timeliness, doing it properly, and making sure you do it properly by confirming insensibility and death.

Timeliness is related to the practice of culling mature animals before health issues or failing body condition are apt to become a concern, as well as dealing with animals that are sick or injured.

Windeyer gives an example of a downer cow after a difficult calving. If the cow keeps trying to get its back end underneath itself to stand, its a good sign that the nerves are still working and it still has the ability to use its muscles. On the other hand, if the hind end is completely paralyzed due to muscle death from being compressed by the weight of the cow over time, or the cow takes a turn for the worse despite your best nursing efforts, euthanasia may be the best choice for the well-being of the cow. The animal is unlikely to recover once the muscles die.

When a cow is down, euthanasia needs to be done early enough to prevent suffering, but not too soon so as not to give the animal a chance of recovery. As long as you are providing feed and water and a soft place for the animal to lay while you nurse them along, thats not neglect. My rule of thumb is that Ill keep trying as long as the animal keeps trying, Windeyer says, adding that producers should discuss the prognosis for recovery in each individual case with their veterinarian.

Understanding the proper way to carry out euthanasia may help make the process easier. The beef code outlines the requirements for the use of gunshot and captive bolt guns for calves and mature cattle. Approved euthanasia drugs are acceptable only when given by veterinarians.

The beef code stipulates that non-ambulatory cattle must not be dragged or forced to move before euthanasia, that euthanasia must be performed by competent personnel, and that the equipment must be maintained according to manufacturers instructions to ensure it functions properly. Further suggestions include use of the safest and least stressful method of restraint when animals must be restrained and asking your veterinarian about the use of sedation for unmanageable or aggressive cattle.

When deciding on whats best in your situation, consider human safety, animal welfare, your skill level, carcass disposal and the potential need for brain tissue for diagnostic purposes.

The beef code is available on the National Farm Animal Care Councils website, http://www.nfacc.ca. To receive a hard copy contact the Canadian Cattlemens Association, 403-275-8558, or your provincial affiliate.

Originally posted here:

Talking about euthanasia - Canadian Cattlemen