Please, DA Secretary Alcala: No to AO 21
I have been informed that the Department of Agriculture has asked the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), through PAWS director Anna Cabrera, for a copy of the press release on “No to tambucho gassing of dogs.”
We continue to wait, and hope, that Secretary Alcala will respond favorably by recalling AO 21. This will immediately stop the implementation of AO 21. It will also allow the Committee on Animal Welfare (CAW), the committee that recommended AO 21 for approval, to re-study the methods of putting down animals in pounds.
I have been writing about AO 21, which specifies the forms of euthanasia for dogs and cats. The AO allows for the gassing (or tambucho gassing, to be exact — gassing the dogs to death with the use of car exhaust fumes), as a form of euthanasia.
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“Tambucho-gassing is not euthanasia,” said Luis M. Buenaflor, Jr. director for operations and external affairs, Animal Kingdom Foundation, Inc. (AKF). “Euthansia is supposed to be a humane way of putting down an animal. Tambucho gassing is simple cruelty.”
PAWS, Compassion and Responsibility for Animals (CARA) and AKF recently held a presscon to denounce the said AO.
In the tambucho-gassing method, seven or 10 dogs are crammed into a metal box, which is then sealed. The fully-conscious dogs break into a frenzy of wails and panicky scratching as the hose is connected from the running vehicle’s exhaust pipe to the metal box.
As soon as the fumes enter the box, the dogs’ whimper and howls of pain rise to a crescendo. Their struggles to get out of the box is clearly heard by anyone standing outside.
The noise emanating from the metal box indicates that for the duration of a full 10 minutes, the dogs feel every pain possible before they stop struggling and finally expire.
This method is currently being done on a weekly basis in some provinces with the use of improvised gas chambers — using exhaust fumes from whatever type of government vehicle is available.
Animal welfare groups want the inhumane method outlawed.
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The humane method would be to inject the dog or cat with sodium pentobarbital (brand name: Euthal), by well-trained and caring personnel. It is the preferred method for providing the most humane death for dogs and cats. Injection of barbiturates is also included in the said AO.
Some have argued that this method as just going to be used on City Pound dogs that have no budgets for Euthal, and that this was certainly not going to be used by private veterinary practitioners.
“The suffering of a pound dog is the same as the suffering of a dog seen by a veterinary practitioner should it undergo tambucho-gassing,” said Nancy Cu Unjieng, president of CARA. “Suffering and pain to be endured by sentient animals to be tambucho-gassed is main contention of animal advocates.”
“If we need to put a dog to death because he cannot be cared for, the least we can do is send him off as painlessly and as humanely as possible,” added Anna Cabrera, PAWS program director.
The three animal welfare groups request that:
• DA Secretary Proceso Alcala retract approval of the Administrative Order on Euthanasia of Animals until it excludes tambucho-gassing.
• The new administration consider animal welfare in its current programs. Animal welfare is connected to human welfare and will benefit overall public health. The new administration must, at the very least, complement their catch-and-kill method with low-cost spay-neuter programs for poor pet owners so that it can come up with a permanent, long-term solution to stopping stray overpopulation.“Spay” for female dogs and cats and “neuter” for males are veterinary surgeries done to keep pets from reproducing. These are methods proven to be healthy for the animals and proven to help put a stop to the uncontrollable increase in reproduction that leads to the continuous killings.
