In this century using gas chambers is so barbaric and inhumane. Dogs serve humans in so many ways, K9 dogs for law enforcement, service dogs, companion animals etc., yet we can't find humane ways to euthanize them. Americans need to take hard look at our outdated barbaric ways still being used today when modern humane ways have been developed and available.

I first posted this April 28, 2006 on the Best Friends Network.
I believe it addresses the issue and , perhaps, answers the question.
Surely it did for me....
Doc wheeler
that DOGGONEGUY

Ihad to think long and hard about posting a comment about this subject as it requires baring my soul more than I am really comfortable with, but feel if it helps, I must. As I stated in my Bio,when I was a little boy I spent many of my summers working in Bay City, Michigan for my Great Uncle who was a vet there. Please understand that this was over 50 years ago and while many things in our treatment of animals have changed, sadly, some things have not.
At the time, Bay City was a small town(and may still be..I haven't been back there since that time). My Great Uncle was a very kind man, with a great compassion for animals of all kinds, who survived the Great Depression and supported his family by trading food for the table for veterinary help with the local farm animals, as well as dogs, cats, etc. He would help a mare give birth to it's foal for a couple of chickens,or perhaps a basket of vegetables in lieu of cash...a commodity which was in short supply at the time.
My duties included being up before dawn every day to clean out the kennels and feed the dogs and cats he had taken in as strays or were victims of accidents that were left on his door. My first experience with surgery was walking out the front door to find an Irish Setter laying on the stoop, dying, with an arrow stuck in him.) You can imagine the panic I felt at six or seven years old as I ran upstairs to wake up my "Uncle". He hurried down and we carried the poor dog to his crude operating room and I was told to shove my hand into the wound and stop the bleeding, hold clamps, gauze,etc. The whole time I was scared to death for the dog and trying to control myself.
I am happy to say that this dog survived and a home was found for him after he recovered, with a lot of help from the two of us. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. My Uncle found homes for many of the animals he took in, all of them as far as I knew, and several summers went by, one the same as the last.
Over all of them there was one rule that I was told to obey more than any other, that being to NEVER open the door to the small room in the back of the kennel. I did this despite my curiousity,which of course, all young boys have. And every once in a while, for no reason I could understand, my Uncle would tell me not to come into the kennnel that day to do my "work". I would notice that for a day or two after, he was a different person...moody and depressed...and wishing to be left alone.
Finally a fateful day came which to this day I wish hadn't. My curiousity, you see had finally gotten the best of me, and I broke the RULE. I went into the kennel that I had seen my Uncle go into and he wasn't there. I heard a noise coming from the room in the back and opened the door....only to watch the final moments of the scene taking place there.
My Uncle was on the edge of tears as the last dog died in a steel cylinder with a glass window in it..a chamber like the one mentioned in this story. I saw the look on the dogs face as it was trying to suck air into its' lungs and then watched it fall.
I was too stunned to react, and too young to fully understand why he was doing this horrible thing, but my relationship with him was never the same and, within a few years he passed away.
Years later I talked to my mother about this and she told me the whole truth...that despite all his efforts and his giant heart, he just couldn't find homes for all the dogs and cats he took in and couldn't afford to feed them and simply had no room in his small kennel and therefore, no choice. He hid this from me to save me from the horror of this deed that he had to perform, despite the fact that he didn't want to take the lives of the animals he loved. To those who would judge him too harshly, these were the days long before Best Friends, support groups, no kill movements, spay/nutering advocacy (it was not even thought of yet) or even modern veterinary practices.
To those of you who have never seen this device being used, I can honestly tell you I don't wish it on you. I will not elaborate further on it's cruelty, suffice it to say that if we as a state and as a nation can not eliminate this method of euthanasia from our country we are failing in our goals to end cruelty to the animals in our care.
Some things you see as a child stay with you your whole life. I know I will always be haunted by the look on that dogs face......

I would imagine anyone who doesn't think they are so bad has not seen how these poor unwanted animals die. They do not just fall asleep in death, they strangle for several minutes, sometimes they do not die and suffer this hideous murder attempt again. Watch a video before you say this is appropriate, or better yet, go to a shelter that practices this inhumane kill, watch it live, hear the struggle to survive.
Is this how you would die? Would you even subject your animals to this? Or do they die in your loving arms?

They are cruel inhumane punishment for God's living creatures Who have done nothing wrong!
They are not euthanasia,they are made to suffer to death. animals are the only innocent beinings on this earth along with human babies who are"euthanized" by Stcking apair of scissors in the back of their heads and sucking there brains out !Their little faces scrunch up in pain. Murder is the taking the kife of a defenseless person. does this statement make you uncomfortable. Not as uncomfortable as if you were stuck ina barrel and heard hissing ofthe gas turned on. How uncomfortable would you be if a pair of scissors was stuck in the back of your head and your brains sucked out.
The law makers of this land have bloody hands.

It beggars belief that such a primitive,cruel method is being used in this supposedly civilised nation.Gas chambers are hideous,for pity's sake,ban them!

It's time to ban all animal gas chambers.