how tech has take over jobs in during the covid period and is it ethical.

Reflective Project Essay

Introduction

We see that Americans love their pets as if they were their children because pets can be a big part of your life and your best friend. Pets are loyal to you and teach you so much about patience, love, and care. So we as caring people take care of them because they take care of us on a daily basis. Until that one day where we have to learn to let go and let them rest in peace. Yet, most people can’t let go of them and try to keep them alive for an extra few months or even weeks to live, having them suffer through the pain that we can’t feel. Veterinarians are always there to console you when your pet has reached the end of their life. They offer advice and help transition your pet to its end of life stage comfortably. They also need to make sure that the decision-making process is also well thought out with themselves and the pet owner. The ethical dilemma many people face is whether it is the right thing to spend thousands of dollars to let your pet suffer for a few more months, or work with a veterinarian and have a decision-making process where you can listen to all the options and have a final decision. The veterinary industry can design effective strategies by providing professional, emotional, and mental care and counseling through the decision-making process and being more collaborative between them and their client through end-of-life care. As of 2020, Americans have estimated to spend around 99 billion dollars on their pets. Depending on which type of pet you have, this will determine on how much you spend on them throughout their life. Within the veterinary industry, veterinarians have to care, cure, and help animals in order for them to live a comfortable life. At times veterinarians are put into situations where certain animals or pets are unable to care for and have no other choice but to put down once it is the pet’s time. As a pet owner myself, this topic interests me because at some period in time I would have to be put through this situation with my pet. Veterinarians have to also commit to and deal with the emotional damage these pet owners have after this loss and have to come to a solution on what would be best for them in terms of counseling and what is best for their pets.

Why should you care?

People should care about this the same way they care about their pets. As pet owners, for the same reasons why they care for and worry for their pets' health, life, and comfortability, it should also be their responsibility to make sure their pet passes away calmly and comfortably with loved ones around them. People consider pets to be a part of their families and like one of their children. Having to put your pet down can have the same emotional impact as those if a family member would have passed away. You would not want one of your loved ones to be suffering, because you want to help them as much as you can. So you take them to the hospital because you instinctively are aware that those people are professionals and know what they are doing in order to help that person. In situations like so, people have the ability to express how they feel, and how much pain they are in since they are able to do so. In order to express how you feel, but when this idea comes to animals, this variable is ignored in the case that animals cannot support themselves with words and do not have that ability to speak to others and let others know about the pains that they have to go through. Leaving many to only assume that their animal is okay, and can live normally and comfortably no matter what they have gone through. Though when your pet is sick you also automatically know to call or run to the vet because you see that they are in pain. You know that they have more knowledge about the situation and can help them with immediate care. This goes back to how their opinion also matters and knowing what is best for your pet. Even though it might not be the choice that you want, it's the ethical thing to do. Though you may be emotional and irrational, many should learn that it is the best thing to do for the animal. Many should learn and teach how this decision makes the animal happy.

A study

This article is a study comparing veterinarians' and the pet owners' views on the veterinary clients with decision making. There are three primary approaches when it comes to medical decision-making which is paternalistic, shared, and informed. Paternalistic means that the veterinarians are the ones making the decision for the client on what would be medically the best option. This is a one-directional communication since it is one person doing the final decision. In a shared role, the decision is made by the veterinarian and the pet owner making one decision together meaning there is no dominance and each has their thoughts. In the informed role, the veterinarian will provide any information that the pet owner would want to make the final decision which would only be the pet owner. For example, they have many references relating to this topic giving data and results to their claim. Some clients want to be informed and want a veterinarian’s opinion and some don't. For their study, they used focus groups which each contained 2-9 participants. They took pet owners and veterinarians from around the area. They used discussion questions for the pet owners and the veterinarians and what each of them had to say about it. And from the results, they had compiled three main ideas; understanding the client, providing information suitable for the client, and decision making. The study shows that pet owners expect veterinarians to acknowledge how they are feeling by what their body language shows. That they should be more open and understanding towards the owners and what knowledge they do and don’t towards the situation of their pet (Natasha Janke, 2019).

Within the United States alone, people spend 103.6 billion dollars on animal care. Even though 40 percent of this amount is used for animal food, the rest is spent on toys, medicines, etc (Mitic, 2022). With such a high amount of money spent and such a high demand on animal products many have fallen within the trap of spending too much money on their pets to the point where they have a more secure relationship with their animal, hence creating this mindset and idea that they need to spend thousands of dollars in order to keep injured or old dogs alive since in a way they have invested so much into them.

Many pet owners have spent thousands of dollars on their pets, hence creating the mindset in which they’re more attached to their pets. Many pet owners also believe that in order to keep their pets healthy they need to drop thousands of dollars.

With such a problem like this, I would recommend the solution of a more financially friendly idea where many should find other things to manage instead of keeping their pets at such a high and unnecessary standard. Many can agree that when taking care of an animal, the best thing you could do is not spoil the animal and to treat it for what it is, an animal. Many misinterpret this idea and believe that pets should be treated like children but what they don't know is that study show that with this type of environment, the animals would not be able to withstand natural dilemmas and would by the end of day not survive to their fullest potentials hence, creating more a pit and dent within peoples bank accounts (McWhinney, 2022).

Counterclaim

Some people think the right thing to do is to go by what they believe is right for their pet. People in some cases are willing to spend thousands of dollars in order to keep their pets alive only for a couple of months. A study in 2017 was shown of how much American consumers would spend on their pets which in this care were dog and cat owners. They asked both different pet owners, “ How much would you be willing to spend to save your dog/cat from a life threatening illness and disease?”

From the graph that is shown above, we see that dog owners are willing to spend more than 10,000 dollars to keep their dogs alive (Brown, 2021). With this amount spent it displays the determinations how people are willing to go on and beyond in order to keep their pets alive for the longest amount. Even though many can support the statement that they just spend the most time with their pets, it's only unethical and inhumane to keep them alive even if the pet is unable or unwilling to live much longer. As a pet owner myself of course I would want my pet to live the longest but if he can not survive or has the struggle to survive, the only ethical thing to do is to put them down. As much as we want to let them live and would do anything to have them for more time, it would be hurting them more than it would be hurting us.

As humans, we tend to have uncontrollable feelings towards the subject of loss. Losing things such as loved ones and pets put us in a state of despair in which no one wants to be put. Mental health is also a factor when it comes to having an emotional attachment to your pet. In an article, Susan Krauss Whitbourne Ph.D. talks about how a person can be emotionally attached to their pet, and losing them can play a significant role in our physiological life, meaning that losing a pet will emotionally affect a person more than losing a loved one. Our pets can create an intense reaction when they pass away compared to humans. We tend to create our pets as an “ideal attachment figure” which gets us to the roots of our emotions when something bad happens to them. We have a harder time coping with the realization that it is the pet's time to pass away but we as selfish humans do not realize the damage that we are doing to them in the long run. There is such an emotional connection because we need our pets not only for our mental health but we can’t let go of them easily like anything else. Research in this article has found that people with high anxiety had more of a bigger reaction than people with high pet avoidant attachment, showing less emotional distress. But with such emotion that people have, they won’t be able to control their emotions and try to do what is best for them emotionally and not what is best for their pets. We might need that emotional support from them but we also need to realize that they need that proper care and support as we do (Krauss Whitbourne Ph.D, 2012).

Conclusion

What people do not understand is the ethical side of things which shows what in life is the correct thing to do. With this situation the ethical dilemma we are facing is the final decision we have for our pets; Should we put them down or not? While this decision can be tough, many fail to realize how through this process, the motive we all have in keeping our pets alive is hurting all of us. For our lack of understanding of how our pets feel, we fail to notice that their lives are at stake and for only our mental health. People have a hard time letting go and more so, affects those who have anxiety. People tend to spend close to thousands of dollars in order to see them suffer more and live with the pain for only just a couple of months. If solution to this problem could be therapy. Therapy can help those let go of the emotions and help them move on or go through the process it takes to put down their pet. I believe that this solution should be introduced to the veterinarian industry is another thing they should take into account while doing their job. As people, we adopt animals as ways to help us through our mental states and the abilities we have in the outside world. I believe that therapy should be introduced during times of distress when we know that our pets are going through a tough time. Everyone feels the deep pain of losing a pet, if it's emotionally, mentally, or physically. We try to not let these emotions get the best of us but we do so anyway and in the process, we hurt ourselves. We need better communication with veterinarians and also better support from them since these would be our last moments with our pets. Everyone has their own opinions and thoughts about this process, especially if people know what is best for their pets, but at the end of the day, the question is if it is right and ethical for your pet to be suffering from all the medicine and surgery they would have to go through.

Bibliography

· McWhinney, J. (2022, January 27). The economics of pet ownership. Investopedia. Retrieved February 9, 2022, from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/06/peteconomics.asp#:~:text=The%20APPA%20survey%20shows%20that,to%20%2499.0%20billion%20in%202020 .

· Janke, N., Coe, J. B., Bernardo, T. M., Dewey, C. E., & Stone, E. A. (n.d.). Pet owners' and Veterinarians' perceptions of information exchange and clinical decision-making in Companion Animal Practice. PLOS ONE. Retrieved February 9, 2022, from https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0245632

· 20 insightful pet spending statistics (2022). Fortunly. (n.d.). Retrieved February 9, 2022, from https://fortunly.com/statistics/pet-spending-statistics/#gref

· DiLonardo, M. J. (2018, March 19). How much would you spend to save your pet? Treehugger. Retrieved February 9, 2022, from https://www.treehugger.com/how-much-would-you-spend-save-your-pet-4863114

· How much would owners pay to keep their pet alive? LendEDU. (2021, August 12). Retrieved February 9, 2022, from https://lendedu.com/blog/how-much-are-dog-and-cat-owners-willing-to-spend/

· How emotionally attached are you to your pet? | psychology ... (n.d.). Retrieved February 9, 2022, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201202/how-emotionally-attached-are-you-your-pet