Loving Them to Death: Blame-Displacing Strategies of Animal Shelter Workers and Surrenderers

Authors: Frommer, Stephanie S.¹; Arluke, Arnold¹

Source: Society and Animals, Volume 7, Number 1, 1999 , pp. 1-16(16)

Publisher: BRILL

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Abstract:

This article examines how shelter workers and individuals who surrender their companion animals to shelters manage guilt about killing previously valued animals. Researchers used an ethnographic approach that entailed open-ended interviews and directobservations of workers and surrenderers in a major, metropolitan shelter. Both workers and surrenderers used blame displacement as a mechanism for dealing with their guilt over euthanasia or its possibility. Understanding this coping strategy provides insights into how society continues to relinquish animal companions-despite the animals' chances of death-as well as how shelter workers cope with killing the animals they aim to protect.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1163/156853099X00121

Affiliations: 1: TUFTS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF VETERINARY MEDICINE

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