One of my first jobs out of vet school was working for a large animal shelter. As vets, our time was split between treating people’s pets just like any standard clinic, and attending to our shelter animals: those brought in as strays; those surrendered by their owners; those seized as victims of animal abuse. It was a great job for a new grad — one benefit of animal neglect is that it affords you the privilege of seeing animals in advanced stages of disease. Something I would never have seen in the pleasantries of a suburban clinic where pets often mean as much to people as members of their own family.

It was my dream to enjoy working there. And I did, in so far as I met some amazing friends who have found a place in my memories and heart forever, despite our increasing years of distance. I think of them often as I face new challenges in life. How we acceded tears together, shared resentment and frustration and humour and resignation together. Intertwined our personal turmoils, the turmoils of our homes and relationships and heartaches, with the turmoils of clinic politics, financial constraints, and death. Death, euthanasia, putting down, to sleep, however it be named. Death haunted me and cast its veil over any viridity and hope that sought to bless our days. The innocence of puppies’ exuberant licks, the overwhelming cuteness of bundles of new kittens that anoints the screens of internet purveyors worldwide, became permeated with a corroding knowingness that all these things come at a cost. This cost has been charged by our communities, and then doubled and tripled through our mistreatment of those who we’ve cultivated to rely on us, and the apathy and burn out that many like me have fallen to, in our attempts to negate or even remedy our wrong-doings.

As chaperones of domestication, we all have a responsibility to the species of animals that we’ve chosen to designate as companions. We face a pet population crisis in which a decade’s attempts to reduce stray animal populations have proved largely ineffective; shelters worldwide euthanase so many millions of animals they’d rival the GDPs of some countries. And yet we continue to overbreed certain animals out of a peculiar fetish for mutant traits that render them largely debilitated by heart, skin, respiratory or other genetic defects; functionally infertile; and with lifespans often less than half of their mixed-bred counterparts.

This is not news to many, and ineffective is the approach that induces guilt in lieu of empowering people through empathy and dexterity. But I’d love to find a way of helping people to reconcile their love for animals, their desire for companionship, and most importantly, their good intentions, with a system in which the life of any pet — be it young or old, pure-bred on mongrel, is nurtured. And as an animal lover myself, I hope to fulfill that dream of loving my work with animals-in-need-of-forever homes, and to be able to meet those puppy cuddles with a lightness and love because I wasn’t obligated to kill 20 kittens that day.

It’s not hard to correct the imbalance, through adoption, sterilisation, and responsible breeding. And it’s not hard to overcome our preconceived notions of what purchasing a pet may look like. We know enough, we love enough, and we’re resourceful enough. We just need to do it.