"The Wild World of Animal Prosthesis"

Animal prosthesis is a complex issue because while two dogs might have the same injury, they might have completely different needs and have no ability to convey their needs. This is true with all animal medicine and animals' inability to voice their symptoms or pain, which leads to a sort of guess and check on the human side. It also leads to us exploiting them due to their lack of voice. This article toys with the animal rights campaign and focuses on the fact that disabled animals are just a cheaper version of a disabled human. The article is obviously biased toward human compassion. One of the places I found this to be most apparent is the the interview with Dr. Erick Egger who claims that the new prosthetic technology is coming at the perfect time because so many humans are amputees; he then makes an abrupt shift to the line "We can't sit back and let helpless animals fend for themselves"(Sayre 1). He then follows that up with the fact that he tried "(unsuccessfully)"(1) to do a new prostatic procedure on a cat.
It is evident that he does not value the animals he is supposed to be trying to save. Many of my classmates have stated that the animals look happy, but this is just us projecting human emotion onto a non human. Many times this projection is used to validate animal cruelty. Animals suffer silently and though many of the pets that get prosthetic procedures due so because of human sentiment some animals are not so lucky.  This brings me to the issue of when to offer prosthesis and when prosthesis would be more harmful to the animal.
Many humans think that by preserving life they are then preserving happiness, however this is not always true. It is now becoming more commonplace to schedule your own death, which is legal in Oregon. People with painful chronic incurable illnesses can now choose to end their lives with dignity and strength instead of pain and suffering. Why do we not afford animals the same rights? This article talked a bit about animals that suffered for long spans of time before getting the new appendages; is this period of suffering worth the months of adjustment and pain caused by the prostatic limbs?  These are not easy questions, and have no wrong or right answer but it does make you think a bit about animal rights and about animal suffering.