Y’all have known me for long enough to know that things like scrotums, castration, and relatively graphic descriptions of other subjects likely to cause consternation in the general public will come up in casual conversation. I haven’t the faintest idea why you’re surprised by my previous post.

Okay, to the point.

See the reason I asked about rubber band castration is that in this economic climate the veterinary community is seeing an upsurge in this type of procedure performed by bozos who are interested in having their male pets neutered, but who aren’t willing to pay more than the cost of a rubber band for it.
Yeah, I showed my hand there. For the record I think it’s a BAD idea for many, MANY reasons not the least of which is that I can still hear many of you screeching “YES!!!! THAT WOULD HURT A LOT!!!”. What a surprise. 🙄

BUT in a lot of cases that sort of thing can’t be prosecuted. In most areas it’s not illegal to practice medicine on your own animals so long as you aren’t doing anything that can be constituted as cruel. And cruelty statutes are based on the public’s perception of what is cruel. Unfortunately elastrator band castration was practiced on farm animals (lambs mostly) until about 20 years ago when it was abandoned because:
a. the lambs are more comfortable, more willing to eat and be normal lambs with conventional castration techniques
b. cutting off the blood supply to a body part is not an efficient means of complete castration in many cases and
c. cutting off the blood supply to a body part and hoping that it’ll fall off without attracting all sorts of nasty infectious bacteria is a fool’s game.

So if it’s not the norm in farm animals anymore, why can’t it be prosecuted as cruel when it happens in pets?
That’s where the “reasonable people” clause comes in. Trying to change the public’s — at least that portion of the public who are willing to try it — perception of something that USED to be the norm is like pushing a rope. Especially when there are websites explaining how to perform elastrator band castration that announce in bold face type that the only reason that veterinarians tell you that it’s cruel, inefficient and dangerous to try to neuter your dog with a rubber band is because we’re out to make a buck…..
Well, it’s an uphill battle.

I have a number of VIN buddies (or invisible friends as some people refer to them) who have dealt with this exact situation in the last few months. I’ve not seen a case myself since I was working in Olympia but I did see one there.
Let’s try for public outcry eh?