When Ellie Chavez Pickard arrives at work each morning, her shift begins with an urgent routine. The 22-year-old animal caregiver starts at the Hawaiian Humane Society in Honolulu at dawn, tending to dogs and cats, many surrendered or left at the shelter’s gates overnight.
It’s a job filled with compassion but shadowed by a daunting reality: euthanasia, a practice she believes is often misunderstood by the public.
In a recent TikTok video that garnered hundreds of thousands of views, Pickard shed some light on what goes on at so-called kill shelters. This term, she believes, misrepresents the spirit of the workers, who care deeply for the animals.
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