Photographer Tou Chih-kang calms a puppy as he tries to make a portrait before it is put down by lethal injection at a shelter in Taoyuan, northern Taiwan. All photos taken in April 2012 and made available to msnbc.com on July 5, 2012.

Tou Chih-kang hangs his portraits of the final moments in the lives of shelter dogs for a public exhibition in Taoyuan.

Tou Chih-kang greets a dog scheduled to be euthanized later in the day at a government-run shelter in Taoyuan.

Tou Chih-kang tries to make a portrait of a puppy in a makeshift studio.

Tou Chih-kang and his assistant steady a scared dog for a portrait in the final moments of its life.

Tou Chih-kang hangs his dog portraits for a public exhibition in Taoyuan.

Uggie, the canine star form the film "The Artist" which won an Academy Award for Best Picture, walks the red carpet outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre to cast his paw prints in cement during a ceremony marking his retirement from show business on June 25.

Uggie's shows his paws, with the help of his Owner/trainer Omar Von Muller, after they were casted in cement outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Uggie, the dog who starred in the Academy Award-winning film "The Artist," is honored with a hand and paw print ceremony outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Calif.

Held by his owner, Clyde, a pitbull, is given oxygen by Garden Grove Fire Department Captain Jeff Wilkins, right, on Thursday, June 21, 2012 in Garden Grove, Calif.

Garden Grove Fire Department Captain Albert Acosta, left, struggles with a cat that was rescued.

Garden Grove Fire Department Captain Albert Acosta checks on the welfare of a cat named Magic, as Magic's owner Norma Arbotast finishes the cat's oxygen treatment on Thursday.

Cris Cristofaro looks over a puppy photo of his dog Dino as veterinarian Wendy McCulloch prepares to perform an in-home pet euthanasia. Cristofaro, a New York City artist, made the difficult decision to end Dino's life when oral cancer became unbearable for his 12-year-old Italian Spinone.

Cris Cristofaro holds his dog Dino as veterinarian Wendy McCulloch checks his heartbeat after performing an in-home euthanasia on Thursday. End of life issues have become increasingly important for pet owners, as advanced medical treatments and improved nutrition are extending pets lives well into old age. McCulloch runs Pet Requiem, a home veterinary service designed to provide geriatric care and in-home euthanasia for dying pets in the New York and New Jersey area. Many pet owners are choosing such in-home care to try and provide a humane and compassionate "good death" for their beloved pets.

Cris Cristofaro weeps over his dog Dino after veterinarian Wendy McCulloch euthanized the 12-year-old Italian Spinone.

Grieving pet owner Spencer Warren opens the casket of his beloved 12-year-old beagle-hound Justin in the viewing room of the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery and Crematory on April 30 in Hartsdale, New York. Warren, an Annandale, Virginia attorney, had traveled with Justin's body to bury him here on a shady hillside. The cemetery, established in 1896, is the oldest pet cemetery in the United States and serves as the final resting place for tens of thousands of pets. Pet owners can spend as much as $20,000 for a large plot to bury multiple pets and as little as $300-400 for small plots to bury ashes if they choose cremation. Pet owners also have the option of eventually having their own ashes buried in the plot, alongside their pets.

Pet chaplain David James conducts a graveside service for Justin, a twelve-year-old beagle-hound at the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery and Crematory.

Graves and tombs mark pets' final resting place at the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery and Crematory.

Maddalena Sullivan visits a grave on the two-month anniversary of the death of her cat Spanky.

A gravestone marks a pet's final resting place.

English Bulldog puppies play around their mother at the Toledo Area Humane Society in Maumee, Ohio on April 11, 2012.

A dog walks after a sudden snowfall in St. Petersburg, Russia, April 4, 2012.

Rangers train a dog at Virunga Park. The Democratic Republic of Congo's famed Virunga National Park has deployed bloodhounds to track down elephant poachers, a park official said Monday."The first operation of the specially-trained bloodhounds was launched after a succession of elephant-poaching incidents," LuAnne Cadd, the park's public relations officer, told AFP.

A picture released by Virunga National Park shows Marlene Zahner and Marcel Maierhofer posing with rangers and their six dogs at Virunga Park.

A picture released by Virunga National Park shows rangers and their dog looking at the large bloated carcass of an adult elephant laying in the bushes by a river in the Ishasha Valley. The Park said "it was clearly an ivory poaching incident, the tusks had been hacked out of the elephant's face." The UN watchdog into the illegal wildlife trade last week voiced "grave concern" at a spike in African elephant poaching after nearly 450 of the animals were killed in Cameroon. "This spike in elephant poaching is of grave concern not only to Cameroon, a member state to CITES, but to all 38 range states of the African elephant," John Scanlon, the head of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), said. The UN agency said it will contact the ministers responsible for forests and wildlife from Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan to offer anti-poaching support.

Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller tries to talk about the built-in camera on the new iPad during an Apple event in San Francisco, but there's a certain... distraction.