[Alty]

The shelter manager's letter:

"I am posting this (and it is long) because I think our society needs a huge wake-up call.

As a shelter manager, I am going to share a little insight with you all - a view from the inside, if you will. Maybe if you saw the life drain from a few sad, lost, confused eyes, you would change your mind about breeding and selling to people you don't even know - that puppy you just sold will most likely end up in my shelter when it's not a cute little puppy anymore.

How would you feel if you knew that there's about a 90% chance that dog will never walk out of the shelter it is going to be dumped at - purebred or not! About 50% of all of the dogs that are "owner surrenders" or "strays" that come into my shelter are purebred dogs.

No shortage of excuses
The most common excuses I hear are:
-We are moving and we can't take our dog (or cat).
(Really? Where are you moving to that doesn't allow pets?)
-The dog got bigger than we thought it would.
(How big did you think a German Shepherd would get?)
-We don't have time for her.
(Really? I work a 10-12 hour day and still have time for my 6 dogs!)
-She's tearing up our yard.
(How about bringing her inside, making her a part of your family?)

They always tell me: We just don't want to have to stress about finding a place for her. We know she'll get adopted - she's a good dog. Odds are your pet won't get adopted, and how stressful do you think being in a shelter is?

Well, let me tell you. Dead pet walking!

Your pet has 72 hours to find a new family from the moment you drop it off, sometimes a little longer if the shelter isn't full and your dog manages to stay completely healthy. If it sniffles, it dies.

Your pet will be confined to a small run / kennel in a room with about 25 other barking or crying animals. It will have to relieve itself where it eats and sleeps. It will be depressed and it will cry constantly for the family that abandoned it.

If your pet is lucky, I will have enough volunteers that day to take him / her for a walk. If I don't, your pet won't get any attention besides having a bowl of food slid under the kennel door and the waste sprayed out of its pen with a high-powered hose.

If your dog is big, black or any of the "bully" breeds (pit bull, rottweiler, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much dead when you walked it through the front door. Those dogs just don't get adopted.

If your dog doesn't get adopted within its 72 hours and the shelter is full, it will be destroyed.

If the shelter isn't full and your dog is good enough, and of a desirable enough breed, it may get a stay of execution, though not for long. Most pets get very kennel protective after about a week and are destroyed for showing aggression. Even the sweetest dogs will turn in this environment.

If your pet makes it over all of those hurdles, chances are it will get kennel cough or an upper respiratory infection and will be destroyed because shelters just don't have the funds to pay for even a $100 treatment.

The grim reaper
Here's a little euthanasia 101 for those of you that have never witnessed a perfectly healthy, scared animal being "put-down".
First, your pet will be taken from its kennel on a leash. They always look like they think they are going for a walk - happy, wagging their tails. That is, until they get to "The Room".

Every one of them freaks out and puts on the breaks when we get to the door. It must smell like death, or they can feel the sad souls that are left in there. It's strange, but it happens with every one of them. Your dog or cat will be restrained, held down by 1 or 2 vet techs (depending on their size and how freaked out they are). A euthanasia tech or a vet will start the process. They find a vein in the front leg and inject a lethal dose of the "pink stuff". Hopefully your pet doesn't panic from being restrained and jerk its leg. I've seen the needles tear out of a leg and been covered with the resulting blood, and been deafened by the yelps and screams.

They all don't just "go to sleep" - sometimes they spasm for a while, gasp for air and defecate on themselves.

When it all ends, your pet's corpse will be stacked like firewood in a large freezer in the back, with all of the other animals that were killed, waiting to be picked up like garbage.

What happens next? Cremated? Taken to the dump? Rendered into pet food? You'll never know, and it probably won't even cross your mind. It was just an animal, and you can always buy another one, right?

Liberty, freedom and justice for all
I hope that those of you that have read this are bawling your eyes out and can't get the pictures out of your head. I do everyday on the way home from work. I hate my job, I hate that it exists and I hate that it will always be there unless people make some changes and realize that the lives you are affecting go much farther than the pets you dump at a shelter.

Between 9 and 11 MILLION animals die every year in shelters and only you can stop it. I do my best to save every life I can but rescues are always full, and there are more animals coming in everyday than there are homes.

My point to all of this is DON'T BREED OR BUY WHILE SHELTER PETS DIE!

Hate me if you want to - the truth hurts and reality is what it is.
I just hope I maybe changed one person's mind about breeding their dog, taking their loving pet to a shelter, or buying a dog. I hope that someone will walk into my shelter and say "I saw this thing on craigslist and it made me want to adopt".

That would make it all worth it."

Author unknown

[Alty]

Sorry for the typos, it was copied and pasted, and I didn't proofread before I posted it. (>edited by WG<) I wanted it posted so people could read it right away. It's important.

[teacherjenn4]

Sorry for the typos, it was copied and pasted, and I didn't proofread before I posted it. (>edited by WG<) I wanted it posted so people could read it right away. It's important.

It makes me happy to be a pet rescuer. What a sad ending to their lives. :(

[Wondergirl]

I do my best to find (or maybe they find me) the neighborhood strays and ferals, socialize them, and adopt them myself or adopt them through our suburb's cat shelter which has a good adoption record. And as of last night, a new stray showed up on our porch after noticing the FREE FOOD! (invisible-except-to-cats) sign above the front door. There used to be more strays and ferals. I don't believe people have stopped dumping their animals but there are now coyotes around, so I hope I am keeping some cats from becoming lunch.

[Alty]

Thanks for fixing the post WG. It looks so pretty now. :)

[mogrann]

I was telling Alty this last night but want the others to know as well. Thank you thank you thank you. If not for all of you talking to me and explaining realities to me I would have studded Owen out and the guilt of him bringing more pups in this world would be killing me now. Now that I am more active with animal rescue and responsible pet ownership I see so much. Owen's breed I see people breeding and having large litters yet not all of the pups are sold ahead of time. I see people still offering up the pups months later down the road. I know of one breeder that was worried she would be "stuck" with some of the pups and not be able to sell them. I don't care if Owen is a mutt, purebred, rare breed, ultra rare breed or common run of the mill dog... I LOVE HIM.
My dream is when my brothers move out is to be a foster for senior dogs. They are the ones overlooked in shelters. They need a home and not a kennel to live out their lives. Plus it will give more room for dogs to be in the shelter. I will have the max amount I am allowed by law. It may not be much but it is a start.

[Wondergirl]

I know exactly how you feel, mogrann (but on the cat end of things). My perfect life would be to have a cat shelter big enough and wealthy enough to take in and care for whatever cat comes my way or that my volunteers could rescue. Hmmm, that sounds a bit like a hoarder. So be it!

And you (and Owen!! ) have added immeasurably to our lives here and on Facebook. I'm proud to know you (and Owen!! ).

[mogrann]

You are all ready helping by rescuing and adopting out the strays you find :) It starts with one person is what I keep saying.

[Sariss]

Yep - so true. I worked in a high capacity city shelter and this was reality every day.

[Alty]

Yep - so true. I worked in a high capacity city shelter and this was reality every day.

Thankfully it's not the reality in the shelters where I live. We have the humane society here, and all animals remain in the shelter unless they're deemed unadoptable. It's a two edged sword though. I've seen dogs that have been in the shelter for almost 2 years. We have volunteers, the dogs are walked more than 2 times a day, they have a huge enclosed space for the dogs to run, they do obedience training, but, the reality is, the better part of their lives are spent in a cage with no human contact, or any other contact at all. Two walks a day and a run is not enough.

After around the 2 year mark, even with the great volunteers the humane society has (I used to be one, so I do know what they do), even a great dog will go cage crazy. When that happens, there's really nothing anyone can do. It's the end for that dog.

I've been in "the room". I've held down a perfectly healthy (physically) pet, that should have been adopted, that should have found a forever home, and I've seen what they go through.

I no longer volunteer there because of that. I can't do it. I can walk the dogs, I can spend time with them, I can clean their kennels, I can feed them, and pet them, but, if they don't find a home I cannot be the one to hold them down while they're euthanized. I just can't, and I don't have enough money, or room, to take them all home, otherwise I would.

Having done what I've done, been where I've been, has lead me to be who I am. This is why I'm so harsh on people that come here asking about breeding, because I know the reality. I've seen the life drained from a dog that never should have been killed, that never should have even been born, but had no choice because of human greed.

If only we could put the backyard breeders in the shelter for a few years. Let's see how they do. I'd have no problem holding them down as the needle goes in.

[Sariss]

Yeah.. our shelter didn't have the capacity... we were getting 20-30 dogs and 50-70 cats A DAY. Rescues would come in and take some but it was just not possible to house them all in any sense.

[Lucky098]

Forget the breeders.. Those who want to get rid of their dogs for a new puppy this christmas should be reading this letter! So many people think their dogs will find better homes or good homes through a shelter.. I wish more would know that owner surrender dogs are the first to be killed... :(

[Alty]

I hear you Lucky.

I have a former friend, and you'll find out why she's a former friend in a second, that relinquishes every pet she gets. Since I've known her, the last 8 years, she's had 4 dogs, all given away when they got too big or became too much trouble, 10 cats, and is in the process of getting rid of her 4th dog (a pitbull she can't handle) to get another puppy. The new puppy she's looking at is another pitbull.

She only wants baby animals. Once they get too big, and get into trouble because she doesn't spend any time with them, and doesn't train them, she gets rid of them and gets a new one. Every single time she comes crying to me, begging me to take the unwanted pet. I can't, I have a zoo as it is. You may have seen a thread about one of her dogs on AMHD. Bear. She asked us to take him when we were looking at beagle breeders. We considered it, because we love Bear, took care of him whenever they went away, and he was such a good dog. But he was a bigger breed, and very hairy. I just didn't have the room for such a big dog when I already had two big dogs at home.

She promised me that she wasn't going to get another dog after Bear, that she knew she wasn't meant to have a dog. Well, sure enough, not even a month later she got a pitbull puppy. That dog lasted a year and was replaced with another pitbull puppy. Now we're going on to number 5. :(

Same with her cats.

I can't imagine ever getting rid of any of my pets, except for the fish, and truth be told, I've been telling people "Two fish free to a good home, 20 gallon tank, stand and everything included" for years. I've had a few people wanting to take them, and I just can't do it. They're only fish, but they're my fish, and I'm just not that person that can say "Okay, I've had enough, so time for you to go" when I made the commitment.

[Lucky098]

There is a family who lived up the street from me with a similar story.. only, instead of giving the dogs away, they ended up dead.

She is a hoarder.. she lives in filth and collects dogs. I'm sure she has created her own strain of parvo, because any young dog she ever acquired died from parvo. My mom and I would tell her about this.. that she shouldn't get any more puppies, but she always went and got them.. The last puppy that died.. she showed up at my front door with this sick puppy asking for medicine.. We have never given her medical advise, medicine or anything along those lines so why she thought we had any medicine is beyond me. But we told her to take the puppy to the shelter and have them put it down.. They finally got evicted from their filthy home.. so I suppose they will load up on puppies again *sigh*

I've also know of someone who would get puppies, and than give them away once they were grown up. I hate people.. people suck... :-/

[Alty]

I agree Hattie.

This friend of mine cannot understand why I no longer talk to her. We used to be very close, our two girls are the same age, only 2 weeks apart.

As a person she's great. As a pet owner she sucks. I can't get over how she collects and discards of her pets. This is a person that should never ever own a pet.

They just bought a new cat to replace one that got into the dryer and died, taking the dryer with it. Sigh. The new cat cost $1500! Who gets a $1500 cat they're not even going to keep? Also, there are millions of free cats and kittens being given away everywhere you look. Why not rescue one of them? :(

[Lucky098]

Sounds like she wants bragging rights with her pets..

High dollar cats are typically the pure bred cats. They're gorgeous.. Its sad that she is like that...

I wish there was a list you can put people on that everyone reads before selling or giving away animals to avoid a-hole people like her.

[Alty]

Sounds like she wants bragging rights with her pets..

High dollar cats are typically the pure bred cats. They're gorgeous.. Its sad that she is like that...

I wish there was a list you can put people on that everyone reads before selling or giving away animals to avoid a-hole people like her.

I really wish more people had the guts to tell their friends that they shouldn't own pets, if that's the case. I did, which is why we're not friends. That and the fact that I can't have someone like her in my life, not when I live for rescue, and the proper treatment of animals.

I feel a bit at fault sometimes. Their first dog Bear, they bought at a pet store. I urged her not to. But she fell in love and wouldn't back down. They only wanted a dog because of our dogs. We went camping with them, and they enjoyed our dogs (Indy and Jasper, now both deceased) so much, that they decided to get one of their own.

Well, well behaved dogs like Indy and Jasper don't happen by chance. I worked with them every day to make them the dogs they were. She didn't get that.

I'd go to her house to find Bear sequestered in the yard. When I asked why, she said she didn't like a big dog in her small house. She would then complain that the neighbors were sending animal control to her house because Bear would bark all day. Well duh! He's alone in the yard all day, and in his kennel all night. He has no interaction.

The first time we took care of him when they went on vacation, she brought a muzzle. I asked her why. She said "To stop him from barking, because that's all he does".

Well, he spent two weeks with us, in our home, going for walks, and never barked the few times he was in the yard playing with Indy and Jasper. When I told her this, and explained that he didn't bark with us because we made him a part of our family, she didn't believe me. She thought it was because of our two dogs. So her solution was to get another dog. So now she had two dogs to put in her yard all day, two dogs barking because they're not getting the stimulation and love they need. It was a disaster waiting to happen. So she re-homed Bear and the pitbull puppy, posted of fb that she was never getting another dog. Two weeks later there are new puppy pictures on fb, her new pitbull. :(

It makes me so angry I could scream.

[Alty]

To add.

The new pitbull is having major issues. She actually hired a dog therapist because she figured the dog had mental issues. SMH! It's not the dog! It's you! :(

[Lucky098]

There is a girl on my Facebook.. I was really good friends with her brother.. but she was raised in a family where if an animal was able to be bred, it was. And now that she is "all grown up" and on her own, she has taken to breeding french bulldogs. And as you may know, French Bulldogs need c-sections almost every time they are bred.. I know for a fact her dogs are not breeding quality, never entered a show ring.. for all I know, those dogs probably didn't even come from champion bloodlines.. and there she is breeding them. Her first litter from her first female came after it was bred on the first heat cycle. I remember when she got the puppy.. and it's about right for her age, when she whelped and so on. Its sickens me, it really does. She emailed me about two months ago with a concern about parvo. She was treating them, but had no clue about scouring the home and the huge risk of more puppies being exposed. *sigh*

I've gotten to the point where I don't appreciate breeders of any flavor. Last night I got stuck at work until 9pm with an emergency C-section on a frenchie (different woman). In our conversation, I found out that she has had other females whelp puppies on their own. Since I've been working at the clinic, which is now a year, she's had at least two females a month come in for c-sections. She has puppies on the ground year round.. only thing that comes to my mind is PUPPY MILL! Yes, she takes care of them, she likes her dogs.. but damn... All but one puppy died too, and she had the balls to blame us for it when it took her two hours to get from her home to the clinic.. I'm sure that's what killed those pups.. nothing was really normal about them.

Once again, I'm not a fan of people.. Humanitarian, I am not!

[Alty]

I hear you Lucky. Boy do I hear you. I agree.

The more people I meet, the more I like my dogs. :)