Dog Community

A Shelters responsibility...

Posted : 4/13/2007 9:39:56 AM

I know there are some shelter volunteers, employees, and others here. Please do not take this as a slight of all shelters...but some shelters need to change their ways!

A few weeks ago we were involved with a transport of dogs to a rescue near us. During this transport we discovered that this rescue, while well intentioned, has 30+ dogs in her home. I know from experience that if she admits to 32 dogs...she likely has more than that...but that is a moot point...the point is that just 32 dogs is far too many for one person to manage. There are shelters that have a hard time managing 32 dogs with staff and volunteers!
We have since found that these 32 dogs are typically left to roam...and she has no fence. She has an underground fence, but does not have enough collars. She routinely looses dogs from her property. Our organization has as well taken the time to help a handful of her adoptive families with their dogs as they could not get this lady to return phone calls. It is our belief that after adoption management is a BIG part of rescue work and failure of after adoption is the FIRST SIGNS of a rescue in trouble.

We took the time to both call and email the shelter who sent her her last dog and even a few others we know she works with about our concerns. We told them that we felt it would be prudent that they find someone willing to go to her rescue and check things out to make sure we did not have an animal hoarding problem in the making. We also offered our help. We told them that we would gladly do a facility visit for them before sending her more dogs. We never got a response.

We did get an email today asking for help with a transport of dogs, several dogs, to this woman from that shelter. When I inquired about our concerns about this woman...
we were told...
"well she takes alot of dogs from us and it is hard to find rescues these days."
WHAT????
first it is not hard to find rescues these days...second, she takes alot of dogs which makes your life easier so who cares that these dogs could be going to an abusive situation???

...and when this woman ends up on the news this shelter will likely have their PR person on the news saying..."WELL we were just trying to save lives, we had no idea..."
Which will be a lie...
just like the last two shelters we informed about a woman named Celeste Suirek...who is now in jail for animal abuse.

..and when you try and contact the Humane Society of the US...they respond that the policies of individual organizations is not their responsibility.

I feel that shelters have a responsibility to take heed and to insure that animals they release to rescues are going to a reputable and responsible rescue. All many of them ever want is a 501c3 registration...like that is any indication that someone has any idea of how to take care of animals. Any moron can fill out the forms and send in their check to IRS and become a non profit. The last two hoarders our local shelter busted up and put in jail...both had 501c3 registrations.
Shelters that operate this way need someone to come down on them and come down on them hard! As "front line" organizations ( as I refer to them) shelters should be the first line of defense for the animals. How hard is it to sk for references? how hard is it to ask another local rescue to stop by and check things out? what would it take? a phone call???
the truth is that there are shelters out there that DO NOT WANT TO KNOW...they just want to control their numbers so they can keep and/or imporove their funding. They want to keep their Euth numbers down so it looks good to thier boards. ( and i have been told exactly that by a shelter director)

so the next time a "bad rescue" shows up on the news...or a hoarder shows shows up on the news...the first question we need to ALL ask is where did they get so many animals...How did they get that many?
The answer will likely be from a shelter or shelters like the one who emailed me today. A shelter who is FULLY aware that there may be a problem...and does not care!

I am done now.

anne

Posted : 4/13/2007 10:12:13 AM

I have run into quite a few irresponsible rescues (although not as bad as the one you mentioned).

You aren#%92t rescuing unless you are doing it right, that includes not sending dogs to hoarders, yes I would consider the person you mentioned a hoarder. Careful screening is a must.

The rescue I work with pulls dogs from the local high kill shelter. In our situation, the shelter never releases dogs to rescues unless they are local. Instead, what happens is an out of state rescue will contact the group I work with. We screen the rescues then will pull the dog for them & transport them wherever they need to go. The shelter has nothing to do with it and wouldn#%92t ever…They are far too lazy to be honest. (Which is why I no longer volunteer at that shelter but that is way OT)

And that is what I asked myself after that lady got in trouble for drowning those animals, WHERE did she get all of those animals and WHY was she never screened or checked up on?

DE Lee

Posted : 4/13/2007 12:46:22 PM

I think shelter and rescues ought to all work locally. Concentrate their efforts near home and keep with the resues and shelters they know well. There are exceptions of course...rare breeds as an example, would more than likely HAVE to pull dogs from distant places...our own work with the Coonhound is another example. There are more Coonhounds down south than there are up here. So while we always try to oull local first, alot of our dogs come from the south.
I think of it like this...
if all the resources for all the animals is "X" amount of resources...lets use 100,000 for the sake of simple math...
If 100,000 represents all of the resources available...is it better to take that 100,000 and distibute 10,000 to 10,000 places...or distribute 1 to 100,000 places?
More work will get done distributing 10,000 to 10,000 places...plain and simple!

I agree with your shelter...work local! Get references! Do facility visits! It is a must in this work.

you said...You are not rescuing unless you are doing it right...
I agree. ( though there is some disagreement on what RIGHT exactly is). I have a quote I use to remind the people in our group exactly what it is we are doing out here...

It is not about how many we rescue...IT IS about how WELL we rescue each one!

Liesje

Posted : 4/13/2007 2:18:28 PM

Rob, I agree with your posts.

I'm lucky in that in my area, the main rescue (Vicki's Pet Connection), Humane Society, C-SNIP, and county animal shelter DO work together. They have a program called KAN - Kent (county) Animal Network. They pass animals back and forth to limit the amount of euthanizations at the county shelter. They also will send animals out to breed rescues, but would never just ship off a bunch of animals to a hoarder (sorry, that's what the person you were talking about sounds like, not a real rescuer) without any thought or follow ups. I have adopted a cat through Vicki's and let me tell you, it's like adopting a child! They are all very thorough and careful, almost to a fault.

I don't have experience with dog rescues, but I had such an awful experience with a local cat rescue I reported it to the police! We had picked out a cat on PetFinder, we wanted an older cat that we didn't think anyone else would adopt. When we got to the shelter our eyes and lungs were stinging from the stench. They said they had over 200 cats living there and I believe them. Most had upper respiratory infection and many others were severely underweight, severely overweight, or had other physical problems. Everyone had behavioral problems. We still got the cat, because at that point we were rescuing her from the rescue! She came home with a bad UTI, URI, and not using a litterbox. We cleared her infections and worked on the litter training, but she had to be put down after just a few months because her belly swelled and she had developed FIP (sort of rare, but fatal).

I know they were very nice people with a lot of knowledge and experience, but they were totally over run and STILL going out on weekends to pick up more stray cats. Most of their cats are feral and would really be happier getting spayed/neutered through C-SNIP and then released into a wild feral colony.

rolenta

Posted : 4/13/2007 4:02:51 PM

Wow, that is so stupid. Adopting out to a hoarder is just putting the animals back into a situation that they need rescuing from! Sometimes it seems like some animal shelters don't even care.