My Heart Is Breaking UPDATE

 I groom dogs for the local shelter, and it's GREAT! I groomed an English Cocker, yesterday, and last week, I did a Wheaton. The dog before that was a Maltese. They get a TON of really nice, often purebred dogs that are in desperate need of grooming, and people just walk past them, because they don't recognize what a nice dog it is, when it's filthy and matted. It is a county run, high kill shelter, and nicely groomed dogs almost always make it out.

stormyknight

ITo the OP: A shelter that euthanizes could probably use your help the most. Many of these shelters would love to have their adoptable dogs look like movie-stars, but can't afford to hire additional staff to take on this task. No-kill shelters/rescues are often bombarded with volunteers, which is wonderful, but it can leave the other shelters in the area with few volunteers. It can be tough to do, but I think you'll find it well worth it. ;)

I asked the ACO if she would need volunteers (specifically for grooming) and she said that no, due to insurance reasons, they don't allow volunteers.  She is a very sweet lady and does not want to pts the dogs.  The problem is with the people in TOWN.  This is not a very pet friendly town, it's generally poor area as well so pets are not a priority- neutering and vaccinating are put aside because groceries are more important at this time.  There have been a LOT of layoffs here so I'm sure the problem is getting worse.

 

Any way you look at it, whose-ever fault it is, I don't think anyone wants to end a life...  but there are not enough homes...

That's great. Now, you know how I feel. I could conceivably by from a good breeder in the future. But I see so many great dogs that are literally dying for a home. Our local shelter has a 7 day schedule. After eval, they have 7 business days to be adopted. Otherwise, they are euth'd. So, I don't spend a lot of time at the shelter. My heart breaks every time I go there. But my next dog will come from there.

ron2

That's great. Now, you know how I feel. I could conceivably by from a good breeder in the future. But I see so many great dogs that are literally dying for a home. Our local shelter has a 7 day schedule. After eval, they have 7 business days to be adopted. Otherwise, they are euth'd. So, I don't spend a lot of time at the shelter. My heart breaks every time I go there. But my next dog will come from there.

 

 Do you feel that if a dog can't find a home after 7 days, there isn't a home for that dog? Such time frames usually directly ties into the legalities requiring the time that dogs must be held to see if an owner claims them before making them available to adopt or destroy. Here it is three days, with owner turn ins not being required to be made available at all. Things are slowly improving in some places but others remain stuck in the dark ages of animal control for a variety of reasons.

 Just curious agilegsd how many foster dogs do you have in your home? And whatever the number is, guess you'd best go and get some more and some more and some more, until there are no dogs euthanized in your area. Not seriously because we can only take in and properly care for a certain number. Of course it is a community problem, no matter which way you look at it.....first off, too many people are allowing their dogs to breed and second off, because all of those people in the community, including those who are breeding dogs or allowing breeding of dogs, aren't there helping to solve the situation. Kills me how people keep trying to say it is a shelter problem, not a community problem and expect that others are supposed to dedicate their lives to volunteering, while they go out and buy that dog which they want and preach that it is their right. Guess if we all felt that way, there for sure would be no volunteer programs up and running would there?

nymaureen

 Just curious agilegsd how many foster dogs do you have in your home? And whatever the number is, guess you'd best go and get some more and some more and some more, until there are no dogs euthanized in your area. Not seriously because we can only take in and properly care for a certain number. Of course it is a community problem, no matter which way you look at it.....first off, too many people are allowing their dogs to breed and second off, because all of those people in the community, including those who are breeding dogs or allowing breeding of dogs, aren't there helping to solve the situation. Kills me how people keep trying to say it is a shelter problem, not a community problem and expect that others are supposed to dedicate their lives to volunteering, while they go out and buy that dog which they want and preach that it is their right. Guess if we all felt that way, there for sure would be no volunteer programs up and running would there?

  You may want to look beyond Animal Rights propaganda to gain more well rounded knowledge of animal issues. Is it really the community's fault that the shelter mentioned in the first post chooses to kill for space, yet doesn't even have a foster program?

 http://www.naiaonline.org/articles/archives/overpop1.htm

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/10/02/petscol.DTL

I doubt it's the shelter staff's "choice" in this case - government run facilities are often at the mercy of the local councils, etc. vs able to change things themselves.  No, it's not "right" and there are people who are standing in the way of progress, but no one is saying that it is, just that each situation is unique. 

The comment about not being able to have volunteers because of insurance really makes me think that this is likely the issue here.  The ACO sounds like she's trying to do what she can, but without the support of the people who make the rules, she's not going to be able to do much more unfortunately.  Perhaps the OP might look into who makes the shelter rules and find out if there's any way to rally the community behind the shelter and get some things changed for the better?!

Please realize Agile that there are A LOT of factors at play here - just because there are what seem to be silly rules to us, doesn't mean that the people working at the facility are choosing to run things that way.  Can you imagine how frustrating it must be to love animals but yet be told you can't get help from willing people because of insurance?  How soul-crushing it must be to realize that your best isn't necessarily going to succeed in finding every healthy, sound animal a home and being told that you can't take advantage of new innovations in the field because of time/budget/rules set by people who know nothing of the field and how important the job you do is?

If not the above, could you at least acknowledge that you're painting a whole ton of truly dedicated people with an incredibly broad and insulting brush?

If you know so much, where are the suggestions for what the shelter I described above could do to find more animals loving, appropriate homes so euthanasia doesn't have to be performed for any reason other than serious health or temperament issues?

There *are* shelters run by those who stymie progress, who do not care about the animals they house, who leave their hearts at the door and are closed to new options for animal placement, but in my experience, these shelters are rarer than a lot of people apparently think.  The animal sheltering field as a whole is full of some very innovative, warm-hearted, and hard working people who live and breathe animal welfare and who wish euthanasia didn't have to be part of the equation.

AgileGSD

Do you feel that if a dog can't find a home after 7 days, there isn't a home for that dog? Such time frames usually directly ties into the legalities requiring the time that dogs must be held to see if an owner claims them before making them available to adopt or destroy. Here it is three days, with owner turn ins not being required to be made available at all. Things are slowly improving in some places but others remain stuck in the dark ages of animal control for a variety of reasons.

 

I think you came here to pick a fight and you need to check your attitude and back it off a notch.

I don't own or run the shelter I spoke of. It's the Sherman Animal Care and Control facility of Sherman, Texas, on Ida Rd., just off of SH 11. The dog may have a total of 10 business days. 3 for owner reclamation. Eval, then 7 business days. I don't advocate euth based on limited resources. I'm just saying it happens. I don't know what makes you think I support that. Unless it's a handy assumption so that you have a reason to try and bust my chops.

I get it, now. Your issue is that I said that I, ron from Texas, would more likely get a dog from a shelter than buy from a breeder. I was not dissing your choice in buying from a breeder. You assumed that I said that no one should buy from breeders. That is not what I said. I clicked one of your links and saw the bit about people who advocate adopting from shelters as exaggerating the plight of unwanted animals and supporting spay/neuter programs.

Well, I wasn't debating you on keeping your agility dog intact, or whatever, and engaging in agility with the hopes of getting a titled dog that could be bred later, for whatever reason. That's a whole other topic. I was just agreeing with the original poster in that I understand how she feels.

ron2

I get it, now. Your issue is that I said that I, ron from Texas, would more likely get a dog from a shelter than buy from a breeder. I was not dissing your choice in buying from a breeder. You assumed that I said that no one should buy from breeders. That is not what I said. I clicked one of your links and saw the bit about people who advocate adopting from shelters as exaggerating the plight of unwanted animals and supporting spay/neuter programs.

 Your pretty off base. My question was directed at the idea that dogs are being killed because there are no homes for them. You gave your shelter as an example and I questioned (not just to you) if one could really say these dogs are killed due to "overpopulation" and "lack of homes". It has nothing to do with me or my dogs at all but with the continued pushing of the Animal Rights propaganda and the acceptance of such propaganda as fact. You may find what those links say interesting, if you'd take the time to read them.

stardog85

Please realize Agile that there are A LOT of factors at play here - just because there are what seem to be silly rules to us, doesn't mean that the people working at the facility are choosing to run things that way.  Can you imagine how frustrating it must be to love animals but yet be told you can't get help from willing people because of insurance?  How soul-crushing it must be to realize that your best isn't necessarily going to succeed in finding every healthy, sound animal a home and being told that you can't take advantage of new innovations in the field because of time/budget/rules set by people who know nothing of the field and how important the job you do is?

  I think I said that the issues are often due to the people in charge being stuck in the dark ages. But people are willing to go along with it and even defend it, as we have seen in this thread.

  As for what the shelter, do they already have all of these things in place? http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/nokillequation.html 

Yup the shelter has everything except for the TNR program; some programming is in various stages due to funds and staffing needs, but it's all there in some form or other. 

 TNR would likely be very useful, but I'm pretty sure the community has not expressed any support for it and it won't succeed without community support.

See how the community still has a huge role to play here??

Yep - Erin. HUGE paragraph on community involement in that link agile posted.

So - you see all these problems, Agile - what are you doing to fix them? You can talk all you want - but until you get out there and DO something, it's a mute point. Euthanasia in a shelter is not an excuse, but a horrible process that is a reality. I've seen plenty of 'no kill' sheltes turn into hoarding situations - it's a good idea, if run properly.

No kill involves a boat load of community support - without that it could not happen. And if the community does not care - there's not much that can be done.

stardog85

Yup the shelter has everything except for the TNR program; some programming is in various stages due to funds and staffing needs, but it's all there in some form or other. 

 TNR would likely be very useful, but I'm pretty sure the community has not expressed any support for it and it won't succeed without community support.

See how the community still has a huge role to play here??

  I think that is where education comes in. I have a hard time believing that communities would rather see animals killed, most just don't know there are other options and have been told for years that it is their fault. There is a big "us vs. them" mentality that most shelters have with their community and I do think that has to change. While I think the way she uses her temperament test is questionable to say the least, Sue Sternberg has some outstanding community outreach programs. People don't get pets with the idea that they will take them to a shelter at some point and I do believe (and have seen) that some of these dogs could be kept in their homes with community outreach programs. One shelter had free behavior counseling that I taught for quite some time. Anyone who called looking to surrender their own personal dog was directed to attend the free behavior counseling night. Many of the people did come and did not want to give their dogs up, they just didn't know what to do. Many of those dogs were able to stay in their homes and the reason was not "training" (I didn't have enough time with them to help them train the dogs) but management suggestions for the problems. Owners who adopted dogs and were considering returning them were also encouraged to come and it did cut back the number of returns as well. And before you assume this is a progressive area, the shelter is in a rural area and the closest city has some of the highest unemployement and poverty rates in the country.

 The shelter we got our Corgi from was overcrowded and had mutliple "highly adoptable" toy breed dogs that had been there a good long time. I thought that was strange when I first saw them but once I dealt with the director I knew why. She was very rude, did everything but come right out and say we were obviously just going to dump the dog back at the shelter because he'd be more than we could handle. I saw her interact with other interested people and she was just as rude to them. I imagine she is like that with everyone and probably blames the community for not supporting her shelter or adopting dogs from them. We had to lie on the application or there is no way we'd have gotten him - it asked if there were any intact pets in the household. I know from experience with many shelters what that question means - no one with animals who are intact for any reason will be getting a dog from them. I have mutiple dog friends who are very active in dog sports of some sort that have been turned down by shelters and rescues to adopt dogs (and even once a 10 year old cat!) because they have intact show or working dogs. Shelters should be pleased to have such people looking to adopt a dog from them, as it guarantees the dog will be worked with, trained and well cared for . Instead it goes back to that "us vs. them" mentality and the dogs lose out on getting a great home.

My thoughts and beliefs are not from animal rights propaganda, as you call it. I breathe, eat and sleep animal rescue. I am one of those members, of the community, who has pretty much given my life to animal rescue, because I see that need. Do you live what you preach about it? I've asked before how many fosters do you have? How many hours do you dedicate to the computer putting foster animals on petfinder or other places trying to find homes for them? How many hours do you put in, as a volunteer, as the Treasurer of that organization, doing the banking and record keeping which goes along with it? How many hours do you volunteer creating various spreadsheets, among them a record of all of those which your organization spays/neuters, be they individually owned animals, foster animals in your program, or animals from the local shelter you are helping out. These type of things are necessary, if you want to apply for that grant, which you so desperately need. How many hours do you volunteer on the phone, working to coordinate spay/neuter appointments for those that have asked for your help? How many hours do you volunteer socializing those dogs and cats, which you've taken into your foster program. How many hours do you volunteer making special cards to send out to those that have so kindly donated to your program and you just feel, I need to send them a special card...doesn't feel right just sending a plain old Thank-You. How many hours do you volunteer, either putting together fund raisers and/or attending all of the fund raisers, which are needed, in order that your organization can continue to do what it has been doing? You can put all of the links you want but lets see you put some of your own experiences down.