I want to understand. For those that think OHS made the right decision do you also have the opinion that my volunteer work is causing potentially, or absolutely, more harm than good?
This is a dicey issue ethically.
IMO, it is important to look at the big picture and understand that shelters, unfortunately, do little to address the actual problem, which is overpopulation. Ways to solve overpopulation include boycotting and organizing against pet stores and puppy mills, and educating people. As spiritdogs says, it's great to work to replace fighting with weight pulling. It's great to spread the word that it's really bad (both for selfish reasons and for larger ethical reasons) to get a puppy from a pet store or over the internet. That having a dog in your life is a lifelong decision, and therefore must, must be a selfish and thoughtful one.
Shelters give people who buy Christmas puppies someplace to put their now-adolescent untrained dog that is guilt free. They wind up being a secondary market for puppy mill dogs, who are raised as livestock and therefore poorly socialized and difficult to housetrain. In this way, shelters wind up cleaning up the *symptoms* of dog overpopulation, but also enable the root causes of dog overpopulation.
Shelters, IMO, need to realize the volume of the problem and do something that is extremely difficult and painful. It is cruicial to stop focusing on "saving the individual dog" if shelters are going to actually start working toward the ethical imparative of stopping the tremendously ugly problem, which is dog overpopulation.
Saving The Individual Dog is a model many shelters employ, and it creates fosters like your SA dog and puts a lot of money into rehabilitation and for that matter also creates the Kill/No Kill divide that many people have clearly outlined on this thread. I totally underrstand exactly why shelters adopt this model--the dogs are sentient creatures and each individual dog absolutely deserves our stewardship. That's the whole point, right?
Unfortunately, it's such a complex issue. Looking at each individual dog, while it seems like exactly the right thing to do, creates real problems in terms of actually solving pet overpopulation. Here is why:
Pet stores and puppy mills rely on people making emotional decisions about dogs to make huge sales. I would argue that actually solving overpopulation means replacing that impulsive, emotional decision with a clinical, selfish, calculated decision. Instead of saying, "he's soooooooooooooooooo cute! I have to have him!" or "he's sooooooooooooo sad, I have to save him!" every single dog owner should be saying:
"Okay. I know that having a dog is a lot of work. I have to housetrain, be responsible for behavior, feed the dog and take him to the vet. This dog will keep me up at night, make me late for work, change my social life, and frustrate me. I know this. Now, what kind of dog is exactly the right dog for me? Why do I want a dog? What do I want out of this experience?"
When shelters orient themselves toward saving dogs, they set people up to make an emotional decision. They set many people up to take exactly the dog they do not want--a dog that is going to be too much work and is not going to give them what they want in return.
Now, pretend you've gone and made that emotional decision and gotten the timid one that needed the most saving. If you are an average dog owner (remember, people can be so lame about dogs, so heartless), you are going to quickly find that this dog is nothing but bad news and you are going to dump the dog back on the shelter. The shelter has just wasted its resources, and in the meantime created a bad dog experience for many people.
Remember that dogs are social animals, and they go out into the world a lot. Every single dog is an ambassador of dog ownership. American dogs are different than European dogs, to use an example. They are very poorly behaved and have lots more problems. I would argue that this is because the expectations for good dog behavior are lower. I personally believe that this is because dogs are thought of in such strict emotional terms here. Having a dog, say, at the dog run, that exhibits terrible social behavior, and not doing anything about it because the dog is a shelter dog, has issues, or was "abused," is doing nothing to change this fundamental American mindset about dogs.
So, and I know that this is getting really long, I don't think it's ethically OK, even though it is completely painful to say this, to do anything that perpetuates this emotional decision making about dogs. This includes, unfortunately, saving every individual dog.
What I would rather see is nonprofits that organize around an educational principle and actually work to change what dog ownership means in America. These organizations would be fighting for legislation that protects dogs from the get-go. Puppy mills should be illegal. Buying a dog over the internet or in a pet store should be illegal. There should simply be a waiting period placed on aquiring a dog--it's a more important life-or-death choice for most people than buying a gun is.
These organizations would enable shelters to do more than clean up the terrible endless flow of too many dogs thoughtlessly aquired. They would educate every single potential dog owner about what owning a dog is all about, and what happens to dogs when they are rehomed. They would offer low-cost or no-cost dog training, so that people can enjoy their dogs more. They would help people pick the exact dog they want. The dog that will stay with them forever.
And as this organization creates more commercials, more happy educated dog owners, and more legislation, the expectations for dog behavior on the street will change. Out-of-control dog behavior will be tolerated less and less, and will be seen as more aberrant. More restaurants and stores will allow dogs. Dogs will actually start to make sense in the fabric of American society--not as objects in the backyard, but as the social companions they are.
IMO, this kind of actual, large-scale change in which every individual dog is given a respectful start in life can only happen when we, paradoxically, abandon the concept of saving each individual dog. This is not because each individual dog is not important at all, but because the forces devaluing the lives of each individual dog are very great and do actual harm, and because dogs must live with people, as a part of our society. They have evolved for thousands of years to do so, and have no place in the "wild." Either they are pets or they become feral, dangerous pests. They are entirely our responsibility and are firmly part of our society, and we have done too much to devalue them already--from breeding them poorly to neglecting them and not training them to actual abuse--to make every single one of them salvagable at this point.
I hate that this is true, but I would rather admit it and work toward solving the actual problem than blindly chip away at the symptom.
These are just my opinions, DPU. Not intended as any sort of slam at all, just answering your question. I don't, unfortunately, have this nonprofit in my back pocket or anything. Just throwing out ideas... I hate pet overpopulation. It's so ugly.