Are shelters at fault, or forever free of blame?

 Stormyknight - you rock!  And said things much nicer than I could've.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - yes, not all shelters are in it for the right reasons, not all shelters have proactive directors and staff, but until you have been to shelters ALL over this country and have seen the issues each region faces, you CANNOT and SHOULD NOT judge those that do the work. 

We have a huge number of programs from the list of what "we should have" according to winograd and others, but there is only so much staff power, only so much time, and only so much money to implement even more.  Even with our programming (behavior services, humane ed, volunteer and foster programs, low cost s/n, rescue relationships, etc.) we still get 18,000 (yes with 3 zeros) animals a year and we have to pts waaaaay more than *anyone* would like.

If you'd like to give us that magic wand so many people seem to believe in, we'd be grateful, seriously.

stardog85

Stormyknight - you rock!  And said things much nicer than I could've.

That's what I was going to say!!!

stardog85

If you'd like to give us that magic wand so many people seem to believe in, we'd be grateful, seriously.

Please?

First one has to look at why dogs are in shelters and develope plans that address those issues.

http://www.canismajor.com/dog/surrend1.html

Its easy to point a finger at breeders for this mess but remember the rest of your fingers are pointing right back at you. I think its pretty hard to argue with numbers so here's another link.

http://www.canismajor.com/dog/spayneut.html

75% is the national average for voluntary spay/nueter in dogs.

I'm sorry that the OP had problems at the one shelter she worked at. I think it's a bit much too assume all shelters had the problems she faced. I'm also sorry she feels guilty about having worked for a shelter that killed, even if they called themselves no-kill.

The one ACO I know works on the street. And at the shelter. And operates the mobile pet adoption program. What else can he do? The shelter has a 7-day schedule. After eval, the animal has 7 business days to be adopted. They only have so many resources. The mobile adoption trailer was a donation from a private citizen. That is, a private citizen paid to have this thing built and delivered to Sherman Animal Care and Control. They could not have afforded it on their budget. Not to mention that the workers do need to make just enough to pay for rent and food for themselves and be able to get to work. No one is perfect and not all shelters are perfect. Another member was dealing with Borger Animal Control in Borger, Texas. They don't have the money for vet care. You have to adopt the dog as is and seek the vet care on your own. Needless to say, they are a kill shelter. That's just the way it is in the middle of the Texas Panhandle.

And there are simply not enough people to handle the problem dogs adequately. Sometimes, there are not enough people to simply handle having pets. The owners that lost or surrendered the pets are the average. Other times, the people thought they could handle an intact pet only to find that they couldn't and now they have a litter of pups they can't place or don't have an idea how to place and are too busy working to sit in the Home Depot parking lot hoping they can sell the pups or give them away.

Granted, this is a human problem. But dissing the shelters won't help or solve the problem. They have to make hard decisions in dire circumstances. If I ran a shelter and I had 10 dogs, I would have to make decisions. 1 dog is a problem to handle. The other 9 are bombproof sweethearts who are simply homeless. If I PTS the problem dog, I have resources to keep the other 9 another week, giving them another chance at being adopted to any family instead of a trained owner who is just one credit short of a training cert. Of the people I know locally that own dogs, I am the only one who goes to a forum like this and reads the latest and greatest and would even have a clue as to how to manage, say, an Akita. Most do not.

Perhaps something we can do locally is to increase education as best as we can to the public and to see to it that a city spends more on animal care and control, rather than building yet another sports arena. A guy can dream, right?

 

tessa_s212

spiritdogs

SA dogs, food aggressive dogs, dog aggressive dogs, dogs that are so damaged they can't properly interact with kids, or safely be in public situations.  Dogs with huge medical or training expenses.  The public that tries to adopt from shelters to help with the pet overpopulation problem does not deserve to be hung with dogs that are inappropriate for the average pet home. This is also one reason why some people end up getting puppies from breeders - they have one bad experience at the shelter and never go back.

 The vast majority of dogs in shelters don't suffer from such extremities as you may believe. Many are untrained, but that is not so extreme, nor a reason to label any dog "unadoptable".  Yes, you will find aggressive dogs in shelters. And in case of aggression that cannot be rehabilitated, it should be humanely euthanized. But food aggression is controllable and easily trained out of a dog. And in most cases, in these so called 'temperament tests' that test for food aggression - they are highly unfair and not done in a manner that would truly predict their behavior outside of the kennel environment.

 

Save them all mentality - puts inappropriate dogs into homes that aren't a good fit

 Not necessarily true. They may be less strict with adoptions, less holier than thou, and treat every adoption as an individual, but that doesn't mean adoption quality reduces. I can't tell you how many people have problems with shelters and rescues that are too picky and full of themselves. 

No kill shelters - don't euthanize, put more burden on open admission shelters, put inappropriate dogs into homes

If I am not mistaken, all 3 truly No Kill shelters in the US have open admission. They do not put innapropriate dogs into homes(or this would be seen in return rates, which it is not), they do not turn dogs away, nor do they send them to another shelter to be euthanized.  Besides, couldn't the same be said for RESCUE groups? They do not take in every dog. They do not have open admission. Do they hold any blame. People would certainly like to ridicule no kill shelters, what about rescue groups?

Fosterers - some wear rose colored glasses about dogs they like, or their own breed, and place dogs inappropriately

Depends on the foster care program. You don't HAVE to let fosterers choose who they adopt to. They aren't the shelter director, and their responsibility is restricted to hteir duties of caring for, loving, getting to know, rehabilitation, and supplying potential adopters and the shelter director with information about the dog to better find it a suitable home. Whether or not a shelter allows individual foster parents to place dogs is soley in their discretion. They can take what they have to say into consideration, but the director is given that title for a reason.

Public - buy from pet stores, puppy mills, Internet jerks posing as reputable breeders, purchase "designer dogs" or can't wait for a good pup, so get what they want for "instant gratification".

 

The public is uneducated. Simple as that. Instead of hate, blame, condemnation, shelters need to be less snobby and more open. Just yesterday I was at a flea market where I saw 3 puppy millers selling their puppies. That afternoon, I emailed over 15 rescue groups in and around the city to suggest that they occasionally set up booths directly next to such puppy millers. give people a choice - many would make the right decision. 

 

When we blame others, we give up the power to change. Of course shelters don't house ALL the blame..some certainly lies with the irresponsible owners and breeders, but refusing to even recognize the blame they do deserve is detrimental to the animals.

 

Tessa, of course I know that MOST shelter dogs and rescued dogs are fine.  You must have been sleeping on this board not to realize that all my own dogs EXCEPT Sequoyah have all been rescues or shelter dogs, including my heart dog, Dancer, and my current therapy dog extraordinaire, Sioux.  However, I was merely commenting that when families receive the ones that aren't, they feel cheated.  Case in point.  I have a client who adopted two shelter dogs.  One had SA and destroyed her house and barked quite a lot - she, being the kind person that she is, was already starting some SA protocols, and had made an appointment with a well known vet behaviorist to see if medication would help in the process (let's see - single office visit alone about $275) and was hoping to help him when the dog died, she thinks from a neighbor poisoning him - fortunately her other dog didn't ingest whatever it was.  But, the second dog, also a shelter dog, is extremely fearful, snaps at other dogs, and is generally under-socialized.  If shelters are going to save these dogs, they need to rehab the dogs and not send them into households that may not have the resources, as this lady does, to try to help them.  I cannot escape the fact that I am seeing more and more dogs coming in to my classes from shelters that do have issues that make them inappropriate for the families they ended up with - maybe the education should start with the adoption counselors...

The public may be uneducated, but I'm twice your age and haven't found anyone able to educate them yet.  Even Oprah's puppy mill show didn't stop many of them from going out and buying from a pet store this Christmas, I'm sure.

As to the three "truly no kill" shelters having open admission, it would take a lot more than three shelters to solve that problem.  Gimme a break. The reason that rescues don't take every dog is that there aren't enough volunteers who foster, not that they don't want to - and many rescues DO take special needs dogs that they rehab or pay extensive vet care for.  Those of us who can't foster often participate in other ways, too, such as transport, donation, or provision of professional services or discounts. 

Shelters do need to be less snobby - with their attitudes, but not their criteria.  Again, it isn't their fault that people want instant gratification.  Shelters still have a duty to the animals they protect not to send them from the frying pan to the fire. 

All that having been said, there are so many great shelters, wonderful workers, rescuers who operate virtually anonymously with their charity, and people who donate time, blood, sweat and many tears, to seeing that animals are treated well.  So, never paint everyone with a broad brush.  We DO have enough blame to go around, and we also have KUDOS that are well deserved.  But, if we don't recognize and acknowledge the things that go wrong, we can never right them.  Knowing the problems enables us to think about the solutions.

I wasn't going to post in this thread again but the above from spiritdogs is so eloquent and well said that I couldn't resist taking my virtual hat off to her.

spiritdogs

 - maybe the education should start with the adoption counselors...

...Gimme a break. The reason that rescues don't take every dog is that there aren't enough volunteers who foster, not that they don't want to - and many rescues DO take special needs dogs that they rehab or pay extensive vet care for.  Those of us who can't foster often participate in other ways, too, such as transport, donation, or provision of professional services or discounts. 

 

I agree, and may get flammed for saying this, but a lot of the time in rescue my job is to say "that dog doesn't make the cut" more than "yes we can take him/her" when pulling dogs from shelters. If I can't say that a dog will be safe with JQP, then I won't pull them from a shelter. That sounds terrible, and it is, but for every dog I say no to, there is another that is resounding yes. My job is to find the outstanding dogs so that average adopters and the dogs can live happily ever after.

Is that a raw deal for all the other dogs? Of course! Nobody is debating that some dogs get the short end of the stick and I am sure most of us have shed tears over it, but rescues and shelters can't just adopt out every dog that comes in back out. It's irresponsible.

 

As long as we the human public domesticate our animals WE ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE...WE ARE ALL TO BLAME as a Society as a whole. A few random comments... some food for thought and consideration before lifting a hand to point a finger at anyone. COMPASSION is NOT some sort of soft, cushy, cozy, romantic notion of kindness or goodness. It is a RUTHLESS ACTIVITY. You learn this wisdom when you are forced to make the "call" on whether or not a Dog can be rehabilitated and rehomed or not. It is a sword that cuts both ways. Your heart breaks but you know it is the right decision because for that one dog some others might feel determined to "save" ( & will most probably live out his/her life of loneliness and stress), another 10 wonderful Dogs are being passed by. You HAVE to keep this focus as there simply are NOT enough homes in proportion to the number of Dogs that need them. For those of you who are so harsh and judgemental about Shelters and people who have to perform euthanization you make some sort of assumption that there is a joy or satisfaction of doing so! It is a necessary and grim occupation that I myself simply do not possess the bravery required in which to do so. I am grateful that there are those who do. Because what are the options? It's easy to say NO KILL but again, the assumption is that this is some sort of workable alternative that we as a society CHOOSE. Before you start yelling NO KILL, (which is an easy position to SAY) you need to think it thru further. Where would all these animals go? Who would provide for them? What quality of life would they lead? How many would wind up starving? Spend their lives huddled in a corner full of fear because there are not enough humans to be able to skillfully work with them and address those emotional fears? Help them relearn how to be a happy Dog? Just be a "living" number in a large population of other strange dogs with never a pack of their own. Is the act of BEING ALIVE override the QUALITY? Perhaps those who have such passion and so easily pass blame might consider redirecting that energy towards the actual SOLUTION? For euthanization is only a symptom of a much greater plight. Why not focus on DECREASING THE NUMBERS of animals and become advocates of SPAY/NEUTERING? Rail hard against the BACKYARD BREEDERS and PUPPY MILLS whose products of irresponsibility, ignorance and indulgence feed the never ending river that flows into Shelters and Rescue Groups? Rail against the Puppy Mills that pose as "responsible breeders" that ship Dogs like QVC products around the world or simply jump into the GRAY - volunteer at a Shelter or Foster a Dog. See the amount of time, effort and monies that are required to place a dog in an appropriate home, not just any home. DOGS DO NOT NEED PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BE HERO'S or Bleeding Hearts that can't bear the reality that they can't save every dog and wind up being "collectors" starting a new cycle of a different kind of abuse. It is a vicious, never ending circle and there are no EASY answers or solutions. Review SPIRITDOGS posting on this website and read it carefully. It addresses in such an articulate fashion all that needs to be said as far as WHY so many Dogs are being euthanized. If you are one of the angry people on this post tossing blame about know that your words are ineffective and are absolutely NO HELP at all to any Dog right this moment. While you're typing your opinions, know that you just missed a moment of opportunity to help a Dog in need out there. Go to DOGSINDANGER.COM and see the big clock ticking over their heads and then DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. And remember that DOING THE RIGHT THING is NEVER easy - there are thousands of people out there trying to do something that IS RIGHT but you never hear about them or from them. That's because they're too busy. They have little time for harsh opinions or blame. Aggression only begets further aggression. Rescue just ONE dog, Foster that ONE dog and re-home that ONE dog in a good home and trust me, your opinions of NO KILL might be challenged and you will quickly realize that there are no victories in this battle. It will make you very humble indeed. I spoke to an amazing woman today who is the Animal Control Officer at a County Shelter in Oklahoma. I'm trying to get a dog released there and transported to NYS. Just one dog. One single solitary Dog that I had to select out of hundreds that I saw & thousands that are out there DEPENDING ON HUMANS to help them. We discussed a few of them that USED to be listed but were just euthanized as they were simply there too long and received no interest & so many are waiting to come in. Ask me if this Officer seemed joyful or smug or arrogant to discuss such news? Ask me if we didn't have a few moments of silence out of sheer respect for these dogs and I if I didn't hear her voice begin to break? So please STOP BEING PART OF THE PROBLEM BY BLAMING OTHERS and BECOME AN ACTIVE PART OF THE SOLUTION? Put the pressure and edge where it belongs ... towards our government - County, State and Local. And one last thought: Shelters are now being flooded with incoming more than ever due to the economic crisis. People are turning in their dogs because they are unable to feed them!!! Please, donate food to your local food bank so we can help people stay with their pets. Start a drive thru your children's school or local Pet Supply. Post flyers around to let people know there are options and help for their animals. DOGS ARE HUNGRY ALL OVER AMERICA! Thank you.