My beloved Shayla, who came from the pound herself. Unfortunately, due to joblessness and a couple months of homelessness, Shayla had to be rehomed through Australian Shepherd Rescue and Placement Helpline. She now lives in the Ketchikan with a new family. Yes, she is 3-legged.
What really happens at the pound…from the Bend Craigslist.
Reply to: see below
Date: 2007-05-18, 12:29PM PDT
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. 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?
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.
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”, when 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 it’s 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?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. I will add to this: If you think you might not want to keep your pet for it’s ENTIRE LIFE, then, for heaven’s sake, DON’T GET ONE IN THE FIRST PLACE
I adopted Tilley through STAAR, and I took Willow from an acquaintance who had stopped another lady from bringing her to the pound. We were going to place her through That’ll Do Border Collie Rescue, but I couldn’t give her up. We adopted Watson from the pound in Moses Lake, WA. I consider myself to be pretty stoic, but I left that place in tears. Animals shelters in the states are worse than those in Canada, and those in Canada are pretty horrific. I would euthanize my dogs at home before ever putting them in such an environment (just like I would euthanize my horses rather than risking their futures by selling them). But then my dogs would have no trouble finding a home if things went bad for us — they are all happy, healthy and very well trained family members. I’m sure it was the same for your Shayla.
Such a sad truth:-( I have a co-worker that adopted a rat terrier mx from the shelter and I don’t know where she got her cats… 5 YEARS later she comes into work one day and says “Well I’m pet free” with a big smile on her face
She said she had her daughter take them to a “No Kill Shelter”…. I was in complete shock and just couldn’t believe someone could do that, ever since then I can’t stand this lady and I’m sure it shows, though I never told her how stupid and cruel I thought she was.
I’ve had greyhounds for the last 15 years and Limo was dumped off where I work as a 4 mo old pup.
I have always wanted more then one dog, but was not able to. Now that I have my own place and some acres I plan on, this spring going to the county pound and getting 1 or 2 more dogs. I can hardly wait!
One at a time, Kris, one at a time! They say that one dog is a lot of work and two is three times the work. Three dogs is a whole heck of a lot more! Be cautious of overwhelming your current dog by adding a lot of new family members at once. And, you’ll want to make sure everybody gets along! Otherwise, have fun and thanks for rescuing!
I think everyone needs to read that – I don’t want everyone getting a giant phobia of euthanasia – but it’s important to know what you are really doing when you flake out on your pet. And that’s what it is most of the time – flaking out.
But at the very least those kinds of people who dump their pets on the shelter – didn’t dump them on a lonely road somewhere and drive off – cause that’s worse and I see it happen ALL THE TIME out where we live. We live out in the country so folks from the city will drive out here and dump their cats and dog thinking they find a “good home” with “room to run” out here.
That is NOT the case. They usually end up getting hit by a car – shot at the first farm they wonder through – or starving to death.
I get so mad at people that do that! Especially if they went out and bought a dog after seeing the latest Disney special and yes it “got too big” or “has too much energy” or just doesn’t act like the cute spotted dogs or the cute St. Bernard dogs did on TV. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Great minds think alike! Next it will be yellow labs because of Marley!
As i write this our lovely silky x poodle is in the pound. We lost her a week ago and to see her picture on latrobe shire website. It broke my heart to see her little eyes looking so sad! I called the emergency line right away and told them her ID number and made sure they keep her there for us to pick up. We will be picking her up in another 2 hours and we can’t wait to have her in our family again! i’ll be honest… I was making myself believe that now i knew she was safe she’ll get a new home and be adopted la la la. After reading this i want her home more than ever. No matter the cost she loves us and i wont be able to stand never knowing what happened to her after we decided to NOT pick her up.We love her and she deserves a chance.
Thanks for your comment. Hope you get your pup back! Glad to know that I made a difference in one pup’s life!
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