Letters to the Editor
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For mottthehoople - effectiveness of screening?
You ask:
"There's a lot of discussion about the intent of shelter screening processes to prevent maltreatment, etc., but I haven't seen any claims that they are actually effective. Are they? Are shelter placed pets more successful?"
My answer would be that the only way to know something like this is to have some way of following up, knowing how long the animals live and how they live. You would have to have a way to track the fortunes of pound pets that went to unscreened homes, vs. homes that were selected through a screening process. If you make sure animals come back to you if the adoption isn't successful (the whole point of the contract) then you can know whether you're doing a good job screening homes.
At the city shelter (what most people would call the pound) where I volunteer we get dogs and cats returned, sometimes after days and sometimes after years - we know because they have a unique microchip. The most common reasons are "no time", "landlord" or "family moving" - which are some of the key things one could try to screen for (even just raise the issue - what if you move?) and yet there is no such screening done. And some of these animals will die because they were returned and no new home is found for them.
We don't know what happens to the pound animals that aren't returned. Well, actually, I know what happened to a couple of them - they live next-door to me, outdoors 24/7, unkempt, flea-ridden, never see a vet, never walked, no attention beyond food & water. But that's not in anybody's statistical study.
As to Oscar and the wisdom of treating illness in an older dog - that's another discussion. I don't think you can know unless you live with the dog and witness his life & care. But once you take a dog into rescue, the goal is to give them the same quality of care and treatment you would for your own dog - and most groups can only take a few special needs dogs, for which they need to raise extra funds. Believe it or not, there are loving homes for some of these dogs - some adopters are ready and willing to take them in.
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Sorry, Anonymous@2:04pm,
but if you think that Ellen DeGeneres' acting talents make her capable of a delivering a "performance" that matches the spontaneous outpouring of emotions she had over this incident, you have very obviously never seen her act.
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Of mice and men.
I'll hold the potato for a moment. "Pets" are actually considered property or stock in the eyes of the law. There is a disconnect in the way our society deals with animals. Jerzy Kosinski (author) pointed out that American "pets" are completely confused as they have one foot in a human world and one foot in the animal kingdom.
My philosophy on animals: We are not their "owners," they are not our "pets." We are, in the best, an animal's guardian. Charged with helping the animal survive and live in a human centric world. You can not "own" another living thing any more than you can claim to be the creator of a living thing.
The law is wrong. Animals are not property.
Rescue centers are also wrong. Animals are not people (I understand that humans are animals). They can not be adopted. They are not children.
Pet stores and breeders are wrong. Animals are not merchandise. They can not be "sold." Sure you can sell me a puppy. You can also sell me the ocean. Does either really belong to me? My answer is no.
How should we treat animals? As we would want to be treated by someone charged with our care. I would not want to be passed around from home to home. I would not want a metal pinch collar around my neck. I would want shelter, food, exercise, stability, and a social life with members of my own kind.
There is a homeless man who lives in the bushes a few blocks from me. He has a dog. I would hand an animal over to him before I'd hand an animal to most people in my neighborhood. He understands his end of the relationship between man and animal with a clarity that most people don't.
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Anonymous at 11:11 am
Cool!
So, you've, like, adopted the difficult cases--the dogs in need of thrice-weekly dialysis who are on the verge of death anyway because they are so elderly? And always shunned the young, cute and healthy? I'm guessing "yes," since you've clearly opined that only assholes opt for the latter.
It's just an aside, but what, then, are we supposed to do about all the young (or at least youngish) animals in high-kill shelters? I guess we let them die because only an asshole would adopt them, and who wants to be an asshole?
Anyhoo, what has your experience been with all the damaged animals that you've adopted over the years? Of course, since you're *not* an asshole, I'm guessing that you've never dealt with a healthy animal, so you might not have the means to a comparison on hand...
Another aside (and, admittedly, extrapolating like mad from your original stance), are your Significant Others also damaged? I mean, *everybody* wants the blonde, busty, thin, and healthy blue-eyed girl, right? She probably has fifty takers for every man lining up to form a relationship with the wheelchair-bound woman, or the woman with AIDs, right? So, I mean, what kind of asshole doesn't opt to love and care for the halt and the lame over the healthy?
Just a few questions, 'tis all...
Fredegunde
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It's called the Messiah Complex
We have experienced it first hand. No is good enough for their dogs...
We have two dogs. A registered Border Collie (BC), and a BC mix. We got the mix from local animal control. What a great dog! Then we wanted to get her a companion, so we looked at two BC rescue organizations. BCs are high energy dogs that require space and attention. We have five wooded acres out of town, and my wife works mostly at home. What more could you ask for right? Wrong.
The local BC rescue required a home visit, which we agreed to. We agree that homes should be checked out, and that BCs have special needs. But oh, the horror when the rescue person discovered that we use radio collars! How else does one give a dog the run of five acres (that it really needs) without the use of a radio collar? Can you imagine how much it would cost to fence five acres? Remember, we are not raising livestock here.
Anyway, the rescue group declined our application due to our use of "cruel" fencing. Knowing that these same people let suburbia dwelling folks with 1/10 acre yards have their dogs, I ask you which is worse, a high energy dog fenced in a tiny yard, or that same, very smart dog getting one or two pokes (and I assure you that is all it takes for a BC to learn the boundary) and having the run of 5 acres of woods?
The second rescue group we worked with did not have a problem with the collars. Instead, the first dog they sent us home with was utterly neurotic, and the second one was a biter, both of whom ended up back at rescue.
The answer for us was to find a good breeder, whose stock we could evaluate (it was the same price wether breeder of rescue group), and who evaluated their pups before selling them. Sadly, no more rescue kooks for us.