(no subject)
I get so upset and down when people are presumptuous about shelter workers and animal welfare workers. It boils my blood and makes me want to cry in the same moment. I just want to shake people and ask them HOW DARE they think that way, without having to be in the thick of it. How DARE they condemn an organization for "killing needlessly" (not saying it doesn't happen, but hear me out) without having to be one of those "heartless people" who sticks the needles in the veins of those poor animals.
How dare people presume that every life is salvageable. Abstractly it is a great idea. In a perfect world... we wouldn't need animal shelters, because the same members of the community who bring their cat's litter of kittens in to be "adopted out" after allowing their children to "experience the miracle of birth" are the same people that condemn the workers who have to euthanize 25 cats for having highly contractible diseases.
The same woman who risks her personal safety to bring severely aggressive "stray" dogs (who knows for certain they were not hers) also deems it necessary to yell at management members for "euthanizing 100% of the 5 dogs I have brought in over the past 9 years".
I just wish people would educate themselves.
But it's hard to educate yourself when the real, good workers in animal welfare refuse to speak up. And with good reason, because it's not all rainbows and sunny skies. That's just the reality.
The only shelters with low euthanasia rates, I hate to break it to you, adoring public, either turn animals away to unknown and uncertain fate (being let loose to be hit by cars or starve on the street, or taken home and chained in the backyard or shot in the head out of desperation), or adopt out dangerous and sick animals.
And one of the questions I ask myself is, is it better to send an animal to a 'rescue' who is actually a hoarder, who keeps half the animals outdoors without proper food, water, and shelter, where they have a 0.01% chance of finding a new home - or is it better to allow them into an overcrowded shelter, put them through temperament testing, and decide whether or not they are adoptable (and if not, ending their stress and mental anguish right there with humane methods) - or should they go to one of the awful "no kill shelters" who will simply put them in a cage when they're unadoptable, and because the organization is SO AFRAID OF PUBLIC OUTCRY FOR HUMANELY EUTHANIZING UNADOPTABLE PETS, the dog lives for the rest of it's 10 years in a cement cell, unable to be walked, for it's aggression, never leaving it's kennel? Or is it better to fudge the testing, lie to the public, and adopt out unsafe pets into the community, thusly damaging the reputation of the "low/no-kill shelter" because word of mouth is your best friend or your worst enemy?
Which is the fairest of these? You tell me. Because some days I just don't know anymore.
To me? To me it is best to never turn an animal away. I still lose sleep over working for organizations who take part in the "no kill movement" effectively turning away those they can't help... because I have seen first hand what happens to those animals. It is not a happy life they live. Passed around from owner to owner, finally euthanized for biting a child. Or let loose across the street from the shelter, hit by a car and slowly bleeding to death. Hundreds of cats turned away, running loose and attempting to fend for themselves on the streets, dying of diseases, poisoning, hunger... How is this the better alternative? The people who believe in the "no kill revolution" tell me there is no pet overpopulation. You tell me that again after you have been inside barn after barn after house after house full of literally hundreds of cats, not neutered, roaming the woods and populating... You tell me that again after you run the statistics on feral trap/neuter/return programs that are still working on the population of ONE county after 4 years, with little to no improvements during "kitten season".
You tell me that while you drive through cities like Detroit, and see the stray dogs running in packs. The yellow lab standing over his chocolate lab sibling, who has died from starvation, refusing to leave until forceably removed.
Sure. There's no pet overpopulation. Whatever you say to change the facts around to suit your ability to turn animals away who are unsuitable for adoption.
Isn't the point of an animal shelter to take in the unwanted pets? Not just the unwanted perfect pets... there is no such thing.
I don't have the answers. I don't have a solution. I have knowledge, I have first hand knowledge, and facts, and I can quote you studies and statistics. But until you have spent years in this industry, working for all the different types of organizations, like I have (research, high volume humane societies, vet clinics, kennels, "no kill" shelters, animal cruelty investigations, pet stores, private and commercial dog training, etc.) you won't understand.
You won't understand when I say I would rather euthanize 12 cats today, instead of 20 tomorrow, or 150 next week. You won't understand when I talk about skin that falls off neglected animals the law refuses to protect. You won't understand what it's like to make the decision to take a life. You won't understand what it's like to then take that life.
And you can never understand the joy of the ones you saved, the ones you rehabilitated, the heartbreak of never getting to see them again, but the convincing joy that that is a very, very good thing.
Animals give us so much, and we rarely even give them understanding.
How dare people presume that every life is salvageable. Abstractly it is a great idea. In a perfect world... we wouldn't need animal shelters, because the same members of the community who bring their cat's litter of kittens in to be "adopted out" after allowing their children to "experience the miracle of birth" are the same people that condemn the workers who have to euthanize 25 cats for having highly contractible diseases.
The same woman who risks her personal safety to bring severely aggressive "stray" dogs (who knows for certain they were not hers) also deems it necessary to yell at management members for "euthanizing 100% of the 5 dogs I have brought in over the past 9 years".
I just wish people would educate themselves.
But it's hard to educate yourself when the real, good workers in animal welfare refuse to speak up. And with good reason, because it's not all rainbows and sunny skies. That's just the reality.
The only shelters with low euthanasia rates, I hate to break it to you, adoring public, either turn animals away to unknown and uncertain fate (being let loose to be hit by cars or starve on the street, or taken home and chained in the backyard or shot in the head out of desperation), or adopt out dangerous and sick animals.
And one of the questions I ask myself is, is it better to send an animal to a 'rescue' who is actually a hoarder, who keeps half the animals outdoors without proper food, water, and shelter, where they have a 0.01% chance of finding a new home - or is it better to allow them into an overcrowded shelter, put them through temperament testing, and decide whether or not they are adoptable (and if not, ending their stress and mental anguish right there with humane methods) - or should they go to one of the awful "no kill shelters" who will simply put them in a cage when they're unadoptable, and because the organization is SO AFRAID OF PUBLIC OUTCRY FOR HUMANELY EUTHANIZING UNADOPTABLE PETS, the dog lives for the rest of it's 10 years in a cement cell, unable to be walked, for it's aggression, never leaving it's kennel? Or is it better to fudge the testing, lie to the public, and adopt out unsafe pets into the community, thusly damaging the reputation of the "low/no-kill shelter" because word of mouth is your best friend or your worst enemy?
Which is the fairest of these? You tell me. Because some days I just don't know anymore.
To me? To me it is best to never turn an animal away. I still lose sleep over working for organizations who take part in the "no kill movement" effectively turning away those they can't help... because I have seen first hand what happens to those animals. It is not a happy life they live. Passed around from owner to owner, finally euthanized for biting a child. Or let loose across the street from the shelter, hit by a car and slowly bleeding to death. Hundreds of cats turned away, running loose and attempting to fend for themselves on the streets, dying of diseases, poisoning, hunger... How is this the better alternative? The people who believe in the "no kill revolution" tell me there is no pet overpopulation. You tell me that again after you have been inside barn after barn after house after house full of literally hundreds of cats, not neutered, roaming the woods and populating... You tell me that again after you run the statistics on feral trap/neuter/return programs that are still working on the population of ONE county after 4 years, with little to no improvements during "kitten season".
You tell me that while you drive through cities like Detroit, and see the stray dogs running in packs. The yellow lab standing over his chocolate lab sibling, who has died from starvation, refusing to leave until forceably removed.
Sure. There's no pet overpopulation. Whatever you say to change the facts around to suit your ability to turn animals away who are unsuitable for adoption.
Isn't the point of an animal shelter to take in the unwanted pets? Not just the unwanted perfect pets... there is no such thing.
I don't have the answers. I don't have a solution. I have knowledge, I have first hand knowledge, and facts, and I can quote you studies and statistics. But until you have spent years in this industry, working for all the different types of organizations, like I have (research, high volume humane societies, vet clinics, kennels, "no kill" shelters, animal cruelty investigations, pet stores, private and commercial dog training, etc.) you won't understand.
You won't understand when I say I would rather euthanize 12 cats today, instead of 20 tomorrow, or 150 next week. You won't understand when I talk about skin that falls off neglected animals the law refuses to protect. You won't understand what it's like to make the decision to take a life. You won't understand what it's like to then take that life.
And you can never understand the joy of the ones you saved, the ones you rehabilitated, the heartbreak of never getting to see them again, but the convincing joy that that is a very, very good thing.
Animals give us so much, and we rarely even give them understanding.