By: Revanche

In the Community

April 6, 2010

I’d like to share some posts I enjoyed last week …

Darwin asked if your raise sucked this year, and was more than a little surprised by the answers.

Kevin from Out of Your Rut guest posted an interesting take on career management and who’s the boss at Fiscal Geek’s site.

Unavocis posted on a subject near and dear to my heart: animals and animal shelters.  Unavocis also responded:

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. First off, all of you people who have ever surrendered a pet to a shelter or humane society should be made to work in the “back” of an animal shelter for just one day. Maybe if you saw the life drain from a few sad, lost, confused eyes, you would stop flagging the ads on craigslist and help these animals find homes. That puppy you just bought will most likely end up in my shelter when it’s not a cute little puppy anymore. Just so you know there’s a 90% chance that dog will never walk out of the shelter it’s dumped at? Purebred or not! About 25% of all of the dogs that are “owner surrenders” or “strays”, that come into a shelter are purebred dogs.
……Odds are your pet won’t get adopted, and how stressful do you think being in a shelter is? Well, let me tell you, 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 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 in 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, rottie, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much dead when you walked it through the front door. Those dogs just don’t get adopted. It doesn’t matter how ‘sweet’ or ‘well behaved’ they are.

6 Responses to “In the Community”

  1. L.A. Daze says:

    That is so sad…I want to volunteer some of my time to walking these dogs but I don’t know where to look, and at the places I have found, the times interfere with my regular work schedule.

    Plus the places i’ve contacted took FOREVER to get back to me and all had an uppity attitude. I mean…do you want me to help you or not? I just don’t get it.

  2. Aaren says:

    That is so heartbreaking!! And I’ve had 2 of the “bully” breeds: a rottie who passed away after 16 years of being the most precious puppy, and an almost 5-year old pit, who’s still a big ol’ baby! I SO want a mastiff. Though I can’t have one now (apt rules) I will definitely have to start doing more volunteer work with them.

  3. My raise was actually a nice surprise this year! I was hardly expecting to get everything.

    I read that shelter letter – so sad. Chad and I are agreed that when we have our own house, we’re going to be adopting at least one dog!

  4. Revanche says:

    @L.A.Daze: Did you try the ASPCA type shelters? It’s a shame that because shelters keep pretty normal business hours (9-6?), people with regular jobs don’t have much opportunity to help out after hours.

    It’s sad that you encountered such poor attitudes, that’s frustrating!

    @Aaren: I looove the bully breeds. So many of them have great temperaments and when well-trained, are absolute dolls.

    @paranoidasteroid: It’s especially nice since Chad’s still job-hunting!

  5. I am sitting here crying my eyes out reading that! Thankfully here we do not put down animals at shelters unless they are very sick or very very aggressive. But having lived on the other side of the ocean I know that isn’t true in N.America.

    I begin my volunteering at an animal shelter here very soon.

  6. I was so moved by your excerpt I reprinted it on my blog along with a similar conversation I had with a humane society volunteer. Thanks for posting.

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