Unfortunately, many shelters cannot take every animal that shows up on their doorstep. They risk becoming severely overcrowded and shut down. The ultimate responsibility of these atrocities lies with the pet owner.
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horrible story!
- Thread starter sammie's mom
- Start Date
Katachtig I am going to have to disagree with you on that one. If a shelter has someone certified for euthanasia then they can take in every animal that is brought to their door. Otherwise, if they don't they can't.
I work at a true open door shelter. In the 70 years of our existance no pet/animal has ever been turned away. NEVER! We get pets in from all counties because of this. We are referred to people by "no kill" shelters. Which was kinda the point I was trying to get at in my first post. ( the whole passing the buck theory )
I can not imagine what anyone would do if they had no where to take the animal. One would like to believe that every single situation relies on the owner irresponsibility. However, that is just not true for every case. People who fly in to bury one of their parents who have left pets behind. Where do they take those pets? Or the elderly who apparantly have no family who die in a nursing home. Where does the nursing home take those pets. I can not tell you how many times I have heard "I am so grateful you are here, I don't know what I'd do." I have seen people drive as far as 3 hours just to drop off a stray because we are the only shelter that would take the stray. I have to question that. Here someone cared enought to drive 3 hours, and not one shelter close to them cared enough just to take the pet in. What really gets me..is when someone says "The blankity blank Society said we could bring our animal here, they are out of room." As if to say we have all this room. When they are 10 times the size of our Humane Society. It absolutely drive me nuts, but that's more a personal issue than anything else.
At the end of the day, our euthanasia rate is high. You can see it on the kennel managers face. Most of the time I am left wondering why are we the only ones who are willing to carry the burden? It's stories like this news article that make me glad our shelter is an open door.
( I wanted to add on a more personal note: I love animals, especially cats. If I ever saw someone hurting an animal I would personally beat them in the head with a baseball bat. However I have seen so much when it comes to animal abuse that nothing shocks or suprises me anymore. )
I work at a true open door shelter. In the 70 years of our existance no pet/animal has ever been turned away. NEVER! We get pets in from all counties because of this. We are referred to people by "no kill" shelters. Which was kinda the point I was trying to get at in my first post. ( the whole passing the buck theory )
I can not imagine what anyone would do if they had no where to take the animal. One would like to believe that every single situation relies on the owner irresponsibility. However, that is just not true for every case. People who fly in to bury one of their parents who have left pets behind. Where do they take those pets? Or the elderly who apparantly have no family who die in a nursing home. Where does the nursing home take those pets. I can not tell you how many times I have heard "I am so grateful you are here, I don't know what I'd do." I have seen people drive as far as 3 hours just to drop off a stray because we are the only shelter that would take the stray. I have to question that. Here someone cared enought to drive 3 hours, and not one shelter close to them cared enough just to take the pet in. What really gets me..is when someone says "The blankity blank Society said we could bring our animal here, they are out of room." As if to say we have all this room. When they are 10 times the size of our Humane Society. It absolutely drive me nuts, but that's more a personal issue than anything else.
At the end of the day, our euthanasia rate is high. You can see it on the kennel managers face. Most of the time I am left wondering why are we the only ones who are willing to carry the burden? It's stories like this news article that make me glad our shelter is an open door.
( I wanted to add on a more personal note: I love animals, especially cats. If I ever saw someone hurting an animal I would personally beat them in the head with a baseball bat. However I have seen so much when it comes to animal abuse that nothing shocks or suprises me anymore. )
Breal76;1435660 said:At the end of the day, our euthanasia rate is high. You can see it on the kennel managers face. Most of the time I am left wondering why are we the only ones who are willing to carry the burden? It's stories like this news article that make me glad our shelter is an open door.
QUOTE]
BReal, I can commiserate with you - you clearly see reality, and it is indeed tough.
I know the kill v. no-kill debate belongs in the IMO forum, so will tip-toe around THAT provocative subject, but have to agree with you about other shelters who simply turn away people without attempting alternatives or at least showing more empathy.
In my personal experience, I was visiting Oakland, Calif's SPCA when a man brought in 3 tiny kittens in a box, very please with himself for having rescued them (he was at his grandparents', helping the family prepare the family estate for sale [situation sound familiar] and his cousins wanted to drown the kittens). Anyway, with more unfriendly attitude than I could believe, the girls at the front desk chided him for not taking the kittens to the county shelter. In response, his attitude quickly deteriorated, and he left shouting that maybe he should drown them after all, that it was his one day off and he didn't have the time to be running around dealing with these kittens.
I followed him out, and offered to take the kittens in, or to at least drive them to the animal shelter myself (although I was a tourist, with a rental car and no idea about driving around in Oakland). I commiserated with him, and he calmed down, he assurred me that he would indeed take the kittens to the shelter; I had told him that he was a true cat's hero, and asked him to visit TCS, and maybe join, and share his story - that even tho the staff there didn't appreciate his good deeds, we TCSers certainly would. So, hopefully, he kept his word, but I was haunted by his last comment, " I guess it's true, no good deed goes unpunished - my uncle was already "po'd" that I was taking the time to bring these kittens down here".
