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I
COULD NEVER WORK HERE!
When you say to an animal shelter or humane society employee "I could never
do your job, it would break my heart, I love animals too much"
or words to that effect, it sounds like you are saying:
1. That we don't also love the animals, even though we've
taken minimum wage
(or no wage) jobs in order to work with homeless animals.
For
many of us it is our life's work.
2. That we, somehow, don't get our hearts broken.
3. That in order to do this job one has to be either cold
hearted
or an
animal hater.
Your
declaration leaves us with some questions.
If you can't do this job, who will? Someone must.
When we've euthanized the 500th kitten for the month, because there are no
homes available, will you take the 501st? Our hearts are completely torn out
and we just can't kill one more. You already have enough pets? We
understand, we do too. Our cages are over capacity, our foster homes are all
full. Do you have a solution? If so, please tell us, we hate this part of
the job. Right now, at this moment, there is a dog or cat in a shelter
employee's arms and there is no where on earth for this creature to go.
There is no cage space, no foster home, no forever home. Nowhere.
It is
a heartbreaking feeling.
There is a really nice yellow lab mix named Jake. He's 3 years old,
healthy, housebroken, loves kids, loves everyone! But, he can't find a home
because he's quite generic looking, not real flashy and he's not an eight
week old puppy ("I want a dog to grow up with the kids"). We've had him
here
for 3 months, but can no longer justify taking up valuable cage space for a
dog that's showing no signs of becoming adopted. What would you do? There
are 10 dogs that came in today. We have two open runs. Who has to die?
Walking through the kennel, having to choose which ones have no more time is
the worst part. It breaks our hearts. If you know of a way to keep Jake
alive and still be fair to the other animals, please tell us. We've grown so
attached -- it's our hearts again you know -- they're breaking into a million
pieces this time.
Will you talk to the woman who brings in a blind, 10 yr. old peek-a-poo with
bad skin and says "Don't kill her! Find her a good home!"? Oh
puhleeeeeeze.
We can't find homes for the healthy 1-year-olds, who's going to adopt a 10
year old, unhealthy dog? You? No, not me either. I already have four
dogs
that were considered unadoptable. Because we can't get this owner to face
reality and allow us to euthanize right away, the dog has to spend her last
24 hours on earth in a holding cage, wondering what happened.
But, we held her as often as we could and tried to comfort her... because
you can't. It would break your heart. "Wait!" you say, "Someone
might want
her!" It's quite unlikely that there is someone that wants an elderly dog
that needs a few hundred dollars worth of veterinary care, but maybe you're
right. Our crystal ball is broken, but if you think she can find a home and
you want to save her please go back to the kennel and pick which young,
healthy dog has to give up it's space here.
OK. You can't work at a animal shelter. Not everyone can. Can you help
in
other ways? Can you buy us a bag of food when you buy for your own pet? Can
you come in and talk to the cats? Walk the dogs? We are so busy running the
place that we often don't have time. When you come back next week we won't
tell you the final disposition of your favorite one if you don't want to
know. We are, after all, a compassionate group and we understand about
broken hearts. Could you go to your friend or neighbor and offer to get
their pet spayed/neutered? Could you trap one of those stray cats in your
neighborhood and get it vaccinated and neutered? That will be one more
free-roaming cat that's out of the reproduction loop.
Maybe you could just send a small check to say "thank you". Anything at
all
would help.
I know you mean well. I know you mean to say "I couldn't work here because
my own emotions get in the way of doing what has to be done for the animals,
thank you for doing it."
�1993-2000 Deb McKean
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Dear
Mr. & Mrs. Average Pet Owner:
Thank you for contacting us animal rescuers, shelter volunteers, and
foster-homes about your inability to keep your pet. We receive an
extremely
high volume of inquiries and requests to accept surrendered
animals
(and none of us is getting paid, OK?). To help us expedite
your
problem as quickly as possible,
please observe the following guidelines:
1. Do not say that you are "CONSIDERING finding a good
home"
for
your pet, or that you, "feel you MIGHT be forced to," or that you
"really
THINK it would be better if" you unloaded the poor beast.
Ninety-five
percent of you have already got your minds stone-cold
made
up that the animal WILL be out of your life by the weekend at
the
latest. Say so. If you don't, I'm going to waste a lot of time
giving
you common-sense, easy solutions for very fixable problems,
and you're going to waste a lot of time coming up with fanciful reasons why
the solution couldn't possibly work for you. For instance, you say the cat
claws the furniture, and I tell you about nail-clipping and scratching
posts and aversion training, and then you go into a long harangue about how
your husband won't let you put a scratching post in the family room, and
your ADHD daughter cries if you use a squirt bottle on the cat, and your
congenital thumb abnormalities prevent you from using nail scissors and
etc., etc. Just say you're getting rid of the cat.
2. Do not waste time trying to convince me how nice and humane
you
are. Your coworker recommended that you contact me because
I am
nice to animals, not because I am nice to people, and I don't like
people
who "get rid of" their animals. "Get rid of" is my least favorite
phrase
in any language. I hope someone "gets rid of" YOU someday.
I am
an animal advocate, not a people therapist. After all, for your
ADHD
daughter, you can get counselors, special teachers, doctors,
social
workers, etc. Your pet has only me, and people like me,
to
turn to in his or her need, and we are unpaid,
overworked, stressed-out, and demoralized. So don't tell me this big
long
story about how, "We love this dog so much, and we even bought
him a
special bed that cost $50, and it is just KILLING us to part with him,
but
honestly, our maid is just awash in dog hair every time she cleans,
and
his breath sometimes just reeks of liver, so you can see how hard
we've
tried, and how dear he is to us, but we really just can't
.
. . ." You are not nice, and it is not killing you. It is, in all probability,
literally killing your dog, but you're going to be just fine once the beast
is out of your sight. Don't waste my time trying to make me like you or feel
sorry for you in your plight.
3. Do not try to convince me that your pet is exceptional and
deserves
special treatment. I don't care if you taught him to sit. I don't care if she's
a
beautiful Persian. I have a waiting list of battered and/or whacked-out
animals who need help, and I have no room to foster-house your pet.
Do not
send me long messages detailing how Fido just l-o-v-e-s blankies
and
carries his favorite blankie everywhere, and oh, when he gets all
excited
and happy, he spins around in circles, isn't that cute?
He
really is darling, so it wouldn't be any trouble at all for us to find
him a
good home. Listen, we can go down to the pound and count the
darling,
spinning, blankie-loving beasts on death row by the dozens,
any
day of the week. And, honey, Fido is a six-year-old Shepherd-Lab mix.
I
am not lying when I tell you that big,
older, mixed-breed, garden-variety dogs are almost completely unadoptable,
and I don't care if they can whistle Dixie or send semaphore signals with
their blankies. What you don't realize is that, though you're trying to lie
to me, you're actually telling the truth: Your pet is a special, wonderful,
amazing creature. But this mean old world does not care. More importantly,
YOU do not care, and I can't fix that problem.
All I can do is grieve for all the exceptional animals who live short,
brutal, loveless lives and die without anyone ever recognizing that they
were indeed very, very special.
4. Finally, just, for God' s sake, for the animal's sake, tell
the truth,
and the whole truth. Do you think that if you just mumble that your cat is
"high-strung," I will say, "Okey-doke! No prob!" and take it into
foster
care? No, I will start a asking questions and uncover the truth, which is
that your cat has not used a litter box in the last six months. Do not
tell me that you "can't" crate your dog. I will ask what happens
when you
try to crate him, and you will either be forced to tell me the symptoms of
full-blown, severe separation anxiety, or else you will resort to lying some
more, wasting more of our time.
And, if you succeed in placing your pet in a shelter or foster care, do not
tell yourself the biggest lie of all: "Those nice people will take him and
find him a good home, and everything will be fine." Those nice people
will
indeed give the animal every possible chance, but if we discover serious
health or behavior problems, if we find that your misguided attempts to
train or discipline him have driven him over the edge, we will do what you
are too immoral and cowardly to do: We will hold the animal in our arms,
telling him truthfully that he is a good dog or cat, telling him truthfully
that we are sorry and we love him, while the vet ends his life. How can we
be so heartless as to kill your pet, you ask? Do not ever dare to judge
us.
At least we tried. At least we stuck with him to the end. At least we never
abandoned him to strangers, as you certainly did, didn't you? In short, this
little old rescuer/foster momma has reached the point where she would prefer
you pet owners to tell her stories like this:
"We went to Wal-Mart and picked up a free pet in the parking lot a couple
of
years ago. Now we don't want it anymore. We're lazier than we thought.
We've
got no patience either. We're starting to suspect the animal is really
smarter than we are, which is giving us self-esteem issues. Clearly, we
can't possibly keep it. Plus, it might be getting sick; it's acting kind of
funny.
"We would like you to take it in eagerly, enthusiastically, and immediately.
We hope you'll realize what a deal you're getting and not ask us for a donation
to help defray your costs. After all, this is an (almost) pure-bred animal,
and we'll send the leftover food along with it. We get it at Wal-Mart too,
and boy, it's a really good deal, price-wise.
"We are very irritated that you haven't shown pity on us in our great need
and picked the animal up already. We thought you people were supposed
to be
humane! Come and get it today.
No, we
couldn't possibly bring it to you; the final
episode of "Survivor II" is on tonight."
Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Pet Owner, for your cooperation.
~Author Unknown, but could be any shelter worker or rescuer~
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