Posts from the ‘Opinion’ Category
Strays
I have to admit that I don’t see a lot of stray dogs and cats in my neighborhood. I’m more likely to see a stray gray hair on my head but I have long suspected not every neighborhood is as animal-free as mine. As you head into neighborhoods who have been shell-shocked by the atomic bomb that is the Arizona real estate crisis, you’ll not only see homes sitting empty and abandoned but you’ll also see the peppering of the pets who have been left behind.
Last weekend, my husband and I had dinner with some friends from Maricopa, a community just south of Phoenix who has been ravaged by foreclosures and short sales. We weren’t far into the conversation before they were telling us about the woman next door who feeds all the stray domesticated cats in the area because her husband has barred her from bringing anymore cats into the house. (She also, by the way, pays to have them spayed and neutered out of her own pocket.) These friends even told us about the dogs that can constantly be found playing around the irrigation canals. These are the silent victims, the homeless, the unwanted.
I’m beginning to think most people don’t really believe there is a pet overpopulation problem. They don’t see it because if they live in a neighborhood like mine where you don’t see unwanted pets on a daily basis then for a lot of people it doesn’t exist. Yet on an average day, 250 animals will be taken into shelters in the Phoenix area and half of them will be euthanized. Some will come in as strays. Some will be turned over by their owners who either feel as if they have no other option or just simply want to be relieved of their responsibility as pet owners. Whatever the reason, every shelter and rescue is bursting at the seams. Particularly during the summer.
Recently, someone asked me if I ever considered turning over the little dog that was dumped on me over to the no-kill shelter, (see http://howlandstudios.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/i’ve-been-dumped-on/). The answer is: NO. If I shirked the responsibility that was unwillingly thrust upon me, then there would be one less kennel for a dog that truly needed it. I don’t think people really want to know the consequences of their actions. They want to believe they are good people and that they have no culpability in innocent animals dying. I think most people believe this is someone else’s problem, someone else’s responsibility and often my heart just aches as the enormity of the situation weighs down on me. Perhaps, I feel it so heavily because I know how lightly it bears down on others.
The Evils of the Local Dog Park
I remember years ago, standing in the middle of a dog park that sloped over a half acre. My husband used to take our yellow Lab, Abby to this particular fenced-in area before we were married. Abby has always been an amazing Frisbee dog and because this particular park was so large, my husband could always find enough space away from the other rowdier dogs to play Frisbee with Abby without much interruption. Then shortly after we were married, we heard from one of the other regulars that the dog park was shutting down. The City of Scottsdale needed the land for some kind of facility. All of the regulars were upset. Eventually, the city agreed to move the dog park up the road to a smaller area. It was a concession but I still remember the outrage.
I remember thinking how unfair it was to take away a plot of land designated for dogs when everywhere else in the city they were forced to be on a leash. At the time, it just didn’t seem right. Now, I definitely see the dark side of the argument.
Maybe all the time I’ve spent volunteering in animal shelters has turned me into an animal germaphobe, but I don’t think I’m terribly far off. Anytime, you bring together a cluster of random dogs, you’re going to get a concentration of whatever is out in the general population. Often that could potentially mean sickness and disease. Community water bowls can potentially give any dog drinking from them giardia which can cause diarrhea. Unvaccinated dogs can also bring in deadly diseases like parvo and distemper, which are passed from close contact with an infected animal, their feces or their fluids. And just because a dog looks “healthy” doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t contagious.
Now, don’t start getting too paranoid. The best way to prevent parvo and distemper is to have your dog fully vaccinated. Most responsible pet owners do, but often people with new puppies are eager to show them off. They want to bring them out to the park to play. And who doesn’t love a cute puppy? Unfortunately, puppies are often the age of dog that is most at risk for parvo and distemper. I, personally, wouldn’t feel safe taking my dog to the dog park with only one vaccination. I think it would be wise to wait until they’ve had the full series, which is more than just one. (Ask your vet for details.)
Irresponsible dog owners are also another hazard at your local dog park. Dogs that haven’t been properly socialized can be dangerous and there are owners who underestimate the limits of their dog’s social ability. These dogs can become overly excited or even aggressive to the point where one dog gets hurt. Not every dog is meant to have a good time at the dog park and I can’t even count the number of stories I’ve heard from people who’ve pulled their dogs out of scrapes.
Then again, there are properly cared for, well-socialized dogs that rely on those parks for their daily exercise. There are responsible owners and there are often good times to be shared. I think the key is to know the dangers, to understand how to avoid them and to keep a close eye on your dog to ensure their safety.
Be Careful About Donating to that Animal Charity
I often see commercials on television that pull at my heartstrings. Usually, there’s a dirty looking puppy or kitten with sad eyes staring back at me. There’s sad music in the background and a voice over urging me to open up my wallet to give. You’d have to have a stone cold heart to NOT be moved by the visceral experience. You look at your own pet sleeping near you without a care in the world and you think, “I want to help. I could afford to give some money.”
Well hold on to that dollar before it leaves your pocketbook, partner, because in the world of charitable giving, things are not always what they seem.
Most of those television commercials are paid for by either The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) or The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). Both are big national organizations that many people assume are connected to their local humane society or ASPCA. This is an incorrect assumption. In reality, I could hang a sign outside my house, proclaim it to be the Michigan Avenue Humane Society and receive the exact same amount of money your local shelter receives from them…which is absolutely nothing.
So if the money doesn’t go to the shelters at a local level then where does that money go? I’ve had my suspicions for a while but this week I began to see a short paragraph circulate around Facebook that said: “The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) does not operate a single pet shelter anywhere in the US. For every $19 you give to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) only 9 CENTS goes to care for the animals. The other $18.91 goes for lobbying, executive salaries and pensions. Please give to your local shelter instead, where your money will actually help the animals.”
While I’m not advocating that everything posted on Facebook should be considered concrete truth, there are some validity to the words posted above. I’ve long believed that the bulk of the money that the Humane Society of the United States and The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals raises goes to lobbying for a vegetarian lifestyle and rallying for other types of animal causes like for the humane treatment of livestock and the protection of endangered species. And while there is certainly nothing wrong with these causes, I just think its suspect to run a fundraising campaign centered around companion animals when the majority of funds are not being spent on those particular types of animals.
So the moral of this story is just to be cautious when donating. If you choose to donate to a particular animal welfare group, please do your due diligence and make sure their spending is in line with your beliefs. And trust me, if one group disappoints you, there are plenty more who need those donation dollars. I’ve seen small rescue groups work wonders on shoestring budgets because there’s always one constant when it comes to animal welfare groups: there never seems to be enough space and there never seems to be enough money to go around.
On a side note: Just to be fair, I did neglect to mention that Humane Society of the United States is sometimes pulled into major cruelty investigations like they were last week here in Arizona. It doesn’t necessarily change my opinion of them but fair is fair.
File this Under “Sometimes I Just Don’t Understand People”
This week a news story was brought to our attention about a puppy in Oklahoma who had miraculously lived after having been euthanized by a local shelter. http://www.thedenverchannel.com/family/27055773/detail.html
I’ll admit the thought of what that dog woke up to gives me chills and really, good for the dog that he survived. What I don’t understand is the outpouring of willing adopters for this one miracle dog. Do people not realize that mass euthanasia like this happens every day in animal shelters all across the country? And the reason it happens is because there is a lack of potential adopters.
Sometimes, I think most of America has an out-of-site-out-of-mind complex when it comes to our pets. They know pets are euthanized in shelters. They don’t want to see it. So they go elsewhere find their pets like to a pet store or a breeder, (which by the way, just makes the problem worse). Then they’ll defend their actions by saying those animals that end up in shelters must be “bad” when in reality, the number one reason an animal is turned into a shelter is usually because the owner is moving.
I know this is an old, tired rant and the people who most need to be affected by it probably aren’t reading anyway. That being said, I am still humbled by the amount of people who join forces to save as many as they can. I was at an adoption event yesterday which banded together some of the finest rescue organizations here in Phoenix and I was amazed at the magnitude of animals that are being helped one-on-one in private homes. There’s a miracle in that too.
Still, I think about the poor pup in Oklahoma and the many just like him who won’t survive. And mass euthanasia like that doesn’t just happen in Oklahoma. It happens here. In our own backyard. The difference is that the victims just don’t usually live to tell about it.
When Fostering Animals Goes Horribly Wrong
Last week, I was sick at home with my stocking feet propped up and a quilt covering my legs when I heard the news that a Glendale couple had been charged with animal cruelty after fostering three puppies for the Arizona Humane Society.
Shock, dismay and outrage all coursed through my body in very quick succession as I’m sure it did for many people. But for me, the news hit even closer to home because I’ve not only fostered for the Arizona Humane Society. I used to help teach their foster class. I, more than most volunteers, have a unique perspective into what goes on behind the scenes, the scrutiny the staff gives potential fosters and the information which they are trained on. The scary part for me is that had I still been actively teaching this class, this couple could have easily been sitting right in front of me. That frightens me. But mostly I worry about the repercussions and how the publicity surrounding this case is going to affect future and current fosters for this program.
One of the first things I learned when I was working behind the scenes is that nothing always goes as expected. There have been a number of well-intentioned fosters who have left their foster dog alone in the backyard for merely a split-second only to have them leap over the backyard fence never to be found again. I once even had a seasoned volunteer call me in hysterics because her air conditioning had gone out. She had put the mama and baby kitty she was fostering in a cat carrier so they could sleep outside on the porch with her where it was cooler. The next morning, the volunteer discovered the mama cat had somehow gotten out during the middle of the night. The poor gal was then forced to bottle feed the baby kitten until it was old enough to be properly weaned. (On a side note, the mama kitty was eventually found in good condition, caught and taken back to the shelter to be placed up for adoption.)
I’ve even had unexpected things happen in my own home. During the first year I was fostering, I was given the responsibility of taking care of a Chow mix with a fractured leg. Originally, the shelter told me this was supposed to be a dog that was good with other dogs but over a period of time, I noticed signals that the dog didn’t seem to be happy when the other dogs were around. He was aloof, distant and he liked to grumble. I took the precaution to separate him from the other dogs in the house but my husband had been watching too much of “The Dog Whisperer” on television. He began to insist that all dogs can be taught to get along and one day while I was away from the house, my husband tried to work some unsupervised “Dog Whisperer” magic on the Chow mix. It did not go well. Actually, it was a stupidly dangerous thing to do which led to the foster dog and my dog getting into a huge fight.
Two days later, the Chow began to limp on his healing leg. I took him in for x-rays and it was quickly deduced that the dog had re-fractured his leg. In my house. On my watch. I couldn’t have felt guiltier. The head veterinarian looked at me with scrutiny trying to figure out how this could have happened. In the moment, I was thinking only of the dog. I was wondering if they would go to the trouble of saving him if they knew the magnitude of what had happened in my house…even though it was my fault. I finally decided I didn’t want to take the chance. So I lied. I told them he must have re-injured the leg by jumping on the couch. For the record, I don’t think they believed me but no one asked too many questions. And the dog’s leg was saved. The second time around we were more careful about keeping the Chow separated from our other dogs and when he returned to the shelter, I was insistent he be adopted out to a home where he was the only dog. He now lives with a single woman in her fifties and she believes him to be the love of her life. So there was a happy ending in there after all.
But the point is that I know how difficult it is to tell a staff of professionals that something has gone horribly wrong. A well-intentioned person will agonize over having to report that an animal’s well-being isn’t what they want it to be. Now they are also going to have the apparition of animal cruelty charges that will flash before their eyes before they make that call. It makes me wonder if fewer will put themselves on the line to foster. Maybe more people will be quicker to lie. I’m certainly not defending the actions of the Glendale couple but it is such a shame that it had to come to that. I just hope the aftereffects won’t leave an atmosphere where animals have to suffer in cases where open communication could be a benefit.
I only Want to Talk about Michael Vick Once
Since we’ve all got Super Bowl fever on the brain, I thought I’d incorporate a little football in this week. And when it comes to football, there’s one topic of conversation that raises the hackles of animal lovers everywhere and that’s the topic of Michael Vick.
Now let me just preface this by saying I’m not really a football fan. I’m really more of a basketball girl. In fact, I didn’t even know who Michael Vick was until he was indicated in his now infamous dog fighting ring. Being part of the animal welfare community, I’ve heard the loud outrage echo from every corner of my computer about Michael Vick re-entering the world of football. I’ve also heard a football fan base yelling back to give him a chance. Listening to both sides has just been a mess! So I’ve been reluctant to offer up my two cents but I really think I have a unique perspective on the situation.
You see, I have a friend whose son was incarcerated at a very young age for a violent crime. A few years ago, he was released back into society. The experience changed him and since that time, he has worked hard to get a job and put his life back on the right track. But our society is so much less forgiving when there’s an absence of celebrity. The same folks who argue to give Michael Vick a chance are also the same ones who would shudder at accepting a felon into their home for a family dinner. They are the same ones who would turn their back on someone with a felony conviction who was seeking employment. And with good reason.
Change, particularly real change, is difficult and happens over a long period of time. People can talk about change but it may take some time until their thought patterns and actions match their words. Still, as a society, we can’t release someone from prison and then give them no way to earn an income. They have to have the right to be able to find a job. Still, here’s a list of occupations I think Michael Vick would be unqualified for:
1. I wouldn’t want Michael Vick as my babysitter. There is a reason animal cruelty crimes carry such high penalties. It isn’t because an animal’s life is more (or less) valuable than a human’s. It’s because law enforcement knows that if they can nab someone on animal cruelty charges there’s almost always either violence and/or drug activity involved within the same household. Obtaining evidence for a crime against an animal is almost always more cut and dry than obtaining evidence for other types of violent crimes and at least in Michael Vick’s case, the evidence was so horrific that it wouldn’t be a far leap to assume violence to a human being wasn’t far behind.
2. I wouldn’t want Michael Vick as a police officer. Whether it’s organizing a dog fighting ring or carrying out a football play, Vick has proven he understands strategy a little too well…and not always in a good way. I think I’d probably like to keep him away from power positions if I could. Just my opinion.
3. I wouldn’t want Michael Vick as my financial advisor. In July 2008, Michael Vick declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to his salary loss because of his incarceration and previous financial mismanagement. You’d think after earning all that money in previous seasons that this guy would have money to burn. Clearly, that wasn’t the case. Maybe he’s learned his lesson and is now handling his business with a more frugal hand. Still, I probably wouldn’t give him free reign on handling my personal finances. Too often track records speak for themselves.
So what do I think Michael Vick IS qualified for? Well…I think a job where he can he display his extreme athleticism and aggressively beat the crap out of people might just be right up his alley. You know, like a football player? The problem most people have with this particular position is that it comes with a great deal of money and notoriety.
The average, hard-working American probably only makes around forty thousand dollars a year. It’s a bitter pill to take to see someone who has committed such heinous acts to be awarded a lifestyle that many of us only dream about. The trouble is that one thing doesn’t have anything to do with the other. He was punished for his crimes. Now he’s being awarded for his athleticism. No one is either all bad or all good. In Michael Vick’s case, the variances seem to be extreme, but they are there.
And professional sports owners are willing to pay huge sums of money to find the finest athletes in the sport. The reason they can pay those huge sums is because we, as the viewing public, continue to watch and enjoy it. Now I’m not saying watching the sport is a bad thing. I think sports are a great part of who we are but as long as the spectators demand victory, the ability to win games is always going to trump morality on the money front. That’s just the reality. It’s sad but true.
I personally wouldn’t buy my child a Michael Vick jersey nor would I allow Michael Vick to be their role model. I probably won’t ever support the Philadelphia Eagles as a team but I then again probably wouldn’t have supported them anyway. And chances are the Philadelphia Eagles put a public relations team behind Michael Vick before they ever signed him on to play. I can hear their words forming in his mouth before he ever says them, but for his sake, I also hope Michael Vick has learned from his experience. I hope he’s changed. Experience tells me that finding a person who has truly changed their core in such a dramatic fashion in such a short period of time is rare, but one of these days when Michael Vick’s body ages, when he’s old and feeble that public relations team is going to disappear. Only then will we really begin to see who Michael Vick really is and my bet is that once all the glory fades, he’ll be caught again doing something he shouldn’t…just like O.J. Simpson.
Christmas Angels…of the Four-legged Variety
‘Tis the season and this year the song, Silver Bells has a different meaning. After months of searching for the perfect home, my little foster dog, Silver, the Chihuahua was adopted the Monday after Thanksgiving. I marvel at the fact that it took so long to adopt out a nearly perfect five-pound Chihuahua, but I also believe everything happens for a reason. Maybe she was just meant to wait for this time and these people. I hope that’s the case.
There’s just something magical about this time of year in the animal shelter, that time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. If summer is the season when the animal shelters and rescues fill up, then this is the time when the animal shelters and rescues empty out.
I remember the first year I volunteered in the adoption department of a local shelter. I came in on Christmas Eve. I was the only volunteer and the adoption staff told me early in the day to be prepared to be bored. Boy, were they wrong! As soon as the doors opened, people began to stream through. The only thing I had time to do was take dogs out of their kennels, let people visit with them, answer their questions and put right them back. Often, I would have people waiting on me four and five deep. It is the most fun I’ve ever had at the shelter and my hope is that everyone who works with homeless animals eventually has a day like that one. So many people left that day excited and filled with love for their new furry friend! We placed dozens of dogs in loving homes and I’m sure the cat adoption department was just as busy, although I was too harried to notice. Just thinking about that Christmas Eve makes me smile.
Now, I sometimes hear people poo-poo getting a new dog during the holidays. The naysayers will tell you we are likely to start seeing all these dogs coming back into the shelter by May or June when the dog’s novelty wears off…and we might see a few of them. But in my experience, I think, by in large, most people subconsciously begin looking for a dog this time a year because they are so focused on family. Maybe they have recently experienced the death of a beloved pet over the past year. Or they feel loneliness more pointedly. Or they feel an absence in their family that only the love of a new pet can fill. Maybe it’s a combination of all these things. But the underlying theme seems to be that people want to adopt a pet because we consider them to be family.
So many times, we, in animal welfare, focus on all the problems…which is easy to do because there are a lot of them. But today I want to be grateful for the fact that things have changed. Growing up, my pets were banished outdoors. They were never part of the family and everyone I knew did the same thing. That was the norm. Today, most people I know have brought their pets indoors to be part of the family. Certainly, not everyone feels this way but overall, life is getting better for our pets. The success of the big, warehouse-style pet supply stores should be testament to that. More people are showing their animals kindness and since it is so close to Christmas, I just want to reflect on that and be grateful.
Why Spay & Neuter Education isn’t Working
Once upon a time, I had a job where I would travel around to different parts of town. Occasionally, I would end up in a bad neighborhood…and let me tell you from experience, there are places in Phoenix where it looks like a bomb went off. The housing is decrepit. There’s a money loan place on every corner. The people living there are largely uneducated. Many of them are from other countries. A lot of them don’t speak English. Shoes with the laces tied hang from utility wires, and apparently, this is also where lots of criminal activity takes place. Yet, the people I visited with were some of the nicest I’ve met. But make no mistake. These people live by different values than I do. Ethics are only convenient when you can afford to have them.
These are poverty-stricken and sometimes, desperate people. Money worries plague them. They worry about their children, but mainly, they worry about survival. They are closer to losing everything than I am. Maybe that changes a person in ways that my middle-class background doesn’t understand.
Now don’t get me wrong, some of these people love their animals, and yet they are also the worst offenders of refusing to spay and neuter. Maricopa County Animal Care & Control regularly tries to educate them. So does The Humane Society and my guess is many other rescue groups do too. They’ve been trying to break the cycle of pet overpopulation for years with little to no success. I’m sure that sometimes it feels a little like banging your head against a brick wall.
I’ve seen a lot of this first hand volunteering in The Arizona Humane Society’s public vaccination clinic and yet this epiphany only just came to me. A couple of weeks ago, I was volunteering in the clinic when a couple came in that I knew. I’d worked with this couple way back when I was traipsing through neighborhoods where I shouldn’t have been. I greeted them with a big hug and asked about their families. They were good people who had emigrated from Africa and they didn’t like their living situation. It worried them that their children were growing up in a bad environment, but they felt like their hands were tied. It seemed like money was always in short supply for them so it didn’t take me long to figure out they were now breeding puppies to make ends meet.
We gave the puppies the necessary vaccinations but when they left, I felt deflated. I, of all people, should have been able to convince them to stop. But I just couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come. I realized for this couple, it wasn’t about the health and well-being of the dogs. It was about their family’s well-being. The cost of one of those puppies might make the difference between feeding their children one night or not. How could I argue for a canine’s well-being when the survival of their family was at stake?
It has now dawned on me that most of our spay & neuter rhetoric is lost on people like this. They don’t want to hear us judging them when they are just doing what it takes to survive. I wish I had a solution, a way to give these people some hope. Because that’s the answer. Give someone an easy alternative means to make money and only then might they consider the consequences of their actions. Or maybe we need to stop the supply of buyers who so readily believe rescue dogs are somehow scarred and abused. I have no easy answers for this one. The only thing I do know for sure is that what we are doing isn’t working.
Why I have a Bone to Pick with Animal Kingdom/Puppies in Love
It’s about that time of year when I’ll start spending more time in the mall and I know it’s coming. I’ll start seeing the signage the pet store chain Animal Kingdom/Puppies in Love puts out declaring them to be free from using puppy mills. And once again, I’ll have to fight the urge to take a black magic marker and write “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire,” right across front of that sign.
Let’s be honest. I’m no fan of pet stores in general. The shelters and rescues are overrun with eligible puppies and kittens that would make wonderful pets. In my opinion there’s no need to purchase a dog from a pet store. Ever. Yet I know that people still do. So why get all up in an uproar about a stupid sign? Well – mainly because I hate being lied to and that particular sign is a clear misrepresentation of the truth. Let me tell you why.
Logically, there is no way a pet store could have a network of legitimate breeders, those people that may only have one or two litters in their home per year, and still be able to keep up with the demand of filling those kennels in the pet store. In order to have that, the network would have to be so vast that it would catch a lot of attention. It would become easily accessible information. And then you have to ask yourself why a “breeder” who only had one or two litters per year couldn’t just sell those puppies themselves without the markup of a middle man? The answer: they wouldn’t. That doesn’t make sense and as Judge Judy says, “If it doesn’t make sense, it probably isn’t true.”
And this particular chain of pet stores which are always located in a major mall doesn’t just have one pet store that needs a regular supply of puppies. According to their website, they have ten locations. TEN!
But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. I checked out their website and this is what they had to say on the matter: “Our puppies are purchased only from caring private breeders. We do not support puppy mills nor any other unethical breeders. Working with strict company guidelines, our experienced buyers purchase our puppies from reputable, United States Government inspected breeders. They practice rigorous USDA cleanliness and health standards. We insist on purchasing only the highest quality companions with health being the #1 priority. We have established long term relationships with our supplies and breeders while working closely with them as part of our team.”
So they use USDA inspected breeders, right? Now, I’m a farmer’s daughter so I know the USDA ensures the safety of our food and educates Americans on nutrition and food products. These are the people responsible for the cleanliness and health standards for our slaughter houses, our chicken laying operations and our poultry manufacturing. Have you seen the “cleanliness” of a slaughter house? I can assure you, I wouldn’t want my puppy being born there. In other words, the USDA regulates commodities, animals that are sold for profit. And who, in large, sells puppies for profit? You guessed it! Puppy mills. Now, maybe they call themselves puppy farms or something different just to angle themselves through that convenient little loophole, but don’t tell the public you aren’t doing one thing when we clearly know you are doing something else.
Let’s not even go into how their “health guarantee” is as the movie “Tommy Boy” might say is like a “piece of crap in a box”. If you had a puppy that became violently ill with either parvo or distemper, are you going to take that puppy back? No. You’ve already bonded with that puppy. No one takes the puppy back! They treat it themselves. I’m not even mentioning how their “extreme sanitary conditions” are well below those of virtually every shelter in the country.
The pet store business is a business. They sell puppies for money and the less they can spend on the dogs goes to fatten their bottom line. We should all know what they are. People are going to go into those places and buy the dogs no matter how much I try to persuade them not to anyway. So why do they have to lie about it? It just makes me sick! I could get on my moral high horse and start to preach right about now but even from a business perspective it’s reprehensible. And why would you even want to do business with a company like that?
In Response to the Death of the Heroic Dog, Target who was Accidentally Euthanized in a Pinal County Animal Shelter
Today I read the story about a dog named Target who saved the lives of several soldiers in Afghanistan and then was brought to the United States only to be euthanized by a Pinal County animal shelter. http://www.azcentral.com/community/pinal/articles/2010/11/15/20101115pinal-county-soldier-afghanistan-dog-euthanized.html?source=nletter-breakingnews. According to the article, Target was brought to the San Tan Valley area by a soldier and sometime over the weekend, slipped out of the family’s backyard. Pinal County picked up the dog as a stray and brought her into their Casa Grande facility. Target’s owner found her photo online. He came down to get his dog first thing on Monday morning only to learn that the dog had been mistakenly euthanized.
This incident is horrific and heart-breaking! And sadly, it’s not the first time I’ve heard of such a case in the Phoenix area. This particular case is gaining national attention since Target had previously been featured by The Arizona Republic and on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”, which is likely a public relations nightmare for Pinal County Animal Care & Control. Most cases like this one are simply swept under the rug where the majority of people can’t see. But make no mistake. This could easily happen to your dog. That’s right. The dog sleeping in your bed tonight could simply be euthanized for accidentally getting out of your backyard. It isn’t common, but it isn’t unheard of either.
Sadly, cases like this make the majority of people want to avoid shelters. People will begin to view them as “sad places where animals die”, which is the exact opposite of what needs to happen. Dogs (and cats) are mistakenly euthanized because animal control facilities are overwhelmed with the number of animals coming in the door and they are largely run by a skeleton staff that is both overworked and underpaid. Countless times people have told me they have gone to a “breeder” because they didn’t want to walk the aisles full of sad, pathetic eyes and know that the majority of animals are going to die. And who can blame them?
Animals are euthanized in shelters for a variety of reasons. The animals could be sick and contagious. They could be aggressive. Or there could just too many of them. In Nathan J. Winograd’s book, “Redemption”, Winograd even admits, “A veterinarian [in Los Angeles] who tried to keep more animals alive by keeping the cages full was fired in 2005, in part, due to staff complaints of ‘too much work’.” That may have happened in Los Angeles, but if you don’t think the same thing is going on in your backyard then you are wrong.
Winograd even goes on to tell this story: “On August 11, 2004, a stray dog was taken to PACCA, the animal control agency for the fifth largest city in the United States. Under Pennsylvania State law, PACCA was required to hold the dog for forty-eight hours before making her available for adoption or killing her. The law is designed to provide people a ‘reasonable’ opportunity to find and reclaim their lost pets. Sheea, however, was killed within nine minutes of arriving.” Sound familiar?
So who is to blame? The despondent pet owner who accidentally let his pet get out? The over-worked shelter worker who by-the-way, often doesn’t last long in the position because of the mental anguish over euthanizing so many animals? The “breeders” who are causing us to have a pet overpopulation problem? In my opinion, the fault lies squarely on the shoulders of our shelter’s most executive staff who often know more about balancing a spreadsheet than running an animal shelter. No one ever seems to want to take full responsibility for this type of problem and it largely seems that true leadership in these types of facilities is even scarcer than finding the rarest type of dog breed. And I’m not just trying to pick on Pinal County. Chances are the employee responsible for Target’s death will lose their job and life will go back to status quo at that shelter. But it will happen again. And next time it will happen to someone who doesn’t have the media power that Target has. It will be just an ordinary dog that no one will consider to be important except the family that loved them.
Something has to change.
