A Shelter Manager's Thankless Job - something good from craigslist

"I am posting this (and it is long) because 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,
this is a forum to for adoption and/or rehoming as clearly stated in
the rules. All of you breeders/sellers on craigslist should not only
be flagged (and I hope the good people on craigslist will continue to
do so with blind fury), but you 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 change your mind
about breeding and selling to people you don't even know that puppy
you just sold will most likely end up in my shelter when it's not a cute
little puppy anymore. So how would you feel if you knew that there's
about a 90% chance that dog will never walk out of the shelter it is
going to be dumped at?

Purebred or not! About 50% of all of the dogs that are "owner
surrenders" or "strays", that come into my shelter are purebred dogs.
The most common excuses I hear are; "We are moving and we can't
take our dog (or cat)." Really?

Where are you moving too that doesn't allow pets? Or they say "The
dog got bigger than we thought it would". How big did you think a
German Shepherd would get? "We don't have time for her". Really? I
work a 10-12 hour day and still have time for my 6 dogs! "She's
tearing up our yard". How about making her a part of your family?
They always tell me "We just don't want to have to stress about finding
a place for her we know she'll get adopted, she's a good dog". Odds
are your pet won't get adopted & 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 about 25 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. If your dog doesn't
get adopted within its 72 hours and the shelter is full, it will be
destroyed. If the shelter isn't full and your dog is good enough, and
of a desirable enough breed it may get a stay of execution not for
long though. Most get very kennel protective after about a week and
are destroyed for showing aggression even the sweetest dogs will
turn in this environment.

If your pet makes it over all of those hurdles chances are it will get
kennel cough or an upper respiratory infection and will be destroyed
because shelters just don't have the funds to pay for even a $100
treatment.

Here's a little euthanasia 101 for those of you that have never
witnessed a perfectly healthy, scared animal being "put-down". First,
your pet will be taken from its kennel on a leash they always look
like they think they are going for a walk happy, wagging their tails.
Until they get to "The Room", every one of them freaks out and puts
on the brakes when we get to the door it must smell like death or they
can feel the sad souls that are left in there, it's strange, but it happens
with every one of them. Your dog or cat will be restrained, held down
by 1 or 2 vet techs depending on the size and how freaked out they
are. Then a euthanasia tech or a vet will start the process they will find
a vein in the front leg and inject a lethal dose of the "pink stuff".
Hopefully your pet doesn't panic from being restrained and jerk I've
seen the needles tear out of a leg and been covered with the resulting
blood and deafened by the yelps and screams. They all don't just
"go to sleep", sometimes spasm for a while, gasp for air and defecate
on themselves. When it all ends, your pets corpse will be stacked like
firewood in a large freezer in the back with all of the other animals
that were killed waiting to be picked up like garbage. What happens
next? Cremated? Taken to the dump? Rendered into pet food? You'll
never know and it probably won't even cross your mind it was just
an animal and you can always buy another one, right?

I hope that those of you that have read this are bawling your eyes
out and can't get the pictures out of your head I do everyday on the
way home from work. I hate my job, I hate that it exists & I hate that
it will always be there unless you people make some changes and
realize that the lives you are affecting go much farther than the pets
you dump at a shelter. Between 9 and 11 MILLION animals die every
year in shelters and only you can stop it. I do my best to save every
life I can but rescues are always full, and there are more animals
coming in everyday than there are homes.

My point to all of this DON'T BREED OR BUY WHILE SHELTER PETS DIE!

Hate me or flag me if you want to. The truth hurts and reality is what
it is. I just hope I maybe changed one persons mind about breeding
their dog, taking their loving pet to a shelter, or buying a dog. I hope
that someone will walk into my shelter and say "I saw this thing on
craIgslist and it made me want to adopt.
THAT WOULD MAKE IT WORTH IT.

Posted on SHARE Yahoo group - Aug. 2, 2007