A Letter from a Shelter Manager:

[Lani]

*Not written by me, but I can understand where this person is coming from...*

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 breeders/sellers 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 knowThat 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.
It doesn't matter how 'sweet' or 'well
behaved' they are.
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, but not for long .


Most dogs 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 been deafened by the yelps and screams.
They all
don't just "go to sleep", sometimes they 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 deal with
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 further 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 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 and it made me want to adopt THAT WOULD MAKE IT
WORTH IT!!!!

*Not written by me, but I can understand where this person is coming from...*

[Mandy Ellis]

this is horrific and needs to be posted under a spay and neuter discussion for all those to read who are in favour of not spaying/neutering.

[Darrell]

I have an idea. Get pet shops to market shelter adoptions. Give the pet shops the chore of finding homes for the healthy animals that failed to get adopted in time. That way the pet shops will have a steady stream of supply without the need to breed and the shelters will be able to save more of the rescues.

[Martha]

Thank you so much Lani for posting this. I am astonished that so many, otherwise somewhat intelligent people, still think it's okay not to spay or neuter their pet. It particularly outrages me when it comes to pitbulls. There is no reason for anybody to be breeding pits. I have always supported mandatory spay and neuter. If they want to breed their dog, let them go through the process of getting a permit. We could lick this problem, and the enormous costs in housing the huge population of unwanted animals.
I was a foster mom for many years. I was very picky about potential adopters because I only wanted to rescue them once. Even so, I had several big disappointments, whick led me to be even more careful and follow up on a regular basis. Good folks will understand the minor intrusion, and welcome a home inspection. If not, screw em!

[Darrell]

I'm just back from a visit to the Derry NH animal control "shelter." After watching people playing with their dogs in the free public doggie park, I went inside and met the two ladies who worked there. From them I found out that it is no longer a shelter at all. Every animal brought there is turned over to rescue organizations for adoptive placement. Apparently there is a huge demand for dogs in this area.

So if you are working in a kill shelter and putting down healthy dogs, understand that you could be arranging for placements in southern new hampshire. All you need do is call some of the local humane shelters and check. Apparently dogs are now being imported from alabama and mississippi for nearly 100% adoptions. If you don't call them, you have no excuse. (use this opportunity while it exists)

[Bullies2Love]

Darrell, I did many transporting of dogs from the south to NH and many going to Derry. It is good to know that your area is taking in animals.

[Darrell]

Yes, so strike while the iron is hot! My next door neighbor adopted a dog from the greater nashua humane society shelter about a month ago and a lady about a block away (who lost her akita about a year ago) adopted a brother/sister pair about a month before that. All three dogs came originally from an alabama shelter.

I suggest that anyone with dogs on shelter death row google the southern new hampshire animal shelters and make some phone calls.

[peter cherniavsky]

hey killed in 3 days you should be put in jail

[June Hoffman]

My two babies in my pix are two of my fosters. We rescued them from the local animal shelter. I got a call asking if I could handle two more fosters because they were about to be euthanized. The reasoning was that they had been trapped and the female hissed at them so they assumed that they were feral. I brought them home and within two hours was holding them and they were purring, I have dealt with ferals for many years and knew that this was not the case. We used to have an advocate that would go in on the days that they would euthanize and pull any cats that were savable and we would get them well and place them in good homes, but because our shelter has been cited for issues they are no longer allowing this to happen so more animals are being euthanized. I do believe that the ultimate answer is to educate everyone on the benefits of altering their pets, but one of the main issues is the expense. The average cost in my area to have a cat altered is $200 which is quite unaffordable in this economy. We offer our foster kittens up for adoption for $125 and they includes everything, altering, all of the shots and any medical that has to be done. Foster parents reap no monetary awards other than knowing that we have saved an animals life.

[Mandy Ellis]

you're quite right june, the cost of spaying/neutering is excessive in a lot of places i think and totally out of range of those who would otherwise be responsible pet owners in some cases. do you have any type of government/state funding that would contribute towards the cost of altering animals?

[marcia]

OMG! Every person "adopting" or "buying" a dog should be given this letter before taking a precious new life into their family if they are not fully committed to having it be a member of their family. I have two cats, Gattor and DIesel and two dogs, Pequito and Kutter. Lord I can't imagine that happening to any of them. Lord Help Us All!

[Darrell]

Clearly the basic animal shelter is not an adoption agency. It is a place where animals found running wild are taken for temporary holding and eventual disposal. The holding period is provided to give the animal owner a chance to find and recover his/her presumably lost pet. Said period also gives would-be adoptors or rescue leagues a small window of opportunity to save the creature. After the grace period, the animal is otherwise killed. No one should ever surrender a pet to a basic animal shelter in hopes of adoption.

SPCA shelters are somewhat different. They have as their primary mission to rescue abused and/or homeless animals and to save what they can for adoption or rescue by special groups. These shelters are funded basically through charitable donations, and are seldom funded to the level needed to operate as intended. As a result, due to lack of funds and oversupply of abandoned animals, many SPCA shelters end up functioning quite similarly to basic animal shelters. They end up either killing or imprisoning for life healthy animals considered unsuitable for the wild and unwanted as pets. As such, they are something of an adoption agency, but with time, space and funding limitations.

The manner in which these shelters operate illustrates a problem of supply and demand. There are clearly too many animals for too few desired pet families. A way to alleviate this problem is to legislate breeding restrictions and pet sales restrictions such that the killing of healthy animals at shelters becomes rare or nonexistant. I suggest the imposition of heavy fines for anyone found to violate these restrictions once made into law. Clearly the source of the problem is unrestricted breeding and sales; so that is where the law must focus in order to control the pet population.

Right now we do have laws and penalties for those that abuse animals requiring rescue. I would also suggest the imposition of heavy fines for anyone found dumping a pet either to wild release or to a basic animal shelter for "adoption"/disposal (and heavy fees for dumping at an SPCA animal shelter to help defray costs). I also suggest making it illegal for anyone found guilty of dumping a pet to be forbidden for life to possess another pet inside this country.

(It would not be considered dumping to find another home for one's pets when life's situations demand such -- just when cruelty or shelter involvement is required).

[martin schmitt]

This just broke my heart. Every dog or cat need -deserves- a happy home. We had to put down a female corgi because the vet said he could keep her alive for only a week and she would be in insufferable pain. I held her in my arms and cried when she went. It was peaceful but I still cry when I think of her.