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 "In the Arms of a Stranger" August 10, 2005 11:40 PM

In their book, "One at a Time", Daine Leigh and Marilee Geyer state the following:

"Although everyone, shelter workers included, would like to focus on happy endings and successes, any picture of the homeless animal problem and the animal sheltering system would not be complete or accurate without also acknowledging and understanding, euthanasia."

The Northern California shelter where they spent a week documenting the hard, cold facts about the sheltering system, and the often torturous decisions they have to make to let one animal cross the Rainbow Bridge, while keeping another "just one more day" in the hopes they will find their savior is quoted as saying:

"Our policy: to tell the truth. Our goal: to change the truth we have to tell."

It is a pretty sound theory. In fact, "...in recent years, many shelters have come to realize that their communities cannot change what they can't see, and so have embraced strategies of openness and honesty about euthanasia, being clear, truthful, and often graphic. ...Some members of their communities are angered and offended by the information. As they should be - using euthanasia as a solution to the homeless animal problem is abhorrent."

The following posts include some of the non-success stories documented by this group. The cold, hard, brutal truth about the system. It will be hard to look at, but it must be seen.

* All excerpts from "One at a Time" reprinted with permission from the authors

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Animal #A066592 August 11, 2005 1:30 PM

Warning: Tear-jerker

"Good Dog"

"From his records: 'Has no training, and uses his weight to get where he wants. Needs to be neutered ASAP, marks his territory non-stop. When he is paying attention to people, he's very loving. Can be overwhelming, jumping on things and people. Seems very attentive with food and could really do well in a training class'."

You see them in shelters all the time: young, healthy male dogs, not neutered, eight to eighteen months old, large strong, untrained, out of control. Their dispositions are good, they have friendly, even loving, personalities but they're rowdy, they jump on people, they don't know how to walk on a leash, and they have no idea how people want them to behave. Like the juvenile males they are, their hormones are raging and they're distracted by it, less focused on people and more on other dogs, both male and female.

The families that found them irresistable as eight-week old puppies had no idea what they were getting into, not realizing the work and dedication it takes. On the way from sute puppy to big, strong dog, some basic socialization and training was essential, and it didn't happen.

And so the dogs come to shelters in droves, surrendered by their fed-up guardians. Or they arrive as lost animals, also surrendered - indirectly - when nobody comes to look for them.

There is nothing wrong with these dogs, they're just being dogs. Just being dogs, however, is not enough. As domesticated animals, we ask them to live compatibly with us in our world, and expect them to behave in certain ways as they move with us through our days. But dogs do not automatically know what is expected of them: they need to be shown and taught. Yet 96% of the dogs surrendered to shelters, according to their guardians, have had absolutely no training.

These dogs are not lost causes. Far from it. With consistent positive reinforcement, they would easily learn how they must fit into human culture. Being neutered would calm their hormones and help them to focus better. Given patience and time, love and guidance, they could be wonderful companions and loyal family members.

But it's a common story and there are lots of them. Lots. Their behavior makes it difficult for them to attract adopters. Although staff and volunteers consciously try to give these dogs some basic training as they handle them day to day in the shelter, it's just not enough of what these dogs need.

They're not bad dogs, not by a long shot. They're good dogs. Which is exactly what the shelter workers assure them of as their lives are ended."  [ send green star]
 
Animals #A066403 & #A066487 August 11, 2005 1:40 PM

"Too Old"

"'Playing God'. This is what shelter workers feel they are doing when they perform the unspeakably difficult task of deciding which animals will be euthanized.

Drawing up the days euthanasia list - 'dispositioning' - involves a multi-dimensional tic-tac-toe of considerations: an individual animals age, breed, health, and behavior, and how 'adoptable' he is because of these things, as well as the overall situation in terms of the numbers and kinds of animals in the shelter and the ever present question of space availability.

...

Shelter workers understand, amongst themselves, the profound horror of deciding who will live and who will die. They know that although a 'reason' for euthanasia will be recorded for every animal, most of them are not adequate cause for an animal to die. After all, sick animals could be treated, animals with behavior problems could receive training, scared and shy animals could be comforted, too-young animals could be given time to grow up, old animals could be valued, mixed breed dogs could be as desirable as purebreds. The 'reasons' are only symptoms of a shelter system too crowded with animals to ever save them all. Shelter workers know this, and it only makes applying the 'reasons' more painful.

The 'reason' for these two animals was 'too old'.

A loving and affectionate orange and white cat was brought to the shelter as a stray. Cataracts covered his eyes, and the staff estimated his age to be at least ten years. The tri-color Australian Shepherd mix was als oa stray, and coincidentally, from the same neighborhood. She seemed distracted and scared, but after some gentle petting grew calm enough to lay her head in a staff person's lap. In the days to follow, she showed herself to be a quiet, well-behaved dog who didn't jump or bark. She, too, was at least ten years old.

Both animals showed all the signs of coming from a home. They were well cared for, social and comfortable around people. It seems incomprehensible that no one came for them. People sometimes harbor the notion that old animals who are missing have 'gone off to die somewhere'. Perhaps that's what these animals' guardians thought.

What actually happened was much different. The shelter was very full, and cage space was needed. The old cat and the old dog had been up for adoption for some time but, because of their age, the chances for either of them were very slim. After a lifetime as loving members of their familes, these gentle old animals spent their last days in an unfamiliar shelter, and died in the arms of a stranger."  [ send green star]
 
Animal #A066769 August 11, 2005 1:53 PM

"Kelly"

"How much is a life worth?

Kelly was a beautiful golden Husky mix with black sable points and thick, luxuriant fur. She was older, probably at least eight; her eyesight was diminished and she was beginning to show hip problems.

The animal control officer arriving at work at 6 a.m. discovered her in the shelter's play yard. Probably someone had found her on their way to work, brought her to the shelter and finding it not yet open, left her in the yard.

Her guardian was contacted using the information on the tag she was wearing and came in to get her a few hours later. She seemed relieved to know Kelly was safe, but upon learning that she would be required to pay a standard twenty dollar reclaim fee, she balked. 'Why would I pay when she'll only get out again?' asked the woman. Apparently, Kelly had been lost before.

After arguing with the staff over the fee, she decided she was unwilling to pay it, and instead began the paperwork that would sign Kelly over to the shelter. 'She'll get adopted, won't she? She's a great dog!' she said. The staff made it clear that there were no guarantees and that not all anmals surrendered to the shelter got new homes.

Still, the woman continued with the paperwork, even filling out a personality profile documenting Kelly's like and history: she had been 'adopted from a family' by this woman two years ago and had at one point been trained to assist a visually impaired person. In her current home, though, she was primarily a 'yard dog', sleeping in a dog house and being fed outside in the mornings. The woman wrote that Kelly was 'extremely loving and lovable, very well-behaved, gets along with children, elderly and other pets; will walk well with you on a leash as well as take you for daily runs; a good companion.'

Nonetheless, she completed the paperwork and walked out, keeping her twenty dollars in exchange for Kelly.

The staff was dumbfounded. If Kelly was such a 'great, loving' dog, why would her guardian give her up over twenty dollars? Has she been looking for an excuse to get rid of the dog? Did she actually want to find her a new home? Knowing Kelly might not be adopted, how could the woman leave her there? There was simply no rational explanation, and sadly, it wasn't the first time, nor would it be the last, that shelter staff witnessed such inexplicable behavior.

Back in the kennels, Kelly was devastated. Her grief was unmistakable. She did not eat, would not look up at anyone who stood in front of her kennel, did not lift her head as her photo was taken. She was so unresponsive, staff even wondered if she might be deaf. After three days, it was clear she was not going to bounce back from the trauma of being abandoned; puppies, even street dogs, do better in the shelter, having never known a home. It is the ones who had a home - the ones who have lost the most - who suffer the worst. And Kelly suffered immensely.

Her very suffering sealed her fate, virtually guaranteeing that she would not be adopted. An older dog, deeply depressed, would need the rarest, most sensitive of adopters to notice her, to consider taking her on.

These are the cases that make shelter workers turn hopeless, depressed, angry, bitter. These are the cases that make them feel that their shelter is not, as they wish, sanctuary and safety for animals, but instead, an institution that makes easy the disposal of living beings. These are the cases that make them feel that their job is cleaning up after a society that doesn't care.

They were angry and sad at Kelly's situation. But they put it aside, choked it back, and focused on giving Kelly tenderness and dignity as they eased her from this world, as the priceless life that was Kelly slipped away."  [ send green star]
 
A Society that Doesn't Care August 11, 2005 2:18 PM

This is the biggest challenge for those of us trying to end animal suffering, homelessness and overpopulation. A society that doesn't care. If only that were the explanation we could use. The sad truth is that much of society WOULD care, if only they knew the truth and consequences of this dangerous game.

Though, admittedly, there are many who DO know better, and simply do not care, there are many more who are completely unaware as to what goes on behind the doors and inside the walls of animal shelters on a daily basis. They are misled and misguided - perhaps because they want to be - by shelters with names that include words like "humane" and "society for protection" when the cold hard truth is that many Humane Society shelters and ASPCA shelters are not the No-Kill sanctuaries that many people would like to believe that they are.

These organizations don't euthanize because they don't care for the animals, or because they are heartless and cruel. They do it because there is simply not enough room in shelters for all the homeless animals our society has created and refused to acknowledge for years. Many of the people who work in these shelters feel a grief deeper than most of us will feel in our lifetimes, and they do it on a daily basis.

As pet owners, we grieve terribly over the loss of a beloved pet. Shelter workers suffer this same loss every day, sometimes dozens of times over, because, just as all of us spend hours out of the day with our own pets at home, shelter workers spend their entire day working with these animals that aren't their own, but might as well be. They get to know the faces and personalities of the forgotten, and cherish the lives and love they are able to offer to even the ones who ultimately, in many cases, will be responsible for ending their time here on earth. They spend day in and day out with these animals, knowing all the while that the clock is ticking and their time to find a new home is running out.

These shelter workers rejoice when one of the animals is adopted, and finds a new home, a new family, a new life. But the even more profound tragedy, that so many of them are aware of despite their hopes for these animals, is that many animals who leave a shelter with a new family, will end up back at that same shelter, or another one, when life or circumstance forces them to be abandoned yet again.

It is staggering to realize how few animals live in one home for their entire lives. Only one dog in four will stay in the same household his entire life. Many are returned to shelters over and over again, hoping to one day find the family who will love and honor them, and realize both the animal's value and the responsibility of taking them on.

There is a reason that many shelters these days do home checks, applications, interviews and a host of other processes before you are allowed to take an animal home with you as a prospective adopter. It is a decision that must be made wisely, and with full knowledge of the tasks and chores that will follow. People need to enter in pet ownership the way they would child-rearing and understand that the obligation outlasts accidents on the carpet, mishaps, lack of training and a slew of other possibilities.

What many pet owners also fail to realize, tragically, as evidenced in Kelly's story above is that many animals that came from safe, loving, happy homes have less of a chance of being adopted than the ones who didn't. People who are "forced" - I use this term loosely, because for many it is a choice, but for some it is not - to surrender their animals to shelters assume that because their pet was a "good dog" or a "warm and wonderful cat" that they will easily find a new home.

It is a sad fact that, like Kelly, many of these animals are so upset by being abandoned that they never recover. Others suffer from kennel stress, and it is not unusual for animals in shelters to be euthanized over minor illnesses, because there is too big a risk that the infection will spread. The common cold that might well go away on its own in a household is often a death sentence for that same animal in a shelter.

They are prison inmates in a society that locks them away because they do not know any better, or try any harder, or put in the required effort. Fortunately, the "wardens" in these institutions are generous, kind and caring souls who often show the animals in their tend more love and kindness than many of them have ever known in their lifetimes.

And for this, they suffer greatly. To them, every animal who's lost it chance at finding a new home is a personal loss, a reason to grieve and cry and curse a world that would do this to its fellow inhabitants. It is another life lost, one more casualty in a war bred and fueled by ignorance and lack of compassion. By a people, unaware and often unwilling to learn the truth.

This is the darkness from which they shield their eyes. The reality and impact of the homeless animal crisis on our world and our planet, and the inevitable ends that lay in store for literally thousands of the loving and lovable, who have yet to find someone who will repay that debt.

They only ask a little, but for many, that demand is still too great.

ALS
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