Just making sure I understand: you think that shelters should be essentially a revolving door. Person comes in “I want a dog”; shelter says “pay up, here you go, have a nice life, but if it doesn’t work out, bring him back”?
But how do you know, and how do they know that they are really conforming with the bolded part of your quote? They can’t be too invasive, its not like they come to your house (at least not here they don’t). So they have developed a profile of sorts that says generally speaking, people with these home qualities tend to be better dog owners.
Lots and lots of commodities are subject to terms and restrictions. One million people just got banned from Xbox Live for violating the terms of use, for example. Want to be unbanned? Buy a new console.
My company has an account with a service provider. We pay them big bucks for their product. But if we violate the terms of use they can terminate our service, take the stuff away, and don’t have to refund us the balance. That was the contract we entered into when we bought their services. People enter into purhcase agreements all the time that are subject to limitations, warranties etc. and they are valid as contracts.
The adoption process is a similarly valid contract. If you agree to the terms, then they are binding (unless they are unlawful).
He has just learned to deal with the normal boredom of being home alone without shredding furniture. Kudos to you for finding ways to redirect his impulses and reduce his anxiety.
It’s not like this profile is based on any kind of research. It’s based on the personal opinions of the people who run rescue organizations. I love 'em, but they are wacky people. This is said as someone with experience in shelters, rescue organizations, and fostering.
The guidelines aren’t evidence-based. They are based on the pipe dreams (IMO) that all dogs deserve a home for their entire lifetime (even if they have terrible and destructive behavior problems) with high-quality kibble, plenty of individual attention and mental stimulation, someone home in the house at least 18 hours out of 24, a fenced yard, regular walks, and multiple comfortable beds.
This is a great ideal, but most human kids I know don’t have it this good.
rhubarbarin (BTW, your name makes me crave rhubarb crisp!)
How would you recommend shelters determine which people which are likely to provide a warm, affectionate home? You commented about “minimal screening”. What kind of screening? It occurred to me that if we talk the details of what you have in mind, that I may be able to agree wholeheartedly.
Then you don’t know the definitionof unethical–at least, not as I use the term. While I wouldn’t do what was described in the OP (mostly because I don’t like dogs and couldn’t be arsed to), I would say the rightness or wrongness of an act is determined by its likely and foreseeable consequences, not some magic quality of honesty or dishonesty.
Actually as noted, this is more often false than not. Many, possibly most large breeds tend to be very inactive indoors. A particularly strong example are greyhounds, who are couch potatoes par excellence and an ideal apartment dog - providing you take them out at least once a day to somewhere they can run at full sprint for a short while. It doesn’t even have to be very long, they burn out quickly. The same in a general sense goes for a lot of other breeds in the 90lb+ range.
By contrast many small breeds tends towards the more hyperactive and destructive when cooped up in small apartments.
So thus while the usual advice is small dog for small apartment, the reverse is often more appropriate. You’re better off with a very large dog that will burn itself out quickly on an outing and spend the rest of the day snoring on your couch. The only real drawback is the horse-like size of the animal getting in the way as you negotiate your little dwelling.
And, the likely and foreseeable consequence of, as I put it, is "to lie to someone to make them agree to do something they wouldn’t agree to do if the truth is known"is to make them do something they wouldn’t have agreed to do had you not lied. In this case, sell you a dog they would otherwise be unwilling to sell to you. How is that not a likely and foreseeable consequence? Or are you saying that that is ethical, or right?
I need a concrete example. I can imagine lying to an abusive parent to get them to allow me to take their child to a safe place, for instance. That is not unethical. Lying is morally dangerous, because it is somewhat more likely than not to be the wrong thing to do, but it is not always immoral, any more than stealing or killing is always immoral. Context is everything.
Agreed, and born out with my own experiences. 80 lb is done after a medium-length walk or short romp. 35 lb could probably benefit from 10 hours of intense exercise per day- he only gets an hour usually so he is always full of beans, obnoxiously so (it doesn’t help that he is younger and hence even more hyper and bouncy). He is also the one who is always ON ME or underfoot. 80-lb rarely bestirs himself from his favorite love seat.
So, don’t assume that a little dog (even a teensy 10-lb one) can get his exercise ‘around the house’. Most small dogs are HYPER and the smaller, the more active. This is most of the reason IMO Chihuahuas are often so crazy and yappy - they are lucky to get some laps around the room. Caesar Milan (yes, I am a fan) recommends they get two hours of walking per day, as well as some off-lead time, to burn off some of that energy they will often otherwise use for biting ankles or obsessively warning about intruders.
Really, the more exercise the better the behavior, for most dogs.
Honestly I feel a very affectionate home is MUCH less important than a home that gives some stimulation (as long as the animals are warm, fed, not mistreated). I should have said treated with kindness, not affection. Overdoing the affection and not understanding how to communicate and discipline is the main cause of behavior problems of all stripes in dogs and cats.
Shelters:
They should have the freedom to deny who they please if they seem shady, or if they feel the animal in question is inappropriate for a stated situation/family (NOT APPLYING to normal things like ‘lives in an apartment’, ‘works 8 hours per day’, or ‘will let their cat go outside’).
Should screen for age, and require a meeting with parents/guardians if a minor wishes to adopt.
Should require an okay from landlord for renters.
There should be some sort of consultation about the particulars of the home, family, and routine, with guidance being given on what would make the best situation.
It should be made clear that if things don’t work out, they should bring the animal back to the organization, rather than giving it away. But no situations like the Ellen DeGenere debacle, that’s madness. If the animal has already been rehomed in a stable enough situation, why mess with it?
They do all these things already, they are just waaaay too unrealistic in their expectations and way to quick to weed out worthy potential homes based on factors that don’t make a big difference.
So imagine a shelter has 100 dogs and 70 people who are interested in adopting them. 45 of these people would make ideal homes, and 25 are questionable.
The dogs who aren’t adopted will be euthanized, so the question becomes, is it better to take a chance on the folks who may or may not being good owners? Or to withhold the dogs because the shelter isn’t sure they will be cared for. The alternative for these dogs is death.
And this is the situation with the majority of pet adoptions, still. State or city-run, high-kill shelters are still the main organizer of pet ‘adoptions’, not private rescues.
When you get an animal from the Denver Dumb Friends League it is called an adoption (by the DFL) and you get adoption papers.
And they go over these papers to make sure you understand certain stipulations, one of which is that if you are for any reason unable to keep the animal, you must bring it back to the DFL. Not “may.” Must.
Anything can be if you agree to it in writing. Ever finance a new car and stop paying? Read about anyone losing their homes lately over similar issues?
That’s not a good parallel. It would a parallel if, say, you bought a car, paid for it, and then the dealer repossessed it because you were not garaging it, or not changing the oil every 3K miles.
We walk our two 14 pound terriers around our block at least 3 times a day, and we encounter dogs barking from behind fences we have never ever seen, in 18 months of living here. Occasionally, some of them have gotten out, we have worked hard to find their homes, and we have given them back. But never without thinking long and hard about it…
Those are the lucky ones. Lots of kids in the neighborhood like to pet our dogs if they see them, and occasionally one will let slip they have a dog or dogs but it is not allowed out because it bites, or that it lives in the garage all the time - no kidding, I hear it bark plaintively every time I go around the block!
Just yesterday we encountered a dog we have seen occasionally on a leash, a 8 pound or so Pomeranian that both our dogs like. But each time we see that dog, whoever is walking it (never the same person twice) doesn’t even recognize that the 3 dogs want to play. Last night, the walker seriously thought they were fighting and pulled the dog away.
ETA - I wouldn’t be surprised at all to learn someday that some of these kids are kept in the garage too, btw.
It would be if you paid cash for the car, thus acquiring title free and clear with no agreed-upon restrictions, I agree.
But that is not what we are talking about at these shelters. At our local shelter, you can get your dog that way - it is still in startup mode, I don’t think it will be that way forever though.
We do have more supply than demand, and I believe we are exporting dogs to other parts of the state, which is another issue altogether.
So if anyone needs a dog, let me know - no lying necessary here
