Some of you may remember my thread a few months back asking for help naming some puppies.
Basic story: Stray dog finds woman willing to feed her and let her sleep under the house. Stray dog has puppies under the house. Utility worker comes to house for some reason, gets too close to the puppies, and gets a slight bite. Since this stray has no real owner to act on her behalf, animal control takes the stray and puppies with the intention of euthanizing them all. Enter my friend, who offers to foster the puppies (which includes bottle feeding them several times a day because they’re less than a month old) so that they don’t have to be put down.
Fast forward 2 months. My friend recently had to euthanize the last two puppies. Despite his best efforts, even after he gave 2 of the puppies to another friend to make sure they were all getting the care they needed, the puppies failed to thrive. Just weeks after I posted the other thread, he woke up to a dead puppy 2 days in a row. So, all 6 of the puppies have either died or been put down.
First, I am (slightly) pissed at animal control. While I understand why they felt the mother had to be put down (although I don’t agree- I feel she was protecting her puppies and was not dangerous) I am upset that they could’t delay her euthanization by a few weeks, to give her puppies a chance.
Second, I am (really) pissed at people who don’t spay or neuter their pets. It’s simple, and can be inexpensive. There are programs all over the place that offer free or reduced price spaying/neutering. Seriously, if you can’t spare a day to take your pet to the vet, or afford to do it, you shouldn’t have pets. It’s that simple.
One of the reasons the puppies were going to be euthanized in the first place was because the animal shelters (all over the county) were so overcrowded, hundreds of dogs were awaiting euthanization.
I can’t understand why people do this. 2 of my cats were adopted from the SPCA (who include sterilization as part of their $40 adoption fee). I read their intake paperwork- both were kittens dropped off by their owners, citing “not eough time” or “too expensive” as reasons why they were dumping a litter of kittens at a crowded shelter. Jeez, there’s a voucher program in this county through which you can get a cat all its shots, and get it fixed, for $40 freakin’ dollars. My newest owner is a kitten I “rescued” from a FOAF who owned upwards of 20 cats, all allowed to wander the neighborhood freely, despite the fact that they weren’t fixed. She was infested with fleas and undernourished from having to fight with 2 dozen other cats for food.
Damnit. I’m just so mad at people. My friend took in these puppies because he loves animals. He hoped that they would help distract him from a recent break-up, and that he could give them a fighting chance to someday get adopted and bring someone joy. Now he’s more miserable than ever, because he couldn’t save them.
