TroutMan - You’re making up ridiculous excuses. Saying “we’re not sure” doesn’t take any more resources than saying “she’s healthy.”
Good to know, thanks.
Little Bird, you have my sympathy. My LLD (Little Deaf Dog) is the first Shelter dog I have ever owned. My other 8 were all purebreds.
I wanted an older, small dog, preferably a terrier. So LLD seemed perfect. Except I discovered he was deaf, something the shelter missed. Also that his vision is starting to fail due to age. I knew his teeth were in bad shape, but not $400’s worth of bad shape, with more to come.
Could the shelter have done more? I really don’t know. A couple of handclaps behind LLD would have done the trick. But right now they are showing a dog with food aggression, which they say isn’t suitable for a home with children. So the dog won’t bite the adult hand that feeds it? And the neighbors’ dog was released with zero information about its having been abused and therefore head shy, and what behavioral problems could surface due to the different temperaments of the dogs making up the “mix”.
So I think shelters do the best they can, but often it isn’t enough.
I agree that you should take this puppy back. Do your homework and decide on a breed that will be good with your son, and then look for an honest-to-goodness serious breeder. You have time and your son needs a good dog to grow up with.
No, don’t take her back.
As you said, your child (and maybe you) have already bonded with her.
Explain to the child that she has medical problems, and that you are going to have the vet help her, but she might not live very long. “So we have to make sure she has a happy life as long as we can”. (Not a bad lesson for kids to learn.)
Then spend what you can on her, and accept that you may eventually have to turn down some expensive treatments. Remember, even if you eventually have to put her to sleep, at least her last months/years were better than she had before.
But do ask your Vet about costs, and whether he can reduce his prices some for this case – many Vets will.
As far as the shelter, you should at least ask them to refund part or all of your adoption fee, to apply to her medical problems. That’s not an unreasonable request.
Also, it sounds like you were talking to a low-level worker at the shelter. If you want to get this policy changed, you need to go higher up. Look on their website for a list of their Board members, and write them a letter. Keep it calm & reasonable, identify the problem, and suggest a desired solution. Like insisting their workers/Vet do a bit more extensive screening for pre-existing health problems before deciding that an animal is adoptable and releasing it for placement. Concentrate on the policy-level for the whole shelter, rather than your specific case.
This is a perfect example why the promotion of pets is wrong. It results in the proliferation of unwanted animals of which the majority are ultimately euthanized and burned.
Every time there’s a movie or TV show with a cute dog or cat, thousands of households run out and get a pet. That demand spurs the development of puppy and kitten mills which are horrible in and of themselves…but I would bet that significant percentage of those thousands of pets bought, get abandoned.
A horrible cycle. The local humane societies try to stand in the gap, but in some way their own marketing fosters the same cycle of demand.
if only that was possible then world wouldn’t be overpopulated.
Yes, Omar, it would never have occurred to me that I could own my very own cat if I hadn’t seen it on a TV show that one time.
Pet ownership, pet rescue, pet everything is so complex (because of the shifting and passionate sands of morality involved) that almost any blanket statement anyone can make is going to be half wrong.
Know how to acquire a healthy, long-lived, trouble-free pet? No? Guess what? NO ONE does, really. The reason way-less-than-optimal animals like the OP’s are offered is because, well, they can be. Pets are somewhere between livestock and children in western minds. Used to be more like livestock but they are ever-creeping up toward being like children. If the OP’s dog was offered at a livestock auction she’d have no bids. If she was offered at an orphanage?
There just are no easy answers.
This, all of this. (I agree that it is entirely reasonable to ask for your adoption fee back.) Please don’t take the dog back unless you are really entirely unable to pay for the medical care.
I mean, come on, right? If you hear this story, are you likely to go to your shelter and adopt a dog, knowing they have no problems lying or being incompetent? This is a horrible way to run things.
I mean, they already exist as a form of charity. They are charging you for dogs when you can probably get a new mutt for free. The only reason people buy from them is that they want to support the charity they do for animals. If they can’t get that right, what’s the point?
Ah, the irony is strong with you…
You must enjoy living in your world of absolutes, where everyone is just like you.
Psst…hate to break it to you, but you actually may be unique, and there may even be a lot of people that are like you, but there are also a lot of people that aren’t like you.
Have you committed murder lately? No, well I guess then we can do away with all homicide departments across the country… :rolleyes:
Well, the good news is her blood work came back with no issues. So, aside from the teeth that need cleaning/removing she’s a healthy little critter. Her pink eye has cleared up as well. I’ll run the teeth stuff past our pet insurance and see what that will run me, and the probably get that done in the next week.
Luna is settling in really well, learning house rules, getting accustomed to the cats (and vice versa), etc. Haven’t had a housebreaking incident inside since Monday! Things are going well. BTW, really should have posted a pic of the little booger! Here and Here
At least you didn’t adopt a white dog that turned out to be black.
Okay, that is the cutest dog in the world. I can see why you’re on the hook now.
So glad you kept her, Little Bird.
checks forum
She’s fucking adorable!
Ok, she’s a cutie!
What a sweet-faced little scruffbucket! Glad she’s getting along with the kitties and learning all the potty rules, and I’m sure she’s relieved to have a non-ouchy eye again.
Idle curiosity: how much does your 3-year-old know, about the health issues, about the impending DOOM if you did return her to the shelter, etc. etc. You don’t even have to answer; just wonderin’ how you handled it, and how well your kid handled it.
You laugh, but there is definitely a prejudice against adopting black dogs. See this page from the National Black Dog Day homepage:
And, yes, getting good pictures of my black lab mix is a challenge. Possible, but a challenge.
How funny - the last dog we got from a no-kill shelter was black. The scruffy mutt we took in literally off our street was black. Our current pup, from a breeder, is black. I guess we’re the exception. 
Did I mention that we have beige carpets? Yeah, I vacuum a lot.