I know that the part I’ve bolded is true. I sincerely hope that the rest is, too.
You did the right thing. Don’t feel guilty.
eh, hem …
… while we are all trashing Manipulative Friend, we may have neglected to take a good look a Dog-Person Spouse … she may want a puppy like some people want a baby and been part of the set-up …
S/he should be promised they will have a puppy soon.
I would be receptive to getting a puppy when we have the time and space for it to thrive. My brother got a puppy, but he has a huge yard and spends a lot of time playing and training the dog.
Similarly, my wife wouldn’t mind me getting a cat if it was outdoors/in parts of the house she seldom goes (since shes allergic). Right now thats not really feasible, but if we moved it might be.
I’m surprised at the level of contempt for the friend. I’m not quite sure about the circumstances regarding her dog (if its even hers, I’m not quite certain honestly). Yeah it was annoying being pestered about the dog, particularly our subletters hearing about it and begging us to get the puppy :rolleyes: but beyond that im not sure on the other details.
You did the right thing. I wouldn’t feel guilty about the puppy going to the shelter, either. Where I live, there are pet rescue organizations that take in adoptable animals from our local shelter and put them in foster homes where they’ll have a good environment and a great deal of human socialization. Then they hold adoption fairs at area businesses that donate space to them. The upside is that the pets are happy and healthy and don’t get euthanized, and the families that adopt them usually get well-trained pets that learn to behave well inside a house. If you have any such groups in your area, they would be glad to take the puppy from the shelter and see to it that he gets to a good home.
Well, I guess it’s possible the friend’s dog was raped by a dog gang while she was on the way to the vet to be spayed or something.
But the problem of unwanted, overproduced puppies is a huge, ongoing problem and it’s caused by millions of individual people, as well as by giant industrial breeding facilities and semi-professional backyard breeders. People have all kinds of reasons for not altering their dogs – myths they’ve heard (such as “altering will make them fat,” or “they need to have one litter for health reasons”), or general irresponsibility, or cheapness, or they plan to “make money” breeding the dog, or they have psychological issues with having a neutered pet, or they “don’t get around to it,” or whatever. Everyone has an excuse – some reason why their dog had offspring but they don’t want to be taken to task for it.
Over even a short period, all these excuses start to repeat, and over the years, it’s all a blur of stupid, self-serving reasons why there are so many more dogs than homes.
And what happens to these “extra” dogs? The same thing that happens to any unsold commercial stock – ultimately, they’re wastage. Despite a vast support structure of private rescues and municipal shelters, millions of dogs are killed each year by gas or lethal injection simply because there’s no room for them and more are pouring in every day. Millions more of these intensely social animals languish in concrete cages.
Maybe your wife’s friend’s case was special, but she’s lost in a sea of statistics that tell us it’s almost certainly otherwise. The best efforts (and lots of money) from untold numbers of truly responsible people seem utterly helpless to reverse this situation, and that’s largely because of cases that all seem drearily identical to this one.
Meanwhile to these animals that we love and treat like family, it all leads to a Holocaust-like system of internment and crematoriums.
Frankly, I’m surprised at the level of contempt, too – it seems wholly inadequate.
Besides not spaying her dog and allowing the dog to get pregnant, your wife’s friend actually dropped off a puppy at your house, hoping you’d cave in and take it already. After asking repeatedly over weeks didn’t do the trick. This is not a kind act.
Where do you live, may I ask? We recently visited friends in Boston who had just adopted a shelter dog. They told us that the spay/neuter culture is so strong there, their puppy had to be “imported” from Alabama!
A big ol’ +1,000 to Sailboat’s excellent rant up there.