So what exactly did I say that leads you to believe that I would abuse dogs or that I have the sort of attitude that would end up leading to me neglecting dogs?
As far as I can tell, your argument seems to be “stop picking on overzealous shelters, we love dogs more than you do”
Most of the people working in shelters here are city or county employees and not dog people. In my city, the shelter workers are police officers because we have a big problem with dog fighting, so animal control is part of the police. These people know dingus about dogs, and I can say that as someone who has owned, bred, trained and exhibited dogs for about 40 years.
People who do breed specific rescue are almost always dog people - shelter workers, IME, not.
I wouldn’t but a pet shop pup, but I also would not let you come and inspect my house. Anyone who places animals in new homes by just checking off the boxes of some magic list doesn’t know what they are doing and doesn’t need to be in my house.
The rest of your rant makes you sound like the sort of person who thinks it’s better that a dog die of old age in a kennel run than take a chance on a new home. Unfortunately, far too many “rescue” people feel this way. I suppose you also try to convince people that any random dumped dog is just as good as a well bred one?
Sigh.
Stoid,
As an animal lover who has volunteered in shelters and has only ever owned rescued animals… you sound nuts.
When you make something hard to do, fewer people do it. Simple really. And of the 100 people you might dissuade from adopting with your stringent requirements, maybe 2 of them would have abused the animal, maybe 2 more would have neglected the animal, and 96 would have adored and cared for the animal. Is it worth it?
Link for my post above: The Cat House on the Kings
Please read item#2 in the faq regarding senior cats.
Quasi
How does it work that the “surrender fees” are not tax deductible?
That place looks more like a business to me, but I suppose they aren’t breaking even.
Then you chose not to read the way I laid out exactly how I arrived at that conclusion about you, in detail. Try reading it. It’s your whole point of view, your way of thinking. READ IT. Your words paint you as narcisstic, impatient, selfish, and run by your ego.
The people who were busted in those videos weren’t professional dogbeaters. They were self-involved, impatient, ego-driven and when they had a shitty day they thought nothing of taking it out on the dog.
That’s how it happens.
And neglect is even easier: you’ve portrayed yourself as someone who doesn’t have the patience and foresight and willingness to make the effort to train your dog and yourself and give her the exercise and stimulation she will need to be happy, the result will be an annoying dog, and you’ll justify sticking her in the backyard and throwing a bowl of food at her because she’s “such a pain”. And because you are self-involved, you won’t even feel her misery. Or maybe she’ll be such a mess you’ll have no problem dumping her at the pound because she’s so deficient. (Whereas if you got her from a rescue group they would take her back if you realized you’d made a mistake.)
I’m not imagining things, as I said and you ignored: there are consistent patterns in behavior, attitudes and lifestyles that show up repeatedly with people who neglect, abuse and abandon dogs. It’s basic profiling. Through your own words, you have demonstrated that you are about as likely as it gets to be someone who will end up neglecting, abusing or abandoning your dog.
None of the above. You obviously don’t know what I “sound” like at all:
And I worked for the rescue arm of the Golden Retriever Club of Los Angeles, doing home checks and fostering dogs.
That’s another reason the “checkboxes” are so important: a good rescue group places the dogs in foster homes for two reasons: first, to de-stress them so their true personalities emerge. Dogs in kennels are stressed.
Secondly, to do a thorough evaluation of the dog to determine if it can live with other animals, children, males and females, is it housebroken or otherwise trained, does it have any behavioral issues, etc. Foster homes get to know the dogs individually.
So, when Joe Adopter wants a dog and he has two cats and lives in a 5 floor walk-up which he rarely leaves, the rescue group will know that placing the high-energy cat-aggressive terrier that needs an hour of exercise every day to keep it from eating the furniture is a bad idea no matter how cute Joe thinks it is. And if Joe refuses to tell them and they let Joe take the dog, what do you think happens???
It’s about stopping the neglect and abuse that arises from ignorant people making foolish, impulsive decisions with no information, which is pretty much **exactly what leads to homeless dogs to begin with.
**
And anyone who thinks that’s unreasonable isn’t thinking about the dogs at all, only about themselves.
Please give me an example of my narcissistic, selfish, impatient, ego driven qway of thinking. Because the way you laid out exactly how you arrived at your conclusion about me, in detail… wasn’t very exact or detailed. You threw around a bunch of insulting accusations and concluded (based on those unfounded accusations) that I would neglect or abuse my pet.
You sound a little defensive to me because you realize that you are one of these overzealous dog shleter people. Your point seems to be that everything these folks do is justifiable and in fact if they actually loved dogs, EVERY shelter would be doing the same thing.
My point is that it is very short sighted to insist on perfect homes for the 20 dogs you have and thereby eliminating too many people from consideration.
I don’t know where you are getting the idea that I don’t want to exercise and play with the dog.
How have I shown that I lack the patience and foresight and willingness to make the effort to train my dog? I’ve had dogs before and I understand the basic needs of a dog go beyond feeding and walking. Is it because I want a housebroken, trained family friendly dog?
The reason I want a dog that is already trained and family friendly is because I have a small child (I mention this in the OP). Its not because I don’t want to go through the effort of training my own dog (and frankly, I don’t see why want6ing a housebroken, trained dog means i am likely to neglect or abuse the dog). If you can’t understand why my decision to get a family friendly dog is affected by that then I don’t know what to say.
So I really don’t see where you are getting these adjectives you are using to describe me.
You’re levelling some pretty insulting accusations about me based on nothing but my criticism of overzealous dog shelters.
Frankly, I think that people like you are the are narcissistic, selfish, short sighted and ego driven ones. If you really cared about dogs, you would want to achieve the best results for all dogs and not just the 20 or 30 dogs in your shelter, you would want to reduce demand for puppy nills but you don’t.
You’re like Jack Black in Hi Fidelity, refusing to sell a record to the average joe walking into the store because average joe doesn’t appreciate the music as much as you do. And that’s the problem, you have excluded most of the population from adoption because they aren’t as dog savvy as you are. Jack black fails to realize that not sharing music with the average joe leads to a market for the boy band, Lindsay Lohan, Justin Bieber crap that studios mass market to the same folks who want to buy that cute little puppy from Pet Land.
First of all, that IS what you sound like and second of all you sound a bit hypocritical when you say that you think that you can tell what sort of person I am absed on my posts but others can’t understand you based on your posts.
I don’t think anyone is complaining about shelters asking people to fill out a questionnaire to make sure that they aren’t putting a Jack Russell in a 1 bedroom condo or something like that. Have you actually read this thread or are you just reflexively reacting to criticism of shelters?
I think you’re reading this thread incorrectly. Everyone on this thread seems to think that at least some amount of vetting is appropriate. I would suggest that reducing the demand for puppy mills is a much better method of addressing the issue of abandoned, abused or neglected dogs than by creating an almost impermeable abrrier at shelters and thereby creating demand at places like Petland.
If you reallyloved dogs, you would be interested in reducing demand for puppy mills rather bottlenecking at dog shleters. that’s like trying to stop a stream by putting a dam across half a stream.
What you “sound” like to me is one of those types who secretly prefers the animals in their care be killed than placed with anybody. Because once the animal is dead it can no longer suffer, and as long as it’s alive there’s a chance it may feel pain yet again. For the animal to be alive and outside of your control is unbearable to you.
What is completely lacking in your analysis is a sense of perspective. It’s all tail wagging the dog logic.
First, there’s the “the plural of anecdote is not data” problem. Yes, there are instances of animal abuse. Just like there are instances of child abuse. But your answer to this, to keep pets institutionalized because a teeny tiny percent of animals are abused doesn’t take into account the untold thousands that are loved and well-cared for. Or that fact that overall, more animals are in happy loving homes when there are fewer restrictions than when there are intrusive restrictions. Finally, I’d challenge you to show any data to support your position- that being extremely selective in shelter placing policy actually decreases the amount of animal abuse in the community.
Second, it seems your take on owners is very black and white. Either they are endlessly accommodating to the folks in charge of the animals, or they are an abuser who (either through direct cruelty or just sheer ignorance) is bound to make any animal in their care suffer. Just like most parents get tired and angry and at times would like to see their kids shipped off to summer camp in Siberia without becoming abusive, there are thousands of animal owners that get frustrated and angry at their pets, yet somehow manage to take pretty good care of them most of the time. I didn’t see anything in your posts that indicates that you understand that a person who gets tired of his pet at times still usually take good care of the animal.
The idea that illustrating graphically that animal abuse exists is enough to “prove” that shelters have no choice but to be incredibly restrictive is nuts, IMHO. It’s like using pictures of abused and killed children to “prove” that no parent should be allowed to raise their own kids and that they’d be better off in government-run orphanages.
I think this is a critical point. You don’t reduce the incidence of animal neglect or abuse in teh community, you merely shift the neglect and abuse from a shelter animal that the shelter animal to a puppy mill puppy. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have any standards at all (I think dogs are like guns (or children for that matter), you they should require you to get some rudimentary education about them before you allowed to have one).
To be fair we COULD use more education on childcare and government run day care centers wouldn’t be a horrible idea.
You are changing the subject - dogs stuck in no-kill shelters have a far different life than those in foster homes. OTOH, if a rescue group is hyper picky about who dogs in their foster homes go to, they may end up having to leave other dogs in shelters to die.
BTW, I worked with Seattle Purebred Dog Rescue when I lived up there, worked at a local animal control, am currently a contact for Curly-Coated Retrievers in southern California and have fostered many many dogs. Unless you have been doing rescue work for GRC of Greater LA for 30 or so years, you probably don’t have the experience I do.
This is actually kind of egotistical. Simply because a dog does or doesn’t do X in a foster home doesn’t mean it will or won’t do it in an adoptive home. One foster home is just that - one place, with the same experiences with the same people. People who may or may not be all that good at dealing with any issues their foster may have.
Oh please. If Joe is going to lie to your face, what makes you think that wandering around his house is going to tell you anything more?
Just because a dog ends up in a shelter or rescue doesn’t mean that it’s owners were ignorant, foolish or impulsive, much less neglectful or abusive. Shit happens - right now one of the most common things happening is loss of home due to foreclosure.
People who think they know better than everyone else are thinking only of themselves and not the dogs. One problem you appear to have is your definition of neglect and/or abuse, because it is not near as common as your severe over reaction would seem to warrant. Particularly in a breed like Goldens.