Last month I started volunteering at a large no-kill shelter. They have a huge shelter that is up-to-date, clean and spacious. But they have a few problems.
It can be hard to track down a staff member, plus a lot of them have this “I don’t want to be here!” attitude.
They allow potential adopters to walk a dog all around the place with ZERO staff monitoring the situation. So you can have 5 to 10 people who may or may not have ever owned a dog before, walking strange to them, and sometimes dog aggressive, dogs. Fights have happened and someone once just walked off with a dog that was luckily found the next day, on the other side of town tied to a pole.
I heard them tell a person that a dog, labled as a Mastiff/Bloodhound mix, was super expensive (think over $100 when most adult dogs are less then $75) becuause he was a pure bred Bloodhound. :dubious: There was no way in heck this dog was a PB Bloodhound or even a badly bred one. It looked like a fawn Mastiff with long ears.
They do good work, but some things are a little off about this place.
Mis-labelling the breed isn’t a huge problem, but letting potential adopters walk the dogs without supervision is very, very bad and a lawsuit waiting to happen. It’s not great for the dogs either. The instant a dog gets labelled “a biter”, he’s on death row even if it’s not his fault (like he was improperly introduced to another strange dog).
Obviously, this shelter doesn’t have enough volunteers to help … so you are to be commended for the time you do spend with these abandoned animals … every little bit helps …
I have a problem with these “no-kill” shelters … it sounds all humane and everything but these are animals, not humans … generally speaking it’s bad for the animal to treat it like a human … sometimes the abuse heaped on an animal is so great that the animal can never be repaired … these no-kill shelters are forced to cage such an animal for the rest of their lives … maybe that’s okay for humans but I think it’s just flat evil to do that to an animal, any animal …
Is there a chronic shortage of dogs and cats in your community? … I didn’t think so … so no matter how big the shelter is, it will eventually be filled up with animals that will make terrible pets … the managers have no option other than foisting these fucked up animals onto an unsuspecting public … too often I’ve seen these animals try to be returned to the shelter, except the shelter is full, and the animal winds up getting tied to tree out in the rural areas and left …
I, too, have seen how No-Kill shelters are not all their cracked up to be. I understand not wanting to euthanize dogs for space, but when a dog has been sitting in a shelter since 2011*, no joke, something needs to be done!
This shelter adopts out dogs quickly, but I’m not too sure how through they vet the people. They also bring in dogs from an area kill shelter and half of those I don’t trust. Half have this feral look to them and the other half are hyperactive nutcases that are dangerous, due to their sheer exuberance, to walk. 80+lb dog jumping and pulling is not fun.
*This was a shelter in a different town. Other Shelter also had a dog with a mile long bite record that they kept changing his breed and then just slapped a “Don’t Touch!” sign on his cage.
I’ve worked for dog rescue, too, so I can see both sides. It’s extremely sad, but problem animals can’t be warehoused on the off-chance that someone who knows how to rehabilitate them will come along. Most dogs CAN be rehabiltated, but the problem is that only something like 1 in several hundred thousand people know how to do it and have the space/willingness to do it. It’s more humane to just euthanize them rather than warehouse them.
Because, IMO, keeping these highly social, intelligent animals in a kennel for a long time is very similar to keeping humans in solitary confinement for that long. They go batshit crazy at worst, emotionally stunted at least.
Also, I’ll add a pit for the rescue groups that send dogs home with people after only a few dollars change hands. When you don’t do any screening of the potential adopters, there is a high likelihood that the animal will end up right back at the shelter or on Craigslist or tied to a fence on a remote country road. I’ve told the story before of the time I was doing a greyhound meet and greet at a local Petsmart at the same time as one of the other large mixed-breed rescues doing an adoption day. Every month they’d bring around 40 dogs to adopt out. Petsmart likes to take credit for adoptions that happen in their store, so you need to fill out status reports. The store manager told me that this large group regularly got around 25 - 30 dogs returned to them every month. That just makes the dogs feel insecure when their people and surroundings change every few weeks.
My issue with “no-kill” shelters is that the name itself is just a marketing ploy. Sure, they don’t kill animals, but how do they manage that, with so many animals in need of homes? Simple answer: they refuse to take them in.
**Rhiannon8404 *volunteers at our local municipal animal shelter. It is a “kill” shelter. They routinely euthanize animals. Not because they like it; not because they are a bunch of twisted animal-haters; but because they are required by law to take in any and all animals that are brought to them. Some of these animals are sick or injured, and beyond help; those are put down for ‘humanitarian’ reasons. The remainder are made available for adoption. But what happens when the shelter gets full? What happens when all the kennels are double or triple occupied, the offices are full of cages, and there literally is no room for one more dog or cat?
They do their best to adopt out as many animals as possible. They market on social media, partner with local businesses to sponsor adoptions, take dogs and cats out to community events, discount or waive adoption fees…and work closely with a number of rescue groups to pull as many animals out of the shelter as humanly possible…but sometimes there are simply not enough spaces to house the incoming animals.
At that point, they have no choice but to “make room” by euthanizing healthy animals. They hate to do it…but what other option is there? Maybe they could transfer some of the animals to “no kill” shelters? That would be a great idea, right? Except the “no-kill” shelters aren’t bound by law to take in all comers; they just say “sorry, we’re full”. They don’t kill any animals; they just turn them away at the door, and let “the pound” do the dirty work.
I’m not saying that all the no-kill shelters, and the people who work in them, are hypocrites. Most of them are doing their very best to try to solve an unsolvable problem. But “no kill shelters” are not somehow better than “kill shelters” just because they never euthanize their charges; it’s simply an accounting trick.
or rabbit, or turtle, or pig, or cow, or parrot, or falcon…the shelter has had all of these and more at one point or another over the past couple years…when they say they must take in “all animals”, they mean “all animals”
This. The public pushes getting all pets from rescue, with absolutely no idea what is really going on in shelters and rescue groups. I know I’ve said it before but it bears repeating - 17 years ago when I wanted a kitten, I figured I’d do “the right thing” and get it from rescue. Well, they wouldn’t sell (I use that word on purpose) me one because I wouldn’t sign a guarantee that the kitten/cat would never get outside. I’m sorry, no matter how careful we are, I cannot see into the future. I did end up getting a kitten from our city shelter (which is now closed due to lack of need) and in 17 years she’s been outside alone exactly twice, and came right back. So, that rescue missed out on a great home for one of their kittens because they expect the impossible.
I also did board and train for many many years, and the number of dogs with horrid temperaments/manners that I got in that had been “rescued” very much outstripped the ones that just needed a little work to make them great pets. My hands and arms are covered with scars from the bites I got from “rescues” that people just couldn’t give up on and no matter what I did, a goodly percentage of those dogs went back to their bad ways when they went home because their owners just didn’t understand how to handle them. These people had zero support from the rescue groups they got their dogs from, other than to be told to give (yes, give - no refund) the dog back so it could be warehoused someplace until another unsuspecting family ended up with it. I just don’t understand how these folks thought they were doing right by these dogs.
“No-kill” shelters do not have a 0% euthanasia rate; they will do that with animals that are too sick to be rehabilitated. They call themselves that because the animals do not come in there with a deadline, if you will.
The no-kill shelter in my town is currently on lockdown because someone brought in a bunch of animals with ringworm, and it spread to the whole shelter. :eek: They aren’t taking in any new animals except for dire emergencies, either, and by that I mean something like the kittens who were found several days ago in a carrier next to a seldom-used dumpster. :mad: Someone DID use it and found the kittens nearly frozen to death, and this shelter did agree to take them.