but the folks at shelters can be really dedicated to helping animals out, and it can kinda bruise their morale to suggest that the animals there (especially the animals that have made it to adoptions, at shelters that have no time limit on those in adoptions) are in need of rescue.
>>>Left Hand of Dorkness
Wow… I’m sorry if this comes off as snarky but why on earth would a non-profit shelter feel slighted when volunteers offer to take dogs (or cats) off their hands and put them in a less stressful, more breed specific situation for adoption? I haven’t worked in a shelter, only for vets and have worked with shelters on helping them get low cost spay/neuters, etc for shelter dogs- but the people I’ve worked with have always worked with breed rescue and were glad to do it.
I have Border Collies and have rescued several in the past- I would consider most Border Collies to require specialized knowledge and experience in order to both evaluate them in a shelter atmosphere and to place them in appropriate homes. I hope a shelter worker that doesn’t have such experience would try to use Border Collie rescue resources if available in their region.
On re-reading (I did read all the posts, but missed one apparently), I can see that maybe breed rescue groups weren’t the problem, but the more general “shelter dog” rescues. My remarks in that case may not be relevant. We have those types of groups here too, but they seem to focused on taking dogs off “death row”.
Everyone will think you are Joe Cool if you adopt. If you are a male, and you take Fido for a walk and some cute chick starts cooing over him, you bet your ass you will score some points when you “admit” you adopted.
And no, I’m not connected with either organization. But I have adopted a couple of dogs from F.A.I.R. and consider it a plus that their animals have been fostered in homes and get socialization and training in how to be good house pets.
That’s the feeling I get. There is a judgement of some rescue agencies/volunteers that “kill shelters are horrible” and that they are saving these dogs. And when they move them from parts of the country with a glut of mutt puppies to a part of the country with a puppy shortage, they are (but our local shelters do that too). There is, however, simply more dogs than homes in this country and for the most part the homes are a zero sum game. The rescue agency places a dog in a home, and that’s one less home for the shelter to place in. So someone has to do the dirty work. I’d imagine its hard enough to be an animal lover working at a shelter without the rescue volunteers snobbery and judgement - while simultanously recognizing that the rescue agencies are in competition for the same adoptive families.
That’s part of it, but even that’s more strongly stated than what I intended. I apologize for being unclear.
It’s not the nature of breed rescue groups that gets shelter worker hackles up: it’s calling the work “rescue,” especially “rescue from the shelter.” The shelter workers tend to see themselves as the front line of animal rescue, and when folks talk about rescuing animals from them, it sometimes irritates them. But the actual work of good breed rescue groups (“breed placement groups” in the PC language of the sheltering community) is very rarely objected to, in my experience.
Like I said, it’s kind of a silly PC issue in some respects. Mostly I would just try to avoid talking about rescuing animals from the shelter, and not worry about the word “rescue” in any other context.
I’m not sure if it is a silly PC issue - granted, I have a hot button about rescue snobbery right now (we have a rescue puppy, but my first rescue organization experience left me with a very bad taste in my mouth - I’m used to being judged for not being a stay at home mom for my kids - I wasn’t ready to be judged for not being willing to quit my job to stay home with a dog). But to me it strikes me as more of an issue of not understanding the economics and reality of the situation…of wanting to put shelters in the role of “bad guy” when the bad guy was pre-shelter (and it lots of cases there was really no “bad guy” - grandma became incapable of keeping the house faster than she expected and had to move out of her house and no one can take the dog. Or someone just managed to put off fixing too long - they were well intentioned, they didn’t intend to let her out unsupervised in heat). Of wanting to apply judgement. And the organization I have bad feelings about was so naive - they want to shut down puppy mills, but what do you think happens when you tell someone who is willing to adopt a rescue dog that they aren’t “good enough” - they go find someone who will give them a dog - and the easiest way to do that is to get one from a puppy mill. Reinforcing the action of the “villian” and leaving one less home for a dog who wasn’t intentionally bred for cash.