Yeah, those folks need to be slapped…hard. And never, ever allowed to have another pet.
Perhaps he was running a cat house?
So what exactly should my dachshund’s old owner have done after she had a stroke out of the blue and had to move into a nursing home? :dubious: She’s not an old lady either; she’s in her early 60s now, & had the stroke in her 50s.
This kind of thing is so frustratingly common. Pets are surrendered every day for:
sheds too much
barks too much
uncontrollable
grew too big
This is why it’s **critical **to do your breed research before you adopt a pet. Don’t just pick the first little cute thing you see without finding out what breed it is and then educating yourself about the breed characteristics. (energy levels and exercise requirements, intelligence, coat type and grooming requirements, if the breed is very vocal, if the breed is known to be hard to house train, etc.)
I was talking with a guy a few weeks ago who was listing all the horrible things that had happened to him this summer, starting with the death of his mother. On her deathbed, he promised his mom that he’d take care of her five dogs.
So, after she died he collected the dogs and took one at a time to different veterinarians to be euthanized. He thought it would look bad to take all five to the same vet. And he knew exactly what the total cost came to and was complaining about the expense.
I asked him about his promise to take care of the dogs. He honestly believed that killing them was “taking care of them”.
Is he in the Mafia?
We have rescued dachshunds (yeah, we knew what we were getting into.; we grew up with dachshunds), and they are typically prone to obesity. Recent news stories about Obie and Fat Vincent (who became Skinny Vinny) attest to that fact.
But, you know? If you have a dog (or other animal) who could eat its own weight every couple of hours? You limit its food intake! You exercise it!
Criminy.
My grandmother wanted her dog put to sleep if she died before the dog did…so the dog wouldn’t “suffer” alone.
We told her fuck no we ain’t doing that.
Wait your ass at the rainbow bridge if you go first.
I surrendered a dog for rehoming when I was about 20.
I’d been living with my boyfriend but our relationship ended over his drug use. I caught glandular fever and became chronically ill from it, as it triggered FMS and I was too sick to care for myself. I moved back in with my parents as I had no other options. They already had two dogs, which is the maximum permitted by their council. Also, their yard was secure enough to keep their dogs in, but my dog was a fence jumper (probably how he came to be in the pound where I found him in the first place). They didn’t want a third dog, and they doubly didn’t want a third dog that they weren’t legally permitted to have and that would require expensive fencing modifications to even be able to keep on the premises (my parents and I are unanimous in agreeing that keeping a dog chained up is no life at all, and didn’t consider that an option).
At first I left the dog with the ex boyfriend, but he called me one day and said he couldn’t keep the dog anymore and he needed me to take it. I put the dog in a boarding kennel while I tried to find someone to take him on. I frantically called around all my friends and family. I advertised him in the local paper. With my money running out and no options, I surrendered him to a shelter, and paid for the privilege of relinquishing him.
What else could I have done?
Close to this is what kept happening in a college town I lived in for awhile. When the students came in the fall to go to school, they’d adopt a pet, usually a kitten. Then when they left for the summer, they dumped it on the shelter.
Also, when I was still teaching classes, I’d get people who would tell me the class was Fido’s last chance to learn manners or off to the pound he would go. If Junior was there and crying about it, Mom would tell him that they’d get him a new puppy if Fido had to take that final car ride.
The reason my college town had so few landlords that allowed pets was because people WEREN’T taking them to the shelter. They were simply letting them out, or worse yet, moving out and leaving the animals, often to die. :mad: :mad: :mad:
God, that’s awfu!
Dear God, I don’t say this very often and I have worked with some of the most evil people in the world… but that is monstrous.
Yeah, i can think if lots of good reasons to rehome an animal, but I find it hard to imagine having your pet killed because it is fat, or you want to go on vacation. People can be monsters.
I’ve been seriously considering getting a puppy … close to five years this has been on my mind … I consider it that important of a decision that this still isn’t enough time … I’m going to wait until these cats I share my home with have lived out their lives … I will be using the next ten years wisely and preparing my home for a new dog.
It’s called being responsible …
How long of a vacation? I’m hard pressed to see how euthanasia plus new pet costs wouldn’t be close to the price of boarding, especially if you didn’t care about quality boarding.
What fresh hell is this? Were they all ill or elderly or something? Unless they had serious health issues, I’m not seeing how it’s better to euthanize them than to put in a little time trying to re-home them. Guess death bed promises aren’t what they used to be. :mad:
I once worked with a woman, who I considered smart, professional and kind. She had inherited her daughter’s 2 cats when the daughter was transferred overseas, and seemingly doted on them. It sounded like she took very good care of them, and talked about how cute they were. She was also desperate to get married again.
She ended up marrying a long-distance lover of short duration (they saw each other a few times, meeting at a location between their 2 states of residence) in a rather hasty affair. They were combining households, retiring from their jobs, and moving to a state that was new to both of them.
She casually mentioned one day that Georgel wasn’t crazy about cats. so she’d taken her cats to the vet to be euthanized. She made no attempt to find them homes because “there’s just too much going on with the wedding and moving”.
Having once worked at a veterinary practice, I asked if she’d actually stuck around to watch the procedure. She said she had not. Being a snot, I said that hopefully, the vet hadn’t actually euthanized them, since they were young, healthy cats, and found adopters for them instead. Some vets will do this, if they have space or local contacts in the rescue world. She became very upset because she’d paid to have them put to sleep.
In the end, she and her new hubby settled in to their new home in their new state. His jobless adult children immediately showed up with their stuff, and moved in with them. New husband found her unwillingness to support them all unacceptable, and they divorced within months.
I still hope her kitties found permanent, loving homes.
Got one better.
One of my in-laws (note lack of name and identifying features) put most worldly possessions into storage at mama’s house for several reasons that we need not go into here. Including a pet. Without telling anyone.
My spouse discovered said emaciated and dehydrated pet when he moved some boxes in mama’s basement. That’s right - the pen was covered over in boxes. No one knew about the animal. The spouse turned it over to a rescue agency for that type of animal in the area local to “mama’s house”.
Shit-storm occurred when the in-law discovered the animal “stolen”. The animal left by that same scum to starve/die of thirst trapped alone in the dark.
I have no words. It still upsets me, even though I know the animal in that case was rescued and restored to health.
I developed an allergy to cats that became rapidly worse, to the point I was having to take daily steroid medication to keep breathing normally. I didn’t want to give up my cat, but I didn’t want to wake up in the middle of night struggling to breathe, either, or wind up in the hospital. So I found a new home for my cat. Note: I found a new home for my cat. I didn’t dump him at a shelter or alongside a road. I found someone who wanted a cat that I could trust to adopt him for the rest of his life. The little guy lived another 8 years very happily in his new home (I was able to visit him a few times. He was happy and healthy there and his new [del]slave[/del] owner adored him.)
To date, that is the only animal I’ve ever taken in that I ever re-homed. I thought it was a pretty good reason.