Friday, September 24, 2010
A Great Liitle Shelter In Sonoma County
I met a young woman today who came in to pull 4 dogs and 2 cats for a small no kill limited admission shelter. People like her are the hope of the future, very kind and intelligent. I walked through our kennel area with her and noticed her selections, she didn't take any pitbulls, but she pulled two large breed mixes that were under a year. Both may have had Chow, which isn't the friendliest dog in the world; but she said long coats place well in her area. We talked about the animals she turns away and how that still affected her. Her dream is to someday have a better way for open admission shelters to screen out the unadoptables more quickly. Of course you don't want to put down somebody's pet, but if it's a bite dog and the owner doesn't want it back. The humane thing is euthanasia. If you don't want your own bite dog back, the shelter will have a tough time adopting it to a permanent home, and the animal pays the price. I was surpised to read that Reno adopted out a vicious cat. The person taking it may be a little deranged, but what about the neighbors ? Cats wander, and they can do a lot of damage. I have learned since being here, that behavior is the #2 reason for a cat being put down.
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9 comments:
One of the worst things that No Kill is doing is adopting out dogs that are aggressive with other dogs.
Where is there a place where there aren't other dogs? How can these rescues think they are doing the right thing by placing dogs that kill other dogs?
They don't even think about the fact that people get hurt too when an attack happens.
It bothers me when someone says "long coats place well" as though they are a coat or car model. I hope those chows aren't going to kill someone's pet.
There are a couple of sites that keep up with pit bull attacks and they are really concerned about the fact that "No Kill" wants to adopt out pits that have aggression. We don't live in a glass bubble, dogs and cats have to live in a world where they are able to meet other animals. That's what you can't get through the heads of these "No Kill" fanatics. What if the gardener leaves the gate open, what if an earthquake hits and knocks down fences like the 94 Northridge earthquake did? Dogs and cats can get out and they can pose a threat to others, human and animals. Chap, if you don't see fit to post this link on this comment, I won't be offended. gives a weekly roundup of the victims of pits and other breeds if the attack is vicious enough. An excellent blog, very well researched, a definite learning experience.
By P. on A Great Liitle Shelter In Sonoma County at 1:21 PM
Couple of things, I really like the P. post, but had to take out the link, so this is a weird way to do the comment.
To. St. Francis, the preference for long coats has to do with the shelter placing them in hard winter country, cross country skier and snow shoe people. Slick haired breeds can't go with the new owners on winter hikes.
"for long coats has to do with the shelter placing them in hard winter country, cross country skier and snow shoe people. Slick haired breeds can't go with the new owners on winter hikes"
Thank you for your answer, NKNWNT.
I guess I am just very wary of chows ending up in shelters as so many have aggression problems with other pets. Usually when someone needs to give up a nice issue-free Chow, they can place the dog on their own or a chow rescue will take the dog.
When I see a chow in a pound, I always have some troubling worries.
(It also makes me angry that all these breeders claim they aren't part of the problem. Well the shelters prove they are. Why didn't the chow breeder take back these dogs, as they all claim they do, but so often fail to do. Just empty words. Where are the breeders getting their breed out of the pounds and doing breed rescue actively. Too often MIA. They want to make money breeding and selling these demanding breeds, but then they don't want to deal with the consequences. Now I look back and I see you said Chow mix, well why didn't the breeder spay or neuter the Chow before they sold it, and the breeder's Chow ended up responsible for the mixed breed litter)
So many of the dogs going through the shelter system are issuefree, other than normal dog things. They aren't there because it's their fault. Our disposable society failed them.
But everyone who works in the shelter world needs to come to to terms with the absolute fact that there's a percentage of dogs being turned over because they are dangerous, and they really do have bad problems. The people who turn them over never admit it either. It is not fair to anyone, most of all to the dog, to place that dog. And just think. Save a dog so other dogs die by getting attacked? It makes no sense at all, except to the deranged who now make up No Kill, because anybody who is actually an honest, compassionate adult seems to have fled No Kill a long time ago.
Even though the shelter or one of these rescue people might convince someone to take the dangerous ones, the really disturbed ones, those dogs end up quickly abandoned to often very bad fates and those adopters never adopt again. They just assume that all shelter and rescue dogs have problems like that.
No Kill often ends up turning people off about adopting, and that person who got stuck with the bad problem dog tells their friends that adopted dogs have problems, and it reduces the rate of adoption. No Kill is essentially sending them to the pet stores to buy the puppy mill puppies.
I started in the No Kill world, and No Kill lunatics are just destroying rescue and adoption, and destroying the chances of all dogs in the shelters.
I am fairly new, 4 years, to aniaml welfare still feeling my way around. These were mixes apparently, and since the shelter is one that is taking by choice, they can prescreen that way. When I left Carson City, Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate in the country. I'm sure many nice animals ended up in shelters and later went nuts from being kept to long. I know many rescues from that area pull from us.
I feel like I'm as old as dirt. I've seen it all, heard it all, and the way things are now keep me up nights. It's gotten insane.
I did start in the No Kill sector back when it was a new idea. It started out ok. Appropriate for small, limited admission private shelters with a huge focus on spaying and neutering.
Without raising the spay and neuter rate, no one can even think about No Kill.
But then some real lunatics got attracted to No Kill, truly insane people that want to use animals to bully and control other people, and the welfare of the animals disappeared.
It was too much work for these people to do the spay neuter thing, so they just started to ram this No Kill thing down the throats of others and sell it to get donations, money, attention.
THEN the worst happened. People like Winograd, Boks, and others started to see No Kill as a sector that they could start a cult, in a way, and instigate the insane to get attention for themselves, and some saw profit in it I suppose.
Many shelters and rescues have just turned into puppy mills really, at least in terms of caring about the welfare of the animals.
To francis, ramming down the throat is what this bunch of goofballs have to do. Sane people will not give them the time of day. And people like myself have seen it, but don't know where to turn. My search ended with an article in a newpaper. I was a volunteer at a large, newly formed no kill shelter, and defiled the woman who wrote the article, vehemently. I knew she volunteered at the public shelter and thought she lacked compassion. I cut that article out and kept it at my desk. I wanted to hate her as much as my fellow "no killers" did and that was my inspiration. In less than one year, everything she wrote about had come true.
I came into physical contact through a program I wanted to start at the prison. It never got off the ground; but a convert was born. I am learning about the others, besides Winograd, and they don't hold water very well either.
No Kill, No Way, Not Tomorrow, Not Today, the biggest heroes in the world, the bravest people, the true saints are the ones who can say "I was wrong" and work in whatever way they can for change. Who put aside ego for the animals. The ones who can say "the emperor has no clothes" instead of just stand there insisting that the suit is made of golden threads.
I just want to say thank you for sharing this (Sept 26th, 2:49 comment), and thank you for having the strength and courage to do the right thing, because I know that you and people like you are taking a lot of heat.
I consider myself a failure because I got sucked into this after an early life involved in horses and dogs, and I should have known better. I wanted to believe. When the failures of No Kill were right in front of me, I retreated and tried to ignore it rather than fight for change. That was weak. If more people who were early witnesses to this No Kill insanity had spoken up earlier, then the greedy, insane No Kill charlatans wouldn't have been able to hurt animals for as long as they have been and to such an extent. So many animals have died in terrible ways thanks to the No Kill hoarding cult.
Thank you St. Francis ! I am starting a new post to ask people who want to end this travesty to come forward in their communities. As I have said in other posts, I too was sucked in, I volunteered with no kill and villified the ones who fought for the creatures. In a way this blog is my attonement. I was present during all the turmoil that Ardena went through and yet said nothing publicly until we moved to Sacramento. I apologized to her and asked forgiveness, but much of the damage was done. I don't know if we can ever get that shelter back until utter bankruptcy falls on them.
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