Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Pony Up, Asshat

Alright - this just makes me mad. Sometimes I just want to tell people to pony up ... I was at a shelter last week and saw something that made me furious ...



A couple drove up. Maybe husband and wife. Maybe just friends with benefits. I don't know and I don't really care. Either way they had a dog and a baby in the car with them. Can you figure out where I'm going with this?? They had come to the shelter to abandon their dog. Surrender him. Dump him off. Rip out his heart and stomp on it. Whatever you want to call it.



The surrender itself is not what makes me mad. That happens every day. I have come to accept this as a part of the pet industry. (I'd be interested to find out what percentage of dogs/cats out there are dumped in shelters, let loose outside or euthanized.) It was the manner in which it was done that cut me to the core.



The dog ... 2 years old. A Bichon Frise. Cute little guy. Got out of the car. Nice leash manners. Husband took the little guy for a little walk around the lawn. Peed on a tree. Sniffed around. You know, the sort of things happy little dogs do.



Then the husband and wife stood outside the car and had a cigarette. When the smoke was done, the husband knelt down, hugged the little dog, then walked the dog inside.



The wife didn't even say goodbye.



WTF!?!?!? I don't care if you felt that it was "too hard" to say goodbye. Suck it up. You just left your little dog at a shelter with strangers, strange smells and barking dogs. How scared do you figure your dog is? How horribly abandoned do you think he is??



He will wait for you to come through those doors for days. Maybe for weeks. He will look at everyone who comes in, thinking it's you. He will be disappointed every hour of every day. His heart will break when he realizes you aren't coming back. He may find another home, or he may not. He might stop eating. He might sulk during the day. He might cry all night. And he will wonder why you wouldn't say goodbye. He will wonder what he did wrong. Why you didn't love him enough to say goodbye.



Hopefully he's strong enough to recover. Hopefully you only broke his heart and you didn't break HIM. Hopefully he makes it out before he runs out of time. Hopefully ...




But yeah ... it was too hard for you to say goodbye. It was too hard for you, who stood beside your car crying after he walked away from you forever. It was just too much. Now you get to go home, raise your baby, pretend this never happened. Someday soon you will get another puppy. Hopefully it will fit into your home. But hey, if it doesn't, you can always dump it off at the shelter.



I have a lot of nasty things I'd like to say to you. You are an asshat of the worst kind. Unfortunately, I am more worried about the dogs you are going to ruin than I am about telling you off right now ... Just please remember to say goodbye next time you dump a dog off because you know what??



No matter how hard it is for you, it is thousands of times harder for your little dog.



So take a deep breath and PONY the fuck UP.

16 comments:

GoLightly said...

Agreed. I HATE people who do that. makes me sick.

DOGS are NOT disposable.

fcuking people.

Cyndi and Stumpy said...

I would agree, but I can't ever agree with disposing of the dog, who just by the act of bringing him/her home, you signed up for a minimum of about 15 years. yes, I realize there are exceptions, but precious few. If this was one of those exceptions then get some balls and stay by their side to comfort them. Better yet, find another option!

Kristine said...

I don't understand this either. My dog wasn't a perfect fit at first. She came with numerous issues as a result of some asshat just abadoning her to the streets. She wasn't an easy fit but I signed the form, I made the commitment. As you do when you adopt/purchase a dog. You are taking responsibility for another living being who will now depend on you for absolutely everything. You don't get to just take him or her to the shelter when things get hard, no harm no foul. That's not how it works. That's not how dogs work.

If you can't take care of your dog any more it is up to YOU to find a better place for her. It is not up to the already-exhausted people at the shelter. Also, this better place is not the forest 20 miles out of town, it is with another human being who will care for her in a way you are unable.

Thanks for letting me rant. Sadly, I could go on too long.

Flo said...

I may be completely stupid but I just do not understand how people can give up their animals. When I take on an animal - any animal - I assume it's for life - theirs or mine. My animals are spoken for in my will and I would sooner give up a limb than abandon one of my animals. They are my family. The dogs I have now are not perfect. They are rescue dogs who I got when they were a year old and they came with a lot of issues. But I agreed to take them and I knew it would be a tough road. A year and half later we have made lots of progress but still have a long way to go. I would never, in a million years consider giving them up because it's taking longer than I thought. They have come to trust me and I could never break that trust. I really just do not understand people at all....

LilliGirl said...

I'll never understand and it breaks my heart. :(

Anonymous said...

Im in the process of loosing my house and not sure what will happen in my future as I try to find a new job. One thing I do know my own cat and my 3 foster cats, who no one ever seem to want to adopt, are going with me no matter what. I cant understand how people can give up their companion animals!!??

Most people where i live near the border just dump their animal in the desert to live a horrbile death.

Atleast this couple took the dog to a shelter. I hope it was a no kill shelter. 75% of cats dumped at kill shelters and 60% of dogs do not make it back out and are euthanized.

Cory Hecht said...

First of all, I don't understand the title which you gave...
I agree with the Kristie that when you adopt/purchase a dog. You are taking the responsibility for another living being who will now depend on you for absolutely everything.So, that dog was completely dependent on you..So, be aware of his health..

Puplover said...

That is so sad. Dogs arent trash and the pound is full enough they dont need more animals than they already have.

Anonymous said...

This post broke my heart because I volunteer for a Bichon rescue. I don't know when or where this happened but, the rescue I volunteer with is nationwide. If the little guy needs rescued our website is www.smallpawsrescue.org

Storm, The Psychotic Housewife said...

*mutters bad things* I totally agree with everything you said.

Rachele said...

What a shame. We lost our Doberman last year to bad health and hips. It was very sad (He was 14). Just a couple weeks ago I cam home and found my darling baby Ashley (min-pin, age 12) had passed away while I was at work. No warning. We have two children (4 and 7) who both came after the dogs and never even thought to get rid of them...they were family. The house was so lonely without them. Last week we checked out shelters and rescues and found Charly. She is a beautiful Doberman pup and will be with us to the end. It's sad that people think animals are disposable. I would take them all if we could afford to feed them.

Good for you for holding your tongue. It would have been really hard for me no to march right out there and give them a piece of my mind.

Chris said...

I'm in total agreement with you. I just don't understand how people can adopt a dog, it becomes part of their family, and then when it becomes "inconvenient" to have the dog they can so easily walk away. When I take an animal into my life, it's forever till death parts us, no matter if they have housetraining issues, or health issues, etc. I've seen this scenario so often, people have a baby and their former baby (the dog) is no longer a hot item. It's so disgusting!

Anonymous said...

SAD!!!! I don't understand or agree with the thinking of our disposable society?
TopDogTom
SmallDogTrainingEtc.com

Unknown said...

This is why I am fostering a 7 year old St Bernard that had his family dump him recently in KY. I'm determined to work on finding him the best place possible, because he's way too sweet to languish in a shelter. His personality is coming out so much after just a week, and I can't believe somebody would give him up.

I've dealt with not being able to have two dogs meet at all for risk of fighting, and still managed to keep all of our dogs, even though it added a LOT more work for me to keep the house split into sections. Pets are not disposable.

Anonymous said...

You don't know the whole story here. Maybe the wife was the one who made him give up the dog, maybe she hated it.

GoLightly said...

The whole story, anon, is that yet another animal was dumped at a shelter, for no other reason than they did not want the dog anymore.

MAYbe IF shelters were not so full to the bursting with other animals suffering exactly the same fate, DDF wouldn't have gotten quite so angry.

At a shelter I was at, a couple came in wanting to surrender their NINE year old dog. NINE.
The wife didn't want to TOUCH the dog anymore.
She had heard about RINGworm.
THAT made me sick, too.

DON'T GET A DOG UNLESS YOU PLAN ON KEEPING IT! Of COURSE, there are extenuating circumstance, in a rare few instances. Death in the family.

It's the people who are NOT allergic to kittens and puppies, but OH so allergic to dogs and cats, that really make me sick.

I really honestly feel there are THOUSANDS of unfit animal owners out there. But because our laws say it's okay to neglect them, abuse them, chain them up and ignore them, their sad fate continues.
onandonandon.

Shelters are for the HOMEless, NOT the "I don't want this animal anymore, I am bored with it, I didn't bother to train it, suddenly have no time for it, suddenly allergic to it blahblahBLAH".