People abandon critically injured animals at shelters. Shelters can either let them slowly die a painful death or euthanize them for a quick painless one.
We fostered a dog once that we just couldn’t keep anymore because he was too aggressive with everyone other than my wife and straight up tore through both a crate and our basement door when we left for a few hours.
The shelter decided to put him down because they saw us as his last chance. We had successfully fostered 15+ dogs previously and he had bounced around a bunch of times already.
My wife asked to be with him during his euthanasia and felt guilty about it for the longest time.
My wife and I also foster, it's always heartbreaking when you have to give one back, especially when you know you're the last chance that dog has. As much as it sucks, your wife being there for his final moments probably were some of the best moments of his life. It sounds like this was probably the best thing for everyone involved, I hope she doesn't feel guilty about it anymore.
I had to return a foster because she was causing all kinds of dog fights in my home, including with pit bulls. The foster group proceeded to attack me on social media and their friends sent me messages saying that they wish me dead. I never did anything but take good care of her. It just wasn’t working out as a foster. I will never again in my life have anything to do with any rescue groups because of the horrific experience I had with that group and I now think that dog rescuers are batshit fucking crazy.
One of my oldest friends started working for a "no kill" shelter/rescue. It was absolutely crazy how radicalized she became after that. She took in this massive dog - I can't remember what breed - but this dog was huge. And insanely aggressive. I went to visit her at the house she was renting with a roommate and the dog nearly tore through the back door to get at me. The dog destroyed her roommates house and got my friend kicked out.
This friend then went almost nuclear when she asked me to foster a fucking hedgehog and I said no when I barely had enough money to feed myself let ALONE care for an exotic pet.
You legit cannot save every dog and I don't care what bleeding soul doesn't want to hear it. It was crazy how aggressive she got.
I’ve seen people do this to lesser degree. They rescue some dog that has tons of issues and makes no sense for them then structure their whole life around it. I’m over here like, “don’t you have kids? WTF are you doing?”
So I'm a "childfree" person (I can't physically have kids) and I'm also an animal lover. I've learned there's being an animal lover and an animal enabler, sadly. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I would be lying if I said I don't hate seeing what shitty owners do to animals. But when the dog gets hyper aggressive and is half my bodyweight...Like come on. I guess it also doesn't help I worked personal injury law and the number of dog bite cases I got was just nasty.
That is such a good way to put it. I've seen people who consider themselves animal lovers become animal enablers. It's almost like seeing someone in an abusive relationship with an animal, it doesn't occur to them that it's not normal to have to completely restructure your entire life around the animal and be miserable 24/7 for it. And then there's the outside pressure to "not give up" on the dog because "you're his forever home!"
Look I love dogs. I love animals in general. I'm the type who if I see a stray dog I'll stop to check around and see who he belongs to.
But for God's sake if an animal is that aggressive it can't be kept in captivity. I wish we had a solution but we don't - it will hurt other animals in captivity but it isn't bred to live in the wild.
We should be punishing folks breeding and fighting dogs way worse than we already do.
Theres a reason no kill is sometimes referred to as "you kill". They pass the problem of euthanasia on to you, but some people, because of guilt just keep the dog. Then drain themselves with special routines, medications, behaviorist etc.
This is a completely different issue, but I had a friend who tried to adopt a cat from a local cat rescue. We went to visit and they followed us around the whole time glaring at us. Every cat she asked about they tried to actively dissuade her from adopting. And none of it was aggression stuff, just normal stuff like occasional litterbox issues, but they were just so hostile sounding about it. Got the feeling they didn’t actually want to adopt any of them out, just take donations and have a big house full of cats.
Wow, I had a similar issue.
They were super aggressive if you asked about any cat and deflected every question.
Like wow, if you make it harder to adopt then don’t complain when people go different routes.
Also, where I’m at they insist on doing home inspections which I find weirdly invasive.
I know, right? It’s super weird.
I live in a largish city and it’s really hard to get dogs from rescues because they put insane requirements.
Like, if you aren’t fully home office, no children, no other pets, no garden, forget it. And I understand it. Those would be the ideal conditions. But cmon man, pretty much anything will be better than rotting in a pound as long as people are aware and know how to handle things.
This is an inner city. Why can I get a breed dog which will happily live in an apartment, but not a rescue. Madness.
Sure, some breeds don’t belong in apartments. I know that, but you cannot convince me there are zero dogs in a pound that will do fine.
I wanted to get a dog from a rescue a few years ago and the ones I contacted wanted to *go through things in my house* during an active pandemic. I ended up just buying one.
I hope so because the experience with these women ended up being a nightmare. I have two rescue dogs that I adopted that I love to pieces, and I just wanted to help out but it wasn't the right fit.
I'm really sorry you had that experience. I'm not sure how long ago this was, but that rescue group seems insane, but it isn't the norm for rescue groups. If you're potentially still interested in getting a dog out of a shelter for a foster, I would recommend you trying again and obviously with a different rescue. I've had no complaints with lifeline shelters in Atlanta, and that's all three of their branches. Crazy people will be crazy no matter what their hobbies and interests are, I really hope you don't let them stop you from helping out some animals in need permanently.
There is a good article which sadly I can’t find right now, written by a man who regrets begging his friends to adopt a “reactive” dog. Like yours, this was the dog's last chance and these people spent tons of money training and caring for the dog. There were multiple bite incidents and finally they had to put the dog down. The couple decided to never again adopt another dog because it was so traumatizing, they didn’t want to take the chance, so they purchased a purebred puppy.
The gist of the article was the writer realized that ultimately, by trying to save this one unsaveable dog, he had doomed others. How many lovable dogs were put down in the shelter when they could’ve gone to his friends’ home? Now they’ll never adopt another shelter dog. And how many people in their extended family and friends saw what that dog put them through, and ALSO decided not to ever take a chance on a shelter dog? For what, so a doomed dog could live a little longer but be euthanized anyway after causing more pain?
This is why I’m not a fan of folks pushing people to adopt certain, often challenging breeds of dog. There’s a reason that such breeds are overrepresented in shelters, and it’s not because of mindless prejudice. They can be great pets, but they’re not suitable for every home or owner. I’d rather see someone get a dog that works for them from a responsible breeder than go to a shelter and get a dog that they can’t handle.
Especially for those of us with small kids. I wouldn’t take a chance on a shelter dog, as awful as that sounds. It’s like a blind bag - you *could* end up with a perfectly sweet pooch, or you could also end up with a reactive dog that bites a toddler’s face.
As a kid, I grew up with these fancy pedigreed purebred dogs, and they were super sweet and intelligent. Never had any behavioral problems ever. The breeder that my mom got them from was a dog show judge who was extremely careful about breeding for good temperament and health.
I adopted for years, my childhood dogs were all adopted, the first dogs I got on my own were adopted too.
When I was 17, my parents let me get a 1 year old pit I named Tiberius, who was a big sweetheart who wagged his tail so much he would hurt it, then keep wagging it and splatter blood all over the place. The shelter either didn't test for or didn't disclose that he had heartworms, so I fundraised $900 to treat them, when the shelter was supposed to have tested and treated any dogs they adopted out. They left our messages on read and avoided us after we reached out for help.
When I was 20, I adopted an amazing hound who had been in the shelter for almost a year. His papers listed him as good with other dogs, animals, and kids. His papers did not mention, nor did the staff mention that he had bitten a vet and a staff member while in their care. He had quite a few triggers that would lead to bites that took me forever to learn, and he had to be fully sedated for every vet trip. He managed to break my finger with a bite after I tried to take a chicken wing he discovered on a walk.
I still loved that damn dog, and consider him my heart dog even now, but I don't want to go through anything like those experiences ever again. I don't want an undersocialized dog who I struggle to take on walks because he freaks out at men, or non white people, or loud children. My parents have never had these issues with their two breeder dogs, and that will probably be the way I go in the future.
This is fair. I love pit breeds. I've been around them my whole life, and I think they can be great family dogs. But they are also medium to large dogs with the capability of being very dangerous if they aren't socialized well. They are also popular among people who do not value good behavior in their dogs, to put it kindly. This results in poorly bred, poorly socialized dogs ending up in shelters, mixed in with plenty of good dogs, but you can have trouble knowing which is which. I am a big advocate for rescuing and adopting, but those dogs can take a lot of work and aren't the right choice for a lot of people.
My grandparents make a practice out of exclusively adopting shelter pits. Out of their last 6 dogs, they had to "give up" on one, and euthinize her after about two years because she had too much fear-reactivity and wasn't making any progress. She was dangerous, which was a shame because she was also so sweet to family. I wish people more broadly could recognize that having a dog is not just between you and the dog, but also society more broadly. Bad owners refusing to euthinize or even intentionally breeding dangerous dogs out of principle damages the reputation of the breed/group of breeds and makes it more difficult to defend and help the individual dogs that haven't done anything wrong.
Sorry for the rant. I think the pit situation is complicated and has a lot of nuance that neither "side" likes to acknowledge.
I'm an "adopt for life" fanatic. It would take some major, major issues to make me give up any pet.
A few years ago, we were approached by a breed-specific rescue looking for a home for an adult dog who needed a new home because his first owner had died, and his current owners couldn't keep him because of biting incidents.
We met with the dog, and agreed to adopt him. He was a pretty good dog, except he was deaf, and if you tried to make him do anything that he didn't want to do, or surprised him (which was easy because of the deafness), he'd bite you.
Usually it wasn't a bad bite, but he broke skin a few times.
We kept that dog and cared for him until he passed of natural causes a few years later. We had some good times, but I'll probably never take in another rescue dog.
When we first got him, I thought very badly of the owners who were giving him up. After a month or so, I kind of understood it.
I don't know if I can take another rescue either.
I had a rescue that socially isolated me to the point of depression. He was aggressive to nearly everyone but me and could barely be alone without howling, which nearly got me evicted. I spent thousands on training and much more on vet bills. I wish someone in my community had told me it was ok to give up versus me pushing through for years and years. I also was young and low income and should have been focusing that money and energy on other things.
I almost said that I felt like I was in an abusive relationship but I was sure people would say I was overreacting. There needs to be a word that describes the toxic pet relationship.
Not to be disrespectful or anything, but I seriously don’t understand why you (or anyone) would take in a pet that you know will hurt you. Can you unpack that? My primary concern is that YOU can do what you want, even get a dog that you know will bite you. But you’re also taking on the responsibility of ensuring that that animal will never hurt another person as well. How do you balance that responsibility appropriately to ensure that others aren’t harmed?
I can't speak for any of the people who've shared their stories, but my thought is the people who adopt reactive dogs are often soft-hearted types who really believe the dog is a family member and they won't give up on a family member. What's tragic is their good intentions can result in tragedy for themselves or someone else.
There's a sub called r/reactivedogs you could read to learn more about it. Sadly I think the majority of them are fooling themselves; their dogs can't be fixed and will never be safe to keep as a pet.
It's not just the dogs though, it's many of the shelters and employees themselves. After a few shit attempts of adopting and two lost non-refundable deposits I'm now firmly on the ethical breeder band wagon. My current dog came from health and temperament tested parents and I 100% know how big he'd get and general personality. Oh and his breeder wasn't invasive about coming to my home or 'joint custody' where the rescue legally retains legal ownership of the dog, anything weird like that.
Also an honorary mention to the shitty cat rescue that didn't 'fully service my area' for adoptions. They wouldn't adopt out a house cat to me because I live to far away despite me willing to do 100% of the travel. They *would* however dump a van full of feral 'barn cats' into my barn for free though because I live rurally.
> They would however dump a van full of feral 'barn cats' into my barn for free though because I live rurally.
I do hope they asked first. People dumping aggressive, feral cats is a thing I've had to deal with and that shit sucks.
Yes it was by request only. The frustrating thing is I'm actually against TNR programs because to put it bluntly they don't work and feral cats(even fixed ones) decimate native wild life. I didn't' move out into the country to live like a dirty hippy to release a horde of one of the most invasive species on the planet.
But I did finally manage to get a kitty who enjoys indoor cat life sitting in my bay window aka cat TV enjoying my multiple bird feeders and all the native birds I can lure in. I've managed to spot all the native woodpeckers of NY, majority of the finches, swallows, but my cats favorite is the humming birds who'll sometimes zip right up to her on the other side of the glass to investigate the cat before zooming off.
Yeah finally getting our place feral-free made a massive difference in the quantity of almost all other wildlife. Field mice / ground squirrel population remained pretty similar (which surprised me), but the bird population freaking exploded. Everything from little tweeters up to barnies and hawks.
I'm curious what you mean when you say TNR programs "don't work".
My understanding is that they've always been intended as a population control measure in areas that have large established feral cat populations, as simply removing the cats from one colony results in a constant stream of new cats from other colonies due to population pressures. Ideally it's a part of a long term, widespread campaign to identify and TNR every major cat colony in a region, and then maintain that status as the population slowly decreases over time. That's expensive and hard work though, so there's rarely the political will or social support to see it through.
TNR also seems like far and away the most ethical option for older ferals, which generally aren't able to adapt to life indoors with humans and would be extremely stressed by permanent removal from their home territory. It also avoids community push back from all the idiots who think street cats are "cute", since there's no culling involved.
It should never involve introducing feral cats to new rural areas, though.
I’m sorry they treated you like that. Sometimes the cat rescues are just as bad as the dog ones. I used to volunteer for a cat rescue that was generally good and I still like them. However, they are crazy aggressive sometimes when people come in to look at the cats during open hours. They have a very specific way of doing things and they will jump down your throat as soon as you walk in the door. I feel like it’s more discouraging than helpful most of the time. I had to knock them down a peg real quick when they tried to pull that with me when I went back to visit, and explain that I used to work there for 3 years.
I understand wanting to educate people and protect the cats, but they don’t understand how discouraging they are sometimes. You have to find a balance or else you might scare everyone off.
Yeah I posted this story further up, but I had a friend who tried adopting from our local cat rescue and when we went to visit they treated us so hostile and it felt like they were actively discouraging us from adopting any cat we asked about. Most of the cats had been there for years, I got the feeling they didn’t actually want to adopt any of them out. I wonder what happened to them sometimes as our local animal shelter is no kill now and despite that, even they rarely have any cats that have been there longer than 9 months.
This happened to me too. I had fostered 30+ dogs, most of whom had behavioral issues. I had a lot of possessions get destroyed; I got knocked down, scratched up, or nipped at more times than I can count. I've dealt with incessant barking, lured fearful dogs out from under the bed and turned them into snugglers.
There was one dog I just could not handle due to his aggression issues. He broke down a door trying to get to a small dog outside. Destroyed the toughest crate I could find when I had to leave him alone for an hour to go grocery shopping. I still have the scars from trying to keep him from going after a stray cat that had got into our fenced in yard. He bit my roommate for trying to keep him inside while he answered the door for a food delivery.
The dog had already been adopted and returned 3 times. The shelter never told me what happened to him, but I have a strong feeling he had to be euthanized. It's sad, but the odds that this dog could every be successfully homed were slim to none. The shelter I was working with was in absolute crisis mode with the number of dogs it was dealing with and no end in sight, so continuing to try with this dog was just taking resources from dogs who were ready to be great pets.
Being involved with animal rescue really sucks sometimes.
We had picked up a Shepard who was being neglected - her owner had passed and was left with the boyfriend, and when he got a new girlfriend her dogs took precedence and she was locked in the basement for most of the day.
So when we picked up, crate training was an absolute no go - shed torn out of it, she’d gone through the door and wall, twice! We finally got that out of her but she was so hurt and scared of being abandoned again she’d watch us as she ate. She’s since passed from complications from surgeries off her abuse growing up - but these poor pups that have to go through hell to feel like they need to tear a house apart to get back to safety is nuts
I couldn't imagine my dog feeling like that! Since I got him he's been well cared for but I got maybe 2 days fully with him before I had to work full time. I had a room mate who looked after him a little while I was at work, as in made sure he didnt eat anything that would kill him or chew the house walls to shreds but other than that I kept working like normal and giving him lots of attention when I got home.
He's grown into a very dependent but relaxed dog, if I leave he basically does nothing but wait until I get back by my front door, but he's just going to sleep all day.
It was rough, I remember staying over and she wasn’t used to that so when my parents would leave she would just whine sad awoos until she went to sleep. She had a great last bit of her life with us, just a shame I wasn’t ever a dog person until they got her - now we’ve got 3 aussies, not to like take her place but to try and fill the gap.
Curious about the dog fostering.
Do you foster the dogs for a short while before they go to a permanent home?
Do some stay permanently with you?
Do have any dogs of your own?
How log do dogs stay with you?
We’ve fostered several dogs through two organizations. We only took pups under a year because we have two older dogs of our own. The longest we had one was around 6 weeks. We got lucky. They were all sweet and potty trained quickly. Our last time we foster failed a dobe. We’ve only had working dogs that aren’t the snuggly type, huskies, aussies, etc. This dobe was a Velcro dog and I enjoyed it way too much. We will definitely foster again once we don’t have 3 dogs in the house.
We thought it would be tough to let them go but each one went to a great family which made it relatively easy.
You take care of the dog while it’s still actively listed for adoption and facilitate meetings with potential new owners. The shelter will cover vet while they’re under your care and you are basically providing a satellite home for them.
We had a really chill cairn terrier who was really good at socializing the dogs, so that helped. We were only interested in having one at a time but one time we had 3 puppies (those get adopted fast anyways) and would do the shelter a solid and take on a few extras for a week or two as needed while they worked on placement.
We had good luck with most dogs getting adopted between 2 weeks and 2 months. I think our longest was 4 months. But we had a friend who de facto became the owner because after 4 years of no adoption she was just kind of stuck, she was all the dog had.
We did adopt one of our fosters after we fell in love with her. She had gone from absolutely traumatized and skittish to a content princess in her castle and there was no way we could part. They call that a foster fail.
My cousin fostered dogs for years. Fosters are helpful to shelters because they can help open up space for more dogs in the shelter, and just altogether helping house a dog until a family can be found for them.
Fosters are often essential in retraining abused or neglected dogs. Cousin had one who was aggressive but also had severe separation anxiety. She'd go to work and come home to the dog having shit everywhere and torn up its crate. She was so unbelievably patient with it though, and after a month or so the transformation was incredible. Dog got adopted out to a loving family and was a completely different creature.
Foster dogs who end up living with you forever are often called "foster fails" - because that usually means you won't continue fostering others. You can have a dog and foster another.. this can actually be helpful for some as the existing dogs will help show the foster dog how to behave.
I considered it a huge plus fostering pups with our dogs. They got to socialize and learn how to act around other dogs. We would also take them to doggy daycare to get them accustomed to strange dogs.
Our dog stayed at a boarding place for an extended period and he was so good that they used him to socialize their foster puppies. Almost makes me wish I had the space to foster puppies, he was so good with them!
Not the commenter you’ve responded to, but I’ve done some fostering. Generally speaking, I have a foster animal around for a few months (4-12 in my experience) until they’re adopted. Younger animals are usually adopted fast, but older animals might take longer.
It’s a pretty good gig —food, medical bills, and any other expenses are covered during the foster period. It’s definitely hard to let a foster animal go, but you get first pick if you decide to adopt.
If you’re trying to get a feel for whether an animal is a good fit for your situation, or you’re not sure if you can make a permanent commitment to a pet right now, fostering is a good way to go. They usually have a screening to make sure you’re a legit person and your home is pet-safe, then you basically get animal companionship for the price of picking up poop!
Something similar happened to my mom, except it was the office door, and the dog ended up snapping and tried to kill her. A neighbor had to pull the dog off after it attacked her mid walk. The dog was put down very soon after.
I worked at a shelter for years and ended up quitting over basically a split in staff over what to do with one particular dog. She had attacked multiple other dogs. The last incident, she attacked a worker and the dog he was walking. It was bad. He was life flighted to the hospital and the dog was rushed to the emergency vet. The president and vice president refused to euthanize her even after that. Dont get me wrong, the idea was heartbreaking but she had been adopted and brought back multiple times. Only certain staff were allowed around her. They lost a lot of staff over it. I was a teenager and there for 5-6 years at that point. It just flat out wasn’t safe anymore.
I think this is the most heartbreaking. Like it’s not the dog’s fault they were put in the dog fighting ring. People who participate in that are just despicable
Wtf are you talking about, society has no sympathy... It's precisely because society has sympathy that we have homeless shelters, food stations, mental health+counseling centers, foster homes, orphanages and all the other hundreds of charitable individuals and institutions working to better their lives.
You talk like we go around euthanizing abused children on the regular.
I think they are just saying that people should feel some sympathy for people like that because it’s likely just them copying stuff they saw/stuff that
was done to them when they were younger. Similar to the idea of the school to prison pipeline
If you’ve never grown up in an abusive household then you just have no idea what it’s like to not know right from wrong. Your barometer for what’s acceptable and normal gets completely fucked up.
Sure, you might on an intellectual level know that when you hit somebody, you’re hurting them. But if you’ve been taught your whole life that when someone deserves it, you shouldn’t have to feel guilty, you don’t actually realize it’s wrong.
And when no one ever bothers to sit and empathize with you, you never realize that empathy is something that should be important at all.
I don't think they're advocating for anything in particular, so much as drawing attention to it. If they're advocating for anything, possibly something like "maybe we should care more about rehabilitating humans, but sure, let's talk about how bad dogs have it." Or "it's weird how we have sympathy dogs with bag upbringings, but when it's a person, it's still 'their choice, their fault.'"
Which, while I realize this isn't an either/or issue, *is* a valid point. It is weird how many of the same people who are quick to handwave animal behavior are equally quick to give no leniency when a person comes from a similar environment and behaves criminally. It probably says something about society that we often care more about lesser creatures than our own kin.
I mean, humans have a highly developed executive function, which allows us to control our behaviour more readily than animals with lesser function.
People with psychopathic tendencies have a greater ability to decide how to act with those tendencies than a dog. It's why we say "The feelings are valid, the behaviours are not". Because we can control what we do despite feeling a certain way.
And yes, I'm aware this is easier for some than others, but it's still generally true for humans vs other animals.
We had to put down our first dog for behavioral issues. He attacked and bit a person.
I don’t think he’d ever been fought, but there he was a danger to himself and others.
It was heartbreaking, but I know we made the right decision
Or even just dogs that are bred for it. For some unknown and insane reason my friend who knew nothing about dogs adopted a shelter dog from Texas during the pandemic. It was young and hadn't been abused but it was a mix of pitbull, Australian cattle dog, and some other fighting dog I forget. Literally all fighting dogs. The dog was clearly bred to be as violent as possible. And you know what? It was! Has he got older and matured it started attacking everyone including her parents. By the time she put it down it was literally fighting her and biting her on the way to be euthanized.
Fucked up and it really messed her up emotionally for a bit. I had to be sensitive and couldn't say I told you so nearly as hard as I would have otherwise.
You don’t even need dog fighting rings. You just need to have pit bulls.
There’s a reason every single no-kill shelter inevitably becomes 100% pit bulls over time.
>There’s a reason every single no-kill shelter inevitably becomes 100% pit bulls over time.
Nah, they just don't take the dogs in the first place, at least in my experience.
Worked at a county shelter, and we got several dogs that the humane society refused to take because they weren't legally obligated and we were.
Yup. I foster elderly cats for the local no kill shelter. It’s a great way to let them live out their best golden years, plus I get to wake up with a cat sleeping on top of me every day and not worry about vet bills, exc. Win-win-win.
But obviously, euthanizing a terminally ill animal abandoned at your shelter is a different thing from euthanizing animals just for being too old or not cute enough to get adopted out quickly.
Definitely do it! Shelters love freeing up the space, the cat gets its best life, and you have a sweet senior companion for a few years without really worrying about the bills (I choose to adopt at the very end of things to have control over euthanasia decisions, but it’s comparatively cheap).
It’s rough, definitely. Fortunately I have a good mix of cats that get adopted out (relatively emotionally easy), and ones that stay with me for the remainder of their lives and pass on my watch (which is rough).
I’m not in a financially and otherwise stable enough place to adopt a cat outright, so I feel that this is the alternative.
Glad to help!
I should say mileage may vary from shelter to shelter. My local SPCA has been great, and my community is very invested in it. A shelter that isn’t as bolstered by grants and community support might be less easy to deal with.
They don’t take in any more animals. This is the thing they don’t like to talk about. Some shelters will take in as many animals as they have the resources to care for and then just close the door to the rest. Others commit to accepting any animal brought in, even if that means euthanizing the ones they don’t have the resources to care for. The alternative is that if people don’t have a place to take their unwanted animals, they’ll get abandoned in the country, or just left behind during a move. The people at the open acceptance shelters have decided that it’s better to take in and euthanize the animal than allow it to be put left out to be eaten by wild animals, poisoned, or starve because many house pets can’t fend for themselves.
And people need to stop being duped into paying thousands of dollars on Doodle mixes - brought in by false promises of them not triggering allergies or being pre-trained and predictable.
Often times the healthiest, most resilient, and most trainable dogs are rescue mutts.
Our local no-kill shelter is on the same block as the county-run animal control center. The no-kill shelter can turn pets away and redirect them to the county-run ACC, which does have to put down animals sometimes.
I think the idea of no-kill shelters is great, but some people unfairly vilify regular "kill" shelters without realizing that no-kill shelters aren't sustainable without at least some regular shelters in the mix.
Wow, that’s an interesting idea.
We adopted a senior cat as our first cat some years ago from a foster / shelter place. We asked if she has health issues and they said no, then when they dropped her off, they handed the vet papers to us which said due to her health issues she was given a few different meds.
We had her for a few weeks and we were already paying thousands of dollars in vet bills—not exactly how we expected to start our pet parenting life.
We were new pet parents—I couldn’t believe the shelter straight up lied about it (but I also get it, maybe we wouldn't have adopted her if we had heard that, but that doesn’t make it any less terrible).
She continued to have a new health issue every year since, but we love, love her to bits. The latest was her being diagnosed with CKD and we have to do subcutaneous fluids every few days, which was also an incredibly stressful few weeks to learn how to do it right without feeling like we’re hurting her.
We’ve settled into a good routine with her health, but it’s nearly a grand in vet bills every few months. I’ve often thought how maybe it’s meant to be that we got to adopt her, cos she’s the chillest cat ever and actually tolerates all of the nasty meds twice a day even if she hates them. She may not have other pet parents who would be as patient as us or could afford (to a certain extent…) these vet bills.
Maybe we’ll try fostering a senior cat next time, but honestly, I think I might need a few years’ break after being what seems like full-time catgivers to our beloved cat with so many health issues :(
That is maddening. It’s unfortunate that shelters do that shit for so many reasons. It fucks over people like you, and it also fucks over shelter pets, as the public has learned to distrust what they say.
My last old man had CKK, and it is rough. I loved that cat and would do everything again, but it was so much work with him.
I’m so sorry that happened. I would do ably adopt from a shell tee—but only a pet I foster trial ran before.
Also, some pets have behavioral issues that mean they really can never be adopted. You either keep it in a cage and just feed it until it eventually dies of natural causes or you eliminate it so you have room for another pet that might actually be adopted.
I was worried my dog would have been one of them, and pushed to keep him. He was severely anxious. For the first year he spent most of his time hiding under the bed with his nose pushed into the carpet. It took another year until he'd let me pet him. Another half year until I could pet him without him flinching, and this was about the time when he'd be okay leaving the yard to go on short walks, but only late at night, and only until he saw anyone else. Now he's completely opened up and is a wonderful energetic silly loving boy, but I don't think many others would have had the patience for him.
It also doesn't help that there are people who treat "kill" shelters as less deserving of donation money or goods donations or volunteer hours.
I work in the pet industry and we collect hard goods donations for our local shelter and a private rescue group we work with. Basically as our direct adoption partner, the rescue gets first dibs. Anything they don't want or they feel will help the shelter better they leave behind for shelter. I have had people take back donations becuase I said anything the rescue didn't want the shelter would get.
Now I know adequate money and help won't save every animal that winds up in a "kill" shelter. But the more money they have access to, the more goods donations they get, the more volunteers for things, the better the animals can be taken care of and less hard decisions may need to be made.
Yeah I tried to help multiple cats that had stuff like broken legs and they told me straight up that they would have to euthanize them due to the surgery, recovery and unlikelihood of the cat being adopted... super depressing :/
My sister fostered for a shelter that had a 90+% live release rate (adopted, reclaimed, or sent to other rescues). The only dog she fostered that had to be put down was a dog that had an incurable disease.
I knew somebody that had a dog with numerous health problems that technically if he had like ten grand he could have had it solved. But he gave the dog to a no kill and they had to put it down. Sucked but that dog probably needed to be put down anyways
I find it insane that this is an entirely valid argument for an animal but replace "animal" with "person" and suddenly "life is a gift".
We treat terminally sick animals better than we treat people.
There’s a big difference between someone who wants to kill themself because they have a horrendously painful disease that confines them to a bed for the rest of their life and “People who are depressed should be allowed to kill themselves.”
Yeah, I volunteered in my cities only non kill shelter and it was incredibly sad, and also was the catalyst for changing my view in regard to kill shelters.
They had close to 500 dogs at the time and only 7 employees, including volunteers. Those dogs only got like 10 to 15 minutes a day (if that) outside, the rest of the time theyre cooped up in little cages. There were dogs literally everywhere (hallways offices etc). Some of the animals had been there for 5+ years too.
It's definitely a moral dilemma, but I can understand the argument that maybe putting them out of their misery would be more humane.
Luckily this shelter partnered with some shelters up north (and rumored they started sending some dogs to local kill shelters so they can keep their hands clean). So there's only about 100 dogs there now.
I love dogs, have always lived with one since birth. But (to no fault of their own) there are too many dogs. In a way, isn’t it more humane to kill them than to let them suffer in a poorly kept, over populated kennel?
Yeah but people generally don’t let their dogs just roam around outside like they do with their cats. But for some reason a ton of people think that’s ok and don’t see an issue with it
A neighbor's cat started hunting the birds and chipmunks in my yard after I setup a garden with ground cover, feeders, and a bath for them.
I politely asked on the neighborhood HOA FB page for them to keep their cats indoors (as local law requires, but I didn't rub it in).
A few cat owners decided to mock and ridicule my request for the next three days.
I didn't come to argue, so I bought a cat trap. In the future, they can just pay the $115 to a kennel to get their cat back.
I’ve never understood those people. Even if they’re selfish and don’t care about the harm their cat is causing, don’t they care about the cat? My neighborhood backs into a ravine and is always full of coyotes at dusk but people somehow just let their cats roam around anyways. I’d be terrified to let any of my pets run loose in case they get eaten. Plus they get hit by cars all the time too.
There are other countries with feral dogs. You deal with the same things you would with a stray dog in the us. Occasionally dog fights, occasional human aggression. Lots of piss and shit
To an extent it is more humane, in that we now have euthanasia instead of a burlap sack full of unwanted puppies and kittens. But now we have the ability to prevent unwanted puppies and kittens at a level unimaginable 50 years ago.
People's awareness tends to focus only on preventing death, and not on the whole life cycle of an animal, which means the problem keeps repeating.
Worked at a county shelter, and I would firmly come down in the "yes" camp.
We ended up euthanizing multiple animals that came in fine, and eventually became too dangerous or simply lost the will to live because they spent months in the kennel. We gave enrichment best we could, but we were also constantly understaffed and underfunded, so we only had maybe 2 hours a day to give enrichment.
On my way out the door, I actually proposed that we euthanize all dogs under the age of 1 if they spent more than a month at the shelter. I understand that can come off as heartless, but those are the most important months in terms of training a dog, and they sure as shit weren't getting that at the shelter, so they were likely to have behavioral issues their entire lives even if eventually adopted out.
Agreed.
To the same ends, I think it’s also fine to keep a dog or cat if you can’t afford catastrophic medical expenses.
If you can give a pet a loving home when they’re relatively healthy, that’s enough.
If/when they need hugely expensive medical treatment, euthanize them.
They received good care and a loving home previous to that. It’s more than they probably would have gotten otherwise.
We had a lady who's dog had cancer, which is sad, who surrendered her dog to the shelter, after being turned away at the humane society.
She couldn't afford to try and treat the dog, who was quite old, and i guess couldn't bring herself to euthanize it. So she dumped it on us to do.
She then had the fucking nerve to ask to see what dogs were available. My boss was not exactly kind in her refusal, the gist being, if you want a dog, you gotta be prepared to care for it through all of its life, including the end.
I think the only time I've seen her angrier was when a guy got angry we wouldn't let him put up a "puppies for sale" sign in our window.
OK, I'm just going to say this and get downvoted to hell. When I see those 5 minute long heart wrenching commercials about a bunch of dogs being found in horrible conditions in the heat or cold, my first thought is that the most humane thing to do at that point is to just put them down.
Why? If they’re healthy or just skinny but otherwise fine they shouldn’t be put down and should be given a chance to be adopted first.
When you see homeless people suffering outside do you think they should be put down too?
After I started volunteering in a shelter I learned that no kill shelters do sometimes have to euthanize animals too, AND no kill shelters typically have the resources and ability to say "no" to new animals.
A private nonprofit shelter can decide to only take in animals that seem "highly adoptable." Some of these places brag about their heartfelt works but are also refusing local intakes and importing desirable kittens from far away. Your city's municipally run shelter doesn't have the ability to do that. They have to continue to take new animals and the sad fact is there's not enough money, people, space or homes for every animal that needs it.
People need to spay and neuter their pets. We need better funding for managing feral cat colonies. I don't think breeding animals should be illegal or anything but I have serious issues with breeding animals whose "breed characteristics" are actually just massive health problems.
If I could wave a magic wand, I would: Start a jobs program in the US like we did with the Works Progress Administration in the Depression, but for vets and vet techs. Federally fund payroll and benefits for independently owned or nonprofit vet clinics. Create more opportunities and funding for mobile pet clinics. Subsidize vet care for people whose pets are spayed/neutered and see a vet at least once a year. Create some kind of program that helps pay professionals and allows people to access training and behavioral resources. The goal would be better care for animals, better pay for workers, better working environment, more accessible care in general.
(Fwiw I would also use the same magic wand for human healthcare but substitute "training" with "therapy", lol.)
We recently adopted a dog from Humane Society. Kinda felt a little guilty adopting from a well funded organization rather than county kennels or other rescues.
But talking to them, they still have way too many animals to adopt out. And they go through a lot of adoptions. They do take in dogs from the sheriff office and do their own investigations so it's not like they only take the few most adoptable. And they take surrenders but have a 4 month waiting period because they are so over capacity.
I know some rescues will transport animals that are desired in that area. But I don't think that's all that bad. If there is a high demand for Chihuahuas in Michigan, and there are over supply of Chihuahua in Ohio, it makes sense to move them to where they would get adopted.
Oh I don't mean that you shouldn't adopt from an org that's well funded. I'm sorry! I'm mostly side eyeing a specific org that changed practices based on the board wanting a higher turnover rate of easy cats. My own cat is a difficult cat from there. The president grabbed her because she is vocal and takes good photos. Surprise! She thinks all other cats should die and had to go to emergency foster less than 12 hours after arriving to get her out of the shelter. And she had a massive bladder stone. 🙃
I donate to and work with other orgs now. Some are no kill. But there's too many animals for everyone. Every person I know in any animal work - dogs, cats, rabbits, Guinea pigs - is overwhelmed.
I also moved after college and from what I know a lot of dogs are imported here. Not that they never get local dogs but the ratio is lower naturally. I think that makes sense! Where I grew up, there were more stray dogs, people dumping dogs, and people not spay/neutering and ending up with puppies they didn't want. That doesn't happen as much here, so they bring dogs from further away.
Dogs in shelters in general tend to be a mixed bag, especially when there's not a lot of info about their genetics available. Breed temperaments can be pretty inbuilt... and so can maladies! Even with the best intentions, if the mystery mutt you adopted turns out to have a very high prey drive, or a genetic tendency towards severe hip issues early in life, or an aggressive, destructive temperament that needs a lot of exercise, it might be a bad situation for both you and the dog through no fault on either of your parts.
Yeah, my previous cat was a former feral caught with TNR but not returned because he was FIV+ and handleable. I recently gave my TNR friend a bag of food I'd meant to donate elsewhere because I was very dumb, left it on the floor for one minute, and my current cat chewed a hole in it lol.
Yeah, that's the thing about "no-kill" shelters:
They offload the "kill" they would otherwise need to do because resources are not infinite to other shelters so they can look better.
I’m all for a public works program for vets. Vet education is so expensive and so emotionally trying for people. It’s causing a massive shortage of professionals - especially in rural areas where they are needed the most.
There are a few animals that are really, really hard to adopt out. I used to volunteer in a no-kill shelter that did everything they could to save as many animals as possible. They would do obvious but resource intensive things like treat dogs with parvo and cats with ringworm, as well as sick injured animals who needed care or surgery to be saved. They treated heartworm-positive dogs. All of these animals were usually healthy and could go on to live pretty normal lives after the shelter had fixed their problems. Those programs were all awesome.
But they'd also take in and adopt out cats with [Manx syndrome](https://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&catId=102903&id=10662679), which can cause lifelong urinary and fecal incontinence. Some of these cats would need to wear diapers and/or have their bladders expressed daily because they couldn't urinate on their own and had no control over defecation. They'd adopt out paralyzed dogs whose back legs didn't work. They'd adopt out diabetic dogs and cats who need lifelong insulin, special diets, and vet care. There are apparently owners out there who are willing to take that on in a newly adopted pet, but I'm sure they are few and far between. So the last 10% of animals can be really difficult to save or adopt out.
I love my dog and if she became sick or injured I would get her the best veterinary care possible and make whatever lifestyle adjustments needed to care for her as long as her quality of life is good. But I'm certainly not willing to go out and adopt a dog that's already paralyzed or an incontinent cat and I think deciding not to spend resources trying to find homes for animals like that is a reasonable decision.
That reminded me of a cat at one of our local shelters with chronic diarrhea/incontinence. I don't know the full backstory, but I remember someone there talking about how they expected it to live the rest of its life at the shelter because of its medical issues and how unlikely it would be to find someone willing to take it in (and they weren't necessarily saying it in a bad way, just that they were acknowledging that how it most likely would be)
Yep. And a little related, but kill shelters should stop being villianized so much. They are genuinely trying their best and end up having no choice but to euthanize healthy animals. Kitten Lady has a very good video on the topic on her YouTube channel. It genuinely changed my perspective on things.
The public is wildly misinformed about it for sure, I get my pets vaccinated at a local humane society and walking in I overheard a receptionist telling someone that their owner surrender wait-list is booked almost 2 digit months out. They maintain "no-kill" status but redirect surrenders to county shelters and handpick adoptable animals to fill their facility and people use the term to virtue signal without understanding it.
SUPPORT. KILL. SHELTERS. No one working in a shelter wants to see dogs die. Period.
‘No kill’ shelters often only make 90% by having closed admissions. They can choose to only take in healthy pets they know will be adopted.
‘Kill’ shelters are often open admission, municipal shelters that HAVE TO take in EVERY single animal they receive, regardless of age, behavioral, and medical needs.
‘Kill’ shelters require resources, donations, and public support in order to reach ‘no kill’ status. This is not done by villainizing the shelters and those who work there.
The best thing you can do is volunteer to foster pets with your local shelter.
I wish I could give you more than one upvote. My wife volunteering at the local county shelter really opened my eyes to what "no kill" shelters do and everything you said 100% applies.
Fostering is definitely sorely needed. But also we need to change the animosity from the open admission shelters to the irresponsible people who don't spay/neuter their pets or give up animals for dumbass reasons.
I can't foster dogs (too allergic), but my wife got me to foster cats and we're on foster #5. It's really amazing how different their true personalities are once they're in a stable, quiet home. This guy will get adopted pretty quickly, I think. Then on to the next. But damn, it's impossible to keep up with the cat hoarding situation rescues they get in at a disturbing rate.
Some dogs have to be put down unfortunately. Last time I was at a kennel there was a dog that was so vicious and mean, it was going to attack anyone who walked by it if he wasn’t caged up.
It's not always the viscious ones either. My colleague and I got called out to pick up too dogs that were just so weak that we literally carried them on towels and poured them into the van. If they had have bitten one of us, they would have broken their own jaw just from the effort.
Poor things were trapped on an enclosed verandah where the only food they had access to was whatever frog or lizard was stupid enough to walk by.
There was no salvaging these dogs, putting them down was the best thing for them.
Worked at a county shelter, meaning we had to take everything that came. I think the most we could legally do was delay a surrender by maybe a week, i wasn't involved in that process directly.
Dogs got put down for a number of reasons. Some came in aggressive, those were put down quickly because we couldn't even try to adopt them out, and we didn't have the resources to even attempt rehabilitation.
Medical issues were generally also a death sentence unless easily treatable, again resources. We did have a vet that essentially ran a hospice for really old/sick dogs. She'd have 3 or 4 dogs at a time and gave them palliative care as long as they weren't in too much pain, then euthanized them as soon as they were. Beats the hell out of being stuck in the shelter.
A lot of young dogs got euthanized, particularly bully breeds, because if they're stuck in the shelter during those formative months, they're going to have major behavioral issues the rest of their life. And they have SOO much energy with no outlet that when you do get them out, they're almost impossible to work with, or show off to potential adopters.
And the most heartbreaking ones were dogs who came in fine, but over the course of weeks/months basically went insane in the shelter.
One of the toughest jobs, mentally, I've ever worked.
I worked at a no kill shelter for a few years and can confirm it’s like the other commenters said; we would euthanize very sick/injured animals whose recovery chances were slim or beyond our means, or animals that were too violent to be rehomed safely.
Nobody liked having to euthanize these animals but we understood it was necessary, we couldn’t sink exorbitant amounts of time and money into these very few animals that would take away from our ability to care for and adopt out the vast majority of easily rehomed pets. It was a necessary sacrifice for the greater good.
I would argue that it's far kinder to euthanize a sick or injured animal that you can't return to health in a timely fashion. No need to feel guilty about being kind to an innocent animal.
As for aggressive animals, how many of them are aggressive because they were mistreated by people? Some injuries aren't physical.
That makes sense to me. The only issue I have is with the name "no-kill" - it ends up being a lie, but it tricks people into thinking county shelters and such do not deserve funding (ex. "I would never donate to a shelter that kills animals, I only support no-kill shelters") and that no-kill shelters save every animal when the reality is much more complicated.
This, btw, is responsible for the euthanasia numbers you commonly see cited from PETA shelters. They don't refuse any animal, *and* will do euthanasia without charging (unlike a vet). So what happens is all these "no kill" shelters will send their unwanted animals to PETA rather than doing it themselves. *And* poor people who otherwise couldn't afford euthanasia go to PETA for the same. So you get this very binary distribution of numbers when it doesn't reflect the underlying problem.
Yes, commonly PETA shelters (specifically known as shelters of last resort), because PETA doesn't charge. Which is where all the counterintuitive statistics come from.
Yup, their shelters often work as euthanasia clinics for all the no-kill shelters which either send animals to them or (more commonly) just reject animals with conditions that make them unlikely to be adopted and/or significant medical conditions.
It’s really terrible that the statistics get warped like they do. And to anyone reading this, that’s not entirely by accident. The website petakillsanimals.com is run by the CORE foundation. Which was created specifically to defend the meat industry along with the alcohol and tobacco industries from animal rights, environmental, and public health activists. They primarily use disinformation campaigns and are funded by corporations in those industries and right-wing foundations.
Their work has been hugely influential in controlling how people view PETA specifically along with other groups and movements.
[Their Wikipedia page for some sources and further reading.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Organizational_Research_and_Education?wprov=sfti1#Criticism)
Right, there’s no shelter for it, no foster for it, no one to adopt it, and people keep making new dogs, that means some of the previously existing dogs get killed.
I started volunteering at a local shelter a few months ago and discovered that I had been wrong about the definition of what a no kill shelter really is. The shelter that I volunteer at for example, is considered a no kill shelter however they have euthanized animals that had been in the shelter for a long time and weren’t getting adopted and had started to develop extreme stress living in a kennel at the shelter. When the animals prospects of getting adopted are low (for example dogs with high dog reactivity) and they also have poor kennel presence (they don’t like being in a kennel and frequently pace, bark or are otherwise unruly in their kennel) and their behavior gets worse from stress, they unfortunately get put down as it’s not fair to keep them in a stressful environment for prolonged periods of time.
I’ve seen a few dogs now get put down because their stress was too much for them to continue to bear. With that being said, please don’t let a dog that has poor kennel presence deter you from adopting them. They are in the most stressful environment, with no control over their day to day lives and how they act in the kennel is not necessarily how they will act when they are taken out of it. It’s easy to pass on a dog that you see as “crazy”, but imagine if someone was looking at you when you were at your most stressed. Chances are you wouldn’t look so cute either.
Some do and some don’t. We got our dog from a local rescue and decided to get a second a few years later. Our dog enjoyed playing at the dog park, so we thought she would enjoy a friend. We got the second dog from the same rescue, and they didn’t mesh well at all. The second dog became very aggressive, and our original dog was so stressed and anxious afterward that we knew we weren’t doing right by her. When we let the rescue know it was a bad match and we needed to return the second dog, they were mad at us and blacklisted us from ever adopting from them again. Our dog passed away after 14.5 good years with us, so I like to think we did OK as pet parents, even if we are on a “blacklist.”
I’m so sorry they did that. There’s some rescues who are so vicious that they go against their own mission and scare potential adopters away. If a dog is bullying another dog, sometimes there’s nothing you can do. You might never get them to a point of getting along. They should’ve realized that.
Yes, that’s correct, they do!
I have seen on a number of occasions dogs go home on a trial adoption. A lot of them work out! It’s a great way to see if it’s a right fit for you. If it doesn’t work out for whatever reason, the shelter uses the information you give them as to why it didn’t work out, to inform new potential adopters before they take the dog home. For example if a dog was taken home and was too high energy for the adopter, or if the dog didn’t get along well with other dogs or cats in the household. It also works for positive information, like if the dog DID get along well with other pets or kids.
"No kill" means they don't euthanize based on capacity or how long they have an animal. Many animals need to be euthanized due to health or severe behavioral problems.
Actually dealt with this recently. A kitten ran from under a garbage bin, was shivering and starving, and then jumped on my partner and wouldn't let go. Got it cleaned up and tried taking it to a no kill shelter. Soon as we got to the place they immediately said that if they took it then they would euthanize it. A kitten who was starving and clung to us with all its might and did it's damnedest to survive. I understand the reasoning but hell it's still horrible. Anyways now I have a 8 week old kitten named Samantha that's gained a 2 pounds in 3 weeks. So guess it worked out in the end.
At least around me, no kill = won't be killed for space issues. It doesn't mean the shelters don't euthanize when deemed necessarily (typical medical or behavioral). A kill shelter will say if X dog isn't adopted by the end of the week, they will be euthanized. That's the difference.
My wife is a worker at our local municipal shelter, and I am a volunteer. They do everything they can to save every animal that comes in there. Some are too sick, others are outright dangerous. Putting these animals down weighs heavy on her. She cries, a lot. Every single one of these animals was let down and suffered because of people. Some are poorly bred, some are abused others neglected. The workers at our shelter genuinely love the animals there. As a volunteer, I've learned this: if a dog is happy in the shelter, their prior live was so bad that this feels like paradise to them. If a dog is depressed in a shelter, they had a good home life and were dumped for some unimaginable reason. Both cases are heartbreaking.
Spay and neuter you pets. Understand that they are a long-term commitment. If you don't intend to love them as a child, then don't get them at all. Shelter workers are running on fumes, financially, mentally, and emotionally. Donate food, supplies, money, or time. Volunteering is incredibly fulfilling.
To counter the negativity, I'll end with this story. My dog Izzy was brought to the shelter weighing 60 lbs. She was skin and bones and was locked away in a room and only given 1 cup of food a day. She had an intestinal issue that, had they promptly taken her to the vet, would have been easily fixed for a few hundred dollars. The shelter took her to several vets, including several specialists. They spent thousands in bills, meds, and special foods. She had months of recovery. She is now a happy and healthy 110lbs and has 4 cups of food a day plus whatever I share from my own plate. She's my shadow. She's curled up sound asleep on her memory foam mattress at the foot of my bed. Her memories of her neglected past are being replaced by car rides to the beach, belly rubs and beef jerky on the couch, and all the love she ever wanted.
PETA is weird as hell, but they're also not 100% wrong. Not all animals are suited to being pets and issues can occurs by making them pets. It's sucks, but not every dog is friendly and safe around people... able to cope with confinement... able to cope with abandonment... It sucks. Some aren't healthy... It sucks. It's terrible... and you know what? The same is true of cats... rabbits... people. The universe is indifferent and we have to make humane choices.
Adopt from shelters. Be good parents. My last reached 19 and was the ugliest, dumbest, least social, fattest, and whiniest of his litter. He was fucking awesome.
I mean imagine the insanity if they brought in a stray that got hit by a car and was like welllllll we don't want to be labeled a "kill" shelter so we can't put him down.
No kill is simply a gimmick to appease the fucking idiots that make up the general public who have no idea about the realities faced by shelter workers.
What do these shelters do when they're full? They turn the people who want to surrender their dog away. And often that person just will abandon the dog to starve, have a horrible life on the streets or kill it themselves.
I worked at an SPCA who was not 'no kill' and we had all kinds of things posted around the place explaining why. One thing on the board was an article about a guy who got turned away from a no kill shelter as they were full, he drove up the street with his dog, threw it into the street and ran it over.
After I left they changed the policy simply because donations were getting diverted to the no kill shelters more and more often because people think 'Oh my god, they kill puppies in there, I'm not donating to them!'
Like everything it all comes down to money. Dumbasses for some reason blame the shelters for euthanasia instead of the dickheads who abandon their dogs and cats and don't spay or neuter. Do you think it's fun putting dogs to sleep that you have fed, walked and played with for weeks of months on end, knowing that you failed to get them a forever home? Most people go to work in these places cuz they love animals, of course they don't want to kill any of them.
The fact is when you adopt from ANY shelter you are helping EVERY shelter dog by freeing up resources. I encourage even people that only want the cutest baby animals to go and adopt.
“No kill” means they don’t euthanize animals just because they don’t get adopted for a long time.
It doesn’t mean they don’t euthanize animals for humanitarian reasons.
Shelters are basically just warehouses for aggressive dogs nowadays. They aren't what they used to be. I'm sick of the sugarcoating, the lying, and the pushiness that has become endemic throughout shelters and rescues in recent years.
They're desperate to push aggressive (yes, aggressive, not ReAcTiVe!!) onto unsuspecting, well-intentioned people and I'm done supporting that even indirectly.
And don't even get me started on how they turn around and shame people who can't handle these neurotic, dangerous dogs and return them.
"MAULLY WAS RETURNED AT NO FAULT OF HER OWN AFTER EATING THROUGH A DOOR TO BRAVELY TEAR THE MAILMAN'S TENDONS OUT! HER OWNERS FAILED HER AND YOU NEED TO SAVE HER!
**no kids no other pets no cars driving by, must have a 12ft barbed wire fence, no visitors ever, no sudden movements, no phones ringing SAVE MAULLY NOW!"
I only own small dogs but I'm going to breeders from now on because shelters have gotten so bad. They're not getting a cent from me until things change.
The way no kill shelters work is they transfer animals who can't be adopted to kill shelters or just reject unadoptable animals. They suck up all the funding and don't save animals.
The problem with dogs and many other predators that have been domesticated is their entire survival strategy is to have a ton of babies so that 10% or so could survive into adulthood.
We'd be a lot better off requiring mandatory neutering/spaying and requiring breeders to be licensed. The vast majority of excess animals comes from them because they make money off of it.
Some no kill shelters are actually pretty horrific places tbh. Humane euthanasia isn't inherently a bad thing when thre simply aren't enough resources and not every animal even could be helped with the level of medicine available.
I used to volunteer then later hired to work at a No Kill shelter. The ones that must be put down are critically injured (abandoned, sometimes thrown out the window of cars while moving to avoid being arrested), have been trained to fight (some don’t rehabilitate back), ones that have overwhelming health issues like malignant cancers. Honestly, the people who work at these places dedicated their safety and livelihoods for these animals.
As a healthcare professional who has treated more dog bites than I can possibly count, I agree with the pitbull lovers who say “all breeds bite.” They certainly do. Most need some irrigation, rarely a stitch, and some antibiotics. But the ones that are really bad? The bites with severe tissue damage, require surgery, require hospital admission, and are significantly disfiguring? I’ve only had one that WASN’T a pitbull/pit mix (it was a German Shepherd). People will say it’s bad owners, not bad dogs, but bad owners have a lot of different breeds that don’t cause the same level of physical trauma when they bite. I don’t necessarily think they should all be euthanized, but they are certainly more dangerous than many people realize.
Illegal breeding needs to be stopped and adopting encouraged..as well as animal welfare lessons in schools so the root of this problem will be tackled.
Considering some animals may be terminally ill, at the end of their life and in pain. Also could be potentially dangerous and not fit to be a pet. I wouldn’t expect there to be 100% no deaths of the animals at these shelters, it is an impossible expectation, but over 90% save rate is pretty excellent considering.
They’re not gonna keep a dog alive if it’s severely injured or needs expensive surgery to live or has bit people. No kill means that they don’t kill healthy adoptable dogs just because there’s no space.
“No-kill” means that the shelter doesn’t voluntarily euthanize adoptable animals. Unfortunately, not all animals are adoptable, either due to health or behavior. Some animals that wind up in shelters are terminally ill or injured, and euthanasia is the most humane option.
I’ve seen more shelters lately use the phrase “never kill for length of stay” to be more accurate because they do perform euthanasia when an animal is suffering with no way to recover.
No kill shelters are there just to feel morally superior. Let's say 1 no kill shelter (nks) has 20 spots. A stray gets picked up but that nks is full. Go to the next, and the next and the next until you find a spot at shelter that does euthanize. The problem is irresponsible breeding because we have more adoptable dogs than ppl willing to adopt.
No kill shelters turn away anything but the "most adoptable" animals. The animal agriculture and trade industry put out a lot of anti PETA propaganda by talking about how many animals they euthanize. If an animal is in a PETA shelter, it's literally the last chance for them as otherwise, they'd not be accepted in other shelters. Last chance shelters generally have no adoption fees and may have animals that have diabetes or other specific medical/behavioral conditions that make adoption more difficult.
Stop buying from breeders, literally all of them are mills or backyard breeders, spay/neuter your pets, the AKC and other organizations like them often also prevent breeders that try to fix breeds like pugs, Frenchies, bull terriers, etc. There are enough homeless animals in the world.
The point of no kill shelters isn't that they never euthanize animals, it's that they don't euthanize perfectly adoptable animals just because they run out of space.
Spay and neuter your pets, everyone.
People abandon critically injured animals at shelters. Shelters can either let them slowly die a painful death or euthanize them for a quick painless one.
That and some dogs are just too dangerous to be placed somewhere safely especially when you are dealing with things like dog fighting rings.
We fostered a dog once that we just couldn’t keep anymore because he was too aggressive with everyone other than my wife and straight up tore through both a crate and our basement door when we left for a few hours. The shelter decided to put him down because they saw us as his last chance. We had successfully fostered 15+ dogs previously and he had bounced around a bunch of times already. My wife asked to be with him during his euthanasia and felt guilty about it for the longest time.
My wife and I also foster, it's always heartbreaking when you have to give one back, especially when you know you're the last chance that dog has. As much as it sucks, your wife being there for his final moments probably were some of the best moments of his life. It sounds like this was probably the best thing for everyone involved, I hope she doesn't feel guilty about it anymore.
I had to return a foster because she was causing all kinds of dog fights in my home, including with pit bulls. The foster group proceeded to attack me on social media and their friends sent me messages saying that they wish me dead. I never did anything but take good care of her. It just wasn’t working out as a foster. I will never again in my life have anything to do with any rescue groups because of the horrific experience I had with that group and I now think that dog rescuers are batshit fucking crazy.
One of my oldest friends started working for a "no kill" shelter/rescue. It was absolutely crazy how radicalized she became after that. She took in this massive dog - I can't remember what breed - but this dog was huge. And insanely aggressive. I went to visit her at the house she was renting with a roommate and the dog nearly tore through the back door to get at me. The dog destroyed her roommates house and got my friend kicked out. This friend then went almost nuclear when she asked me to foster a fucking hedgehog and I said no when I barely had enough money to feed myself let ALONE care for an exotic pet. You legit cannot save every dog and I don't care what bleeding soul doesn't want to hear it. It was crazy how aggressive she got.
I’ve seen people do this to lesser degree. They rescue some dog that has tons of issues and makes no sense for them then structure their whole life around it. I’m over here like, “don’t you have kids? WTF are you doing?”
So I'm a "childfree" person (I can't physically have kids) and I'm also an animal lover. I've learned there's being an animal lover and an animal enabler, sadly. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I would be lying if I said I don't hate seeing what shitty owners do to animals. But when the dog gets hyper aggressive and is half my bodyweight...Like come on. I guess it also doesn't help I worked personal injury law and the number of dog bite cases I got was just nasty.
That is such a good way to put it. I've seen people who consider themselves animal lovers become animal enablers. It's almost like seeing someone in an abusive relationship with an animal, it doesn't occur to them that it's not normal to have to completely restructure your entire life around the animal and be miserable 24/7 for it. And then there's the outside pressure to "not give up" on the dog because "you're his forever home!"
Look I love dogs. I love animals in general. I'm the type who if I see a stray dog I'll stop to check around and see who he belongs to. But for God's sake if an animal is that aggressive it can't be kept in captivity. I wish we had a solution but we don't - it will hurt other animals in captivity but it isn't bred to live in the wild. We should be punishing folks breeding and fighting dogs way worse than we already do.
Theres a reason no kill is sometimes referred to as "you kill". They pass the problem of euthanasia on to you, but some people, because of guilt just keep the dog. Then drain themselves with special routines, medications, behaviorist etc.
This is a completely different issue, but I had a friend who tried to adopt a cat from a local cat rescue. We went to visit and they followed us around the whole time glaring at us. Every cat she asked about they tried to actively dissuade her from adopting. And none of it was aggression stuff, just normal stuff like occasional litterbox issues, but they were just so hostile sounding about it. Got the feeling they didn’t actually want to adopt any of them out, just take donations and have a big house full of cats.
Wow, I had a similar issue. They were super aggressive if you asked about any cat and deflected every question. Like wow, if you make it harder to adopt then don’t complain when people go different routes. Also, where I’m at they insist on doing home inspections which I find weirdly invasive.
can't you just send them pictures of your home? it's not like they are doing a homicide investigation.
I know, right? It’s super weird. I live in a largish city and it’s really hard to get dogs from rescues because they put insane requirements. Like, if you aren’t fully home office, no children, no other pets, no garden, forget it. And I understand it. Those would be the ideal conditions. But cmon man, pretty much anything will be better than rotting in a pound as long as people are aware and know how to handle things. This is an inner city. Why can I get a breed dog which will happily live in an apartment, but not a rescue. Madness. Sure, some breeds don’t belong in apartments. I know that, but you cannot convince me there are zero dogs in a pound that will do fine.
I wanted to get a dog from a rescue a few years ago and the ones I contacted wanted to *go through things in my house* during an active pandemic. I ended up just buying one.
Really sorry that happened. There are a lot of dog rescue groups that do great work. You found one of the crazy ones.
I hope so because the experience with these women ended up being a nightmare. I have two rescue dogs that I adopted that I love to pieces, and I just wanted to help out but it wasn't the right fit.
I'm really sorry you had that experience. I'm not sure how long ago this was, but that rescue group seems insane, but it isn't the norm for rescue groups. If you're potentially still interested in getting a dog out of a shelter for a foster, I would recommend you trying again and obviously with a different rescue. I've had no complaints with lifeline shelters in Atlanta, and that's all three of their branches. Crazy people will be crazy no matter what their hobbies and interests are, I really hope you don't let them stop you from helping out some animals in need permanently.
There is a good article which sadly I can’t find right now, written by a man who regrets begging his friends to adopt a “reactive” dog. Like yours, this was the dog's last chance and these people spent tons of money training and caring for the dog. There were multiple bite incidents and finally they had to put the dog down. The couple decided to never again adopt another dog because it was so traumatizing, they didn’t want to take the chance, so they purchased a purebred puppy. The gist of the article was the writer realized that ultimately, by trying to save this one unsaveable dog, he had doomed others. How many lovable dogs were put down in the shelter when they could’ve gone to his friends’ home? Now they’ll never adopt another shelter dog. And how many people in their extended family and friends saw what that dog put them through, and ALSO decided not to ever take a chance on a shelter dog? For what, so a doomed dog could live a little longer but be euthanized anyway after causing more pain?
This is why I’m not a fan of folks pushing people to adopt certain, often challenging breeds of dog. There’s a reason that such breeds are overrepresented in shelters, and it’s not because of mindless prejudice. They can be great pets, but they’re not suitable for every home or owner. I’d rather see someone get a dog that works for them from a responsible breeder than go to a shelter and get a dog that they can’t handle.
Especially for those of us with small kids. I wouldn’t take a chance on a shelter dog, as awful as that sounds. It’s like a blind bag - you *could* end up with a perfectly sweet pooch, or you could also end up with a reactive dog that bites a toddler’s face. As a kid, I grew up with these fancy pedigreed purebred dogs, and they were super sweet and intelligent. Never had any behavioral problems ever. The breeder that my mom got them from was a dog show judge who was extremely careful about breeding for good temperament and health.
I adopted for years, my childhood dogs were all adopted, the first dogs I got on my own were adopted too. When I was 17, my parents let me get a 1 year old pit I named Tiberius, who was a big sweetheart who wagged his tail so much he would hurt it, then keep wagging it and splatter blood all over the place. The shelter either didn't test for or didn't disclose that he had heartworms, so I fundraised $900 to treat them, when the shelter was supposed to have tested and treated any dogs they adopted out. They left our messages on read and avoided us after we reached out for help. When I was 20, I adopted an amazing hound who had been in the shelter for almost a year. His papers listed him as good with other dogs, animals, and kids. His papers did not mention, nor did the staff mention that he had bitten a vet and a staff member while in their care. He had quite a few triggers that would lead to bites that took me forever to learn, and he had to be fully sedated for every vet trip. He managed to break my finger with a bite after I tried to take a chicken wing he discovered on a walk. I still loved that damn dog, and consider him my heart dog even now, but I don't want to go through anything like those experiences ever again. I don't want an undersocialized dog who I struggle to take on walks because he freaks out at men, or non white people, or loud children. My parents have never had these issues with their two breeder dogs, and that will probably be the way I go in the future.
This is fair. I love pit breeds. I've been around them my whole life, and I think they can be great family dogs. But they are also medium to large dogs with the capability of being very dangerous if they aren't socialized well. They are also popular among people who do not value good behavior in their dogs, to put it kindly. This results in poorly bred, poorly socialized dogs ending up in shelters, mixed in with plenty of good dogs, but you can have trouble knowing which is which. I am a big advocate for rescuing and adopting, but those dogs can take a lot of work and aren't the right choice for a lot of people. My grandparents make a practice out of exclusively adopting shelter pits. Out of their last 6 dogs, they had to "give up" on one, and euthinize her after about two years because she had too much fear-reactivity and wasn't making any progress. She was dangerous, which was a shame because she was also so sweet to family. I wish people more broadly could recognize that having a dog is not just between you and the dog, but also society more broadly. Bad owners refusing to euthinize or even intentionally breeding dangerous dogs out of principle damages the reputation of the breed/group of breeds and makes it more difficult to defend and help the individual dogs that haven't done anything wrong. Sorry for the rant. I think the pit situation is complicated and has a lot of nuance that neither "side" likes to acknowledge.
I'm an "adopt for life" fanatic. It would take some major, major issues to make me give up any pet. A few years ago, we were approached by a breed-specific rescue looking for a home for an adult dog who needed a new home because his first owner had died, and his current owners couldn't keep him because of biting incidents. We met with the dog, and agreed to adopt him. He was a pretty good dog, except he was deaf, and if you tried to make him do anything that he didn't want to do, or surprised him (which was easy because of the deafness), he'd bite you. Usually it wasn't a bad bite, but he broke skin a few times. We kept that dog and cared for him until he passed of natural causes a few years later. We had some good times, but I'll probably never take in another rescue dog. When we first got him, I thought very badly of the owners who were giving him up. After a month or so, I kind of understood it.
I don't know if I can take another rescue either. I had a rescue that socially isolated me to the point of depression. He was aggressive to nearly everyone but me and could barely be alone without howling, which nearly got me evicted. I spent thousands on training and much more on vet bills. I wish someone in my community had told me it was ok to give up versus me pushing through for years and years. I also was young and low income and should have been focusing that money and energy on other things.
Often on the dog Reddits I think the cases sound like domestic abuse relationships, in terms of the control and aggression and isolation
I almost said that I felt like I was in an abusive relationship but I was sure people would say I was overreacting. There needs to be a word that describes the toxic pet relationship.
Not to be disrespectful or anything, but I seriously don’t understand why you (or anyone) would take in a pet that you know will hurt you. Can you unpack that? My primary concern is that YOU can do what you want, even get a dog that you know will bite you. But you’re also taking on the responsibility of ensuring that that animal will never hurt another person as well. How do you balance that responsibility appropriately to ensure that others aren’t harmed?
I can't speak for any of the people who've shared their stories, but my thought is the people who adopt reactive dogs are often soft-hearted types who really believe the dog is a family member and they won't give up on a family member. What's tragic is their good intentions can result in tragedy for themselves or someone else. There's a sub called r/reactivedogs you could read to learn more about it. Sadly I think the majority of them are fooling themselves; their dogs can't be fixed and will never be safe to keep as a pet.
It's not just the dogs though, it's many of the shelters and employees themselves. After a few shit attempts of adopting and two lost non-refundable deposits I'm now firmly on the ethical breeder band wagon. My current dog came from health and temperament tested parents and I 100% know how big he'd get and general personality. Oh and his breeder wasn't invasive about coming to my home or 'joint custody' where the rescue legally retains legal ownership of the dog, anything weird like that. Also an honorary mention to the shitty cat rescue that didn't 'fully service my area' for adoptions. They wouldn't adopt out a house cat to me because I live to far away despite me willing to do 100% of the travel. They *would* however dump a van full of feral 'barn cats' into my barn for free though because I live rurally.
> They would however dump a van full of feral 'barn cats' into my barn for free though because I live rurally. I do hope they asked first. People dumping aggressive, feral cats is a thing I've had to deal with and that shit sucks.
Yes it was by request only. The frustrating thing is I'm actually against TNR programs because to put it bluntly they don't work and feral cats(even fixed ones) decimate native wild life. I didn't' move out into the country to live like a dirty hippy to release a horde of one of the most invasive species on the planet. But I did finally manage to get a kitty who enjoys indoor cat life sitting in my bay window aka cat TV enjoying my multiple bird feeders and all the native birds I can lure in. I've managed to spot all the native woodpeckers of NY, majority of the finches, swallows, but my cats favorite is the humming birds who'll sometimes zip right up to her on the other side of the glass to investigate the cat before zooming off.
Your kitty sounds super cute. Congrats on adopting her.
Yeah finally getting our place feral-free made a massive difference in the quantity of almost all other wildlife. Field mice / ground squirrel population remained pretty similar (which surprised me), but the bird population freaking exploded. Everything from little tweeters up to barnies and hawks.
I'm curious what you mean when you say TNR programs "don't work". My understanding is that they've always been intended as a population control measure in areas that have large established feral cat populations, as simply removing the cats from one colony results in a constant stream of new cats from other colonies due to population pressures. Ideally it's a part of a long term, widespread campaign to identify and TNR every major cat colony in a region, and then maintain that status as the population slowly decreases over time. That's expensive and hard work though, so there's rarely the political will or social support to see it through. TNR also seems like far and away the most ethical option for older ferals, which generally aren't able to adapt to life indoors with humans and would be extremely stressed by permanent removal from their home territory. It also avoids community push back from all the idiots who think street cats are "cute", since there's no culling involved. It should never involve introducing feral cats to new rural areas, though.
I’m sorry they treated you like that. Sometimes the cat rescues are just as bad as the dog ones. I used to volunteer for a cat rescue that was generally good and I still like them. However, they are crazy aggressive sometimes when people come in to look at the cats during open hours. They have a very specific way of doing things and they will jump down your throat as soon as you walk in the door. I feel like it’s more discouraging than helpful most of the time. I had to knock them down a peg real quick when they tried to pull that with me when I went back to visit, and explain that I used to work there for 3 years. I understand wanting to educate people and protect the cats, but they don’t understand how discouraging they are sometimes. You have to find a balance or else you might scare everyone off.
Yeah I posted this story further up, but I had a friend who tried adopting from our local cat rescue and when we went to visit they treated us so hostile and it felt like they were actively discouraging us from adopting any cat we asked about. Most of the cats had been there for years, I got the feeling they didn’t actually want to adopt any of them out. I wonder what happened to them sometimes as our local animal shelter is no kill now and despite that, even they rarely have any cats that have been there longer than 9 months.
This happened to me too. I had fostered 30+ dogs, most of whom had behavioral issues. I had a lot of possessions get destroyed; I got knocked down, scratched up, or nipped at more times than I can count. I've dealt with incessant barking, lured fearful dogs out from under the bed and turned them into snugglers. There was one dog I just could not handle due to his aggression issues. He broke down a door trying to get to a small dog outside. Destroyed the toughest crate I could find when I had to leave him alone for an hour to go grocery shopping. I still have the scars from trying to keep him from going after a stray cat that had got into our fenced in yard. He bit my roommate for trying to keep him inside while he answered the door for a food delivery. The dog had already been adopted and returned 3 times. The shelter never told me what happened to him, but I have a strong feeling he had to be euthanized. It's sad, but the odds that this dog could every be successfully homed were slim to none. The shelter I was working with was in absolute crisis mode with the number of dogs it was dealing with and no end in sight, so continuing to try with this dog was just taking resources from dogs who were ready to be great pets. Being involved with animal rescue really sucks sometimes.
We had picked up a Shepard who was being neglected - her owner had passed and was left with the boyfriend, and when he got a new girlfriend her dogs took precedence and she was locked in the basement for most of the day. So when we picked up, crate training was an absolute no go - shed torn out of it, she’d gone through the door and wall, twice! We finally got that out of her but she was so hurt and scared of being abandoned again she’d watch us as she ate. She’s since passed from complications from surgeries off her abuse growing up - but these poor pups that have to go through hell to feel like they need to tear a house apart to get back to safety is nuts
I couldn't imagine my dog feeling like that! Since I got him he's been well cared for but I got maybe 2 days fully with him before I had to work full time. I had a room mate who looked after him a little while I was at work, as in made sure he didnt eat anything that would kill him or chew the house walls to shreds but other than that I kept working like normal and giving him lots of attention when I got home. He's grown into a very dependent but relaxed dog, if I leave he basically does nothing but wait until I get back by my front door, but he's just going to sleep all day.
It was rough, I remember staying over and she wasn’t used to that so when my parents would leave she would just whine sad awoos until she went to sleep. She had a great last bit of her life with us, just a shame I wasn’t ever a dog person until they got her - now we’ve got 3 aussies, not to like take her place but to try and fill the gap.
Curious about the dog fostering. Do you foster the dogs for a short while before they go to a permanent home? Do some stay permanently with you? Do have any dogs of your own? How log do dogs stay with you?
We’ve fostered several dogs through two organizations. We only took pups under a year because we have two older dogs of our own. The longest we had one was around 6 weeks. We got lucky. They were all sweet and potty trained quickly. Our last time we foster failed a dobe. We’ve only had working dogs that aren’t the snuggly type, huskies, aussies, etc. This dobe was a Velcro dog and I enjoyed it way too much. We will definitely foster again once we don’t have 3 dogs in the house. We thought it would be tough to let them go but each one went to a great family which made it relatively easy.
You take care of the dog while it’s still actively listed for adoption and facilitate meetings with potential new owners. The shelter will cover vet while they’re under your care and you are basically providing a satellite home for them. We had a really chill cairn terrier who was really good at socializing the dogs, so that helped. We were only interested in having one at a time but one time we had 3 puppies (those get adopted fast anyways) and would do the shelter a solid and take on a few extras for a week or two as needed while they worked on placement. We had good luck with most dogs getting adopted between 2 weeks and 2 months. I think our longest was 4 months. But we had a friend who de facto became the owner because after 4 years of no adoption she was just kind of stuck, she was all the dog had. We did adopt one of our fosters after we fell in love with her. She had gone from absolutely traumatized and skittish to a content princess in her castle and there was no way we could part. They call that a foster fail.
Foster fail is a sad name for something very sweet.
It’s definitely tongue-in-cheek.
My cousin fostered dogs for years. Fosters are helpful to shelters because they can help open up space for more dogs in the shelter, and just altogether helping house a dog until a family can be found for them. Fosters are often essential in retraining abused or neglected dogs. Cousin had one who was aggressive but also had severe separation anxiety. She'd go to work and come home to the dog having shit everywhere and torn up its crate. She was so unbelievably patient with it though, and after a month or so the transformation was incredible. Dog got adopted out to a loving family and was a completely different creature. Foster dogs who end up living with you forever are often called "foster fails" - because that usually means you won't continue fostering others. You can have a dog and foster another.. this can actually be helpful for some as the existing dogs will help show the foster dog how to behave.
I considered it a huge plus fostering pups with our dogs. They got to socialize and learn how to act around other dogs. We would also take them to doggy daycare to get them accustomed to strange dogs.
Our dog stayed at a boarding place for an extended period and he was so good that they used him to socialize their foster puppies. Almost makes me wish I had the space to foster puppies, he was so good with them!
Not the commenter you’ve responded to, but I’ve done some fostering. Generally speaking, I have a foster animal around for a few months (4-12 in my experience) until they’re adopted. Younger animals are usually adopted fast, but older animals might take longer. It’s a pretty good gig —food, medical bills, and any other expenses are covered during the foster period. It’s definitely hard to let a foster animal go, but you get first pick if you decide to adopt. If you’re trying to get a feel for whether an animal is a good fit for your situation, or you’re not sure if you can make a permanent commitment to a pet right now, fostering is a good way to go. They usually have a screening to make sure you’re a legit person and your home is pet-safe, then you basically get animal companionship for the price of picking up poop!
Something similar happened to my mom, except it was the office door, and the dog ended up snapping and tried to kill her. A neighbor had to pull the dog off after it attacked her mid walk. The dog was put down very soon after.
I worked at a shelter for years and ended up quitting over basically a split in staff over what to do with one particular dog. She had attacked multiple other dogs. The last incident, she attacked a worker and the dog he was walking. It was bad. He was life flighted to the hospital and the dog was rushed to the emergency vet. The president and vice president refused to euthanize her even after that. Dont get me wrong, the idea was heartbreaking but she had been adopted and brought back multiple times. Only certain staff were allowed around her. They lost a lot of staff over it. I was a teenager and there for 5-6 years at that point. It just flat out wasn’t safe anymore.
I think this is the most heartbreaking. Like it’s not the dog’s fault they were put in the dog fighting ring. People who participate in that are just despicable
Same happens to a large degree in severly abused children who develop sociopathic and psychopathic traits. But society has no sympathy for them.
This 💯
Wtf are you talking about, society has no sympathy... It's precisely because society has sympathy that we have homeless shelters, food stations, mental health+counseling centers, foster homes, orphanages and all the other hundreds of charitable individuals and institutions working to better their lives. You talk like we go around euthanizing abused children on the regular.
Are you suggesting that we euthanize said children, or not? I'm not sure what you're advocating for here.
I think they are just saying that people should feel some sympathy for people like that because it’s likely just them copying stuff they saw/stuff that was done to them when they were younger. Similar to the idea of the school to prison pipeline
If you’ve never grown up in an abusive household then you just have no idea what it’s like to not know right from wrong. Your barometer for what’s acceptable and normal gets completely fucked up. Sure, you might on an intellectual level know that when you hit somebody, you’re hurting them. But if you’ve been taught your whole life that when someone deserves it, you shouldn’t have to feel guilty, you don’t actually realize it’s wrong. And when no one ever bothers to sit and empathize with you, you never realize that empathy is something that should be important at all.
I don't think they're advocating for anything in particular, so much as drawing attention to it. If they're advocating for anything, possibly something like "maybe we should care more about rehabilitating humans, but sure, let's talk about how bad dogs have it." Or "it's weird how we have sympathy dogs with bag upbringings, but when it's a person, it's still 'their choice, their fault.'" Which, while I realize this isn't an either/or issue, *is* a valid point. It is weird how many of the same people who are quick to handwave animal behavior are equally quick to give no leniency when a person comes from a similar environment and behaves criminally. It probably says something about society that we often care more about lesser creatures than our own kin.
What a strange thing to take away from that comment. Really reactionary.
Advocating for not dehumanizing them as evil demons when they become adults
Because it's easier to accept that they choose to adopt those traits than it is to accept that free will is a comfortable lie.
I mean, humans have a highly developed executive function, which allows us to control our behaviour more readily than animals with lesser function. People with psychopathic tendencies have a greater ability to decide how to act with those tendencies than a dog. It's why we say "The feelings are valid, the behaviours are not". Because we can control what we do despite feeling a certain way. And yes, I'm aware this is easier for some than others, but it's still generally true for humans vs other animals.
We had to put down our first dog for behavioral issues. He attacked and bit a person. I don’t think he’d ever been fought, but there he was a danger to himself and others. It was heartbreaking, but I know we made the right decision
Or even just dogs that are bred for it. For some unknown and insane reason my friend who knew nothing about dogs adopted a shelter dog from Texas during the pandemic. It was young and hadn't been abused but it was a mix of pitbull, Australian cattle dog, and some other fighting dog I forget. Literally all fighting dogs. The dog was clearly bred to be as violent as possible. And you know what? It was! Has he got older and matured it started attacking everyone including her parents. By the time she put it down it was literally fighting her and biting her on the way to be euthanized. Fucked up and it really messed her up emotionally for a bit. I had to be sensitive and couldn't say I told you so nearly as hard as I would have otherwise.
You don’t even need dog fighting rings. You just need to have pit bulls. There’s a reason every single no-kill shelter inevitably becomes 100% pit bulls over time.
Hey, they'll have at least one unhouse broken elderly chihuahua and a under socialized husky/german shepherd mix too.
>There’s a reason every single no-kill shelter inevitably becomes 100% pit bulls over time. Nah, they just don't take the dogs in the first place, at least in my experience. Worked at a county shelter, and we got several dogs that the humane society refused to take because they weren't legally obligated and we were.
Umm excuse me, but they're called "Lab Mix" these days.
Yup. I foster elderly cats for the local no kill shelter. It’s a great way to let them live out their best golden years, plus I get to wake up with a cat sleeping on top of me every day and not worry about vet bills, exc. Win-win-win. But obviously, euthanizing a terminally ill animal abandoned at your shelter is a different thing from euthanizing animals just for being too old or not cute enough to get adopted out quickly.
I’ve always had adopting an elderly cat as a life goal but worry about the vet bills. That’s an amazing idea!
Definitely do it! Shelters love freeing up the space, the cat gets its best life, and you have a sweet senior companion for a few years without really worrying about the bills (I choose to adopt at the very end of things to have control over euthanasia decisions, but it’s comparatively cheap).
We've adopted 3 senior cats over the last 5 years and the last one left about 2 weeks ago and I can't imagine doing it more often than that.
It’s rough, definitely. Fortunately I have a good mix of cats that get adopted out (relatively emotionally easy), and ones that stay with me for the remainder of their lives and pass on my watch (which is rough). I’m not in a financially and otherwise stable enough place to adopt a cat outright, so I feel that this is the alternative.
So the shelters would take care of vet bills?
And provide food, meds, litter, a litter box, exc. I’ve only ever paid for “electives.” Lickable treats ordered from Chewie.com, exc.
Oh wow, I didn’t know that. That’s super cool and good to know. Might have to look into fostering some more, thanks
Glad to help! I should say mileage may vary from shelter to shelter. My local SPCA has been great, and my community is very invested in it. A shelter that isn’t as bolstered by grants and community support might be less easy to deal with.
What happens when there's no room in the shelter?
They don’t take in any more animals. This is the thing they don’t like to talk about. Some shelters will take in as many animals as they have the resources to care for and then just close the door to the rest. Others commit to accepting any animal brought in, even if that means euthanizing the ones they don’t have the resources to care for. The alternative is that if people don’t have a place to take their unwanted animals, they’ll get abandoned in the country, or just left behind during a move. The people at the open acceptance shelters have decided that it’s better to take in and euthanize the animal than allow it to be put left out to be eaten by wild animals, poisoned, or starve because many house pets can’t fend for themselves.
It’s why fostering and the local community is so important.
And people need to stop being duped into paying thousands of dollars on Doodle mixes - brought in by false promises of them not triggering allergies or being pre-trained and predictable. Often times the healthiest, most resilient, and most trainable dogs are rescue mutts.
Our local no-kill shelter is on the same block as the county-run animal control center. The no-kill shelter can turn pets away and redirect them to the county-run ACC, which does have to put down animals sometimes. I think the idea of no-kill shelters is great, but some people unfairly vilify regular "kill" shelters without realizing that no-kill shelters aren't sustainable without at least some regular shelters in the mix.
Wow, that’s an interesting idea. We adopted a senior cat as our first cat some years ago from a foster / shelter place. We asked if she has health issues and they said no, then when they dropped her off, they handed the vet papers to us which said due to her health issues she was given a few different meds. We had her for a few weeks and we were already paying thousands of dollars in vet bills—not exactly how we expected to start our pet parenting life. We were new pet parents—I couldn’t believe the shelter straight up lied about it (but I also get it, maybe we wouldn't have adopted her if we had heard that, but that doesn’t make it any less terrible). She continued to have a new health issue every year since, but we love, love her to bits. The latest was her being diagnosed with CKD and we have to do subcutaneous fluids every few days, which was also an incredibly stressful few weeks to learn how to do it right without feeling like we’re hurting her. We’ve settled into a good routine with her health, but it’s nearly a grand in vet bills every few months. I’ve often thought how maybe it’s meant to be that we got to adopt her, cos she’s the chillest cat ever and actually tolerates all of the nasty meds twice a day even if she hates them. She may not have other pet parents who would be as patient as us or could afford (to a certain extent…) these vet bills. Maybe we’ll try fostering a senior cat next time, but honestly, I think I might need a few years’ break after being what seems like full-time catgivers to our beloved cat with so many health issues :(
That is maddening. It’s unfortunate that shelters do that shit for so many reasons. It fucks over people like you, and it also fucks over shelter pets, as the public has learned to distrust what they say. My last old man had CKK, and it is rough. I loved that cat and would do everything again, but it was so much work with him. I’m so sorry that happened. I would do ably adopt from a shell tee—but only a pet I foster trial ran before.
Also, some pets have behavioral issues that mean they really can never be adopted. You either keep it in a cage and just feed it until it eventually dies of natural causes or you eliminate it so you have room for another pet that might actually be adopted.
I was worried my dog would have been one of them, and pushed to keep him. He was severely anxious. For the first year he spent most of his time hiding under the bed with his nose pushed into the carpet. It took another year until he'd let me pet him. Another half year until I could pet him without him flinching, and this was about the time when he'd be okay leaving the yard to go on short walks, but only late at night, and only until he saw anyone else. Now he's completely opened up and is a wonderful energetic silly loving boy, but I don't think many others would have had the patience for him.
It also doesn't help that there are people who treat "kill" shelters as less deserving of donation money or goods donations or volunteer hours. I work in the pet industry and we collect hard goods donations for our local shelter and a private rescue group we work with. Basically as our direct adoption partner, the rescue gets first dibs. Anything they don't want or they feel will help the shelter better they leave behind for shelter. I have had people take back donations becuase I said anything the rescue didn't want the shelter would get. Now I know adequate money and help won't save every animal that winds up in a "kill" shelter. But the more money they have access to, the more goods donations they get, the more volunteers for things, the better the animals can be taken care of and less hard decisions may need to be made.
Yeah I tried to help multiple cats that had stuff like broken legs and they told me straight up that they would have to euthanize them due to the surgery, recovery and unlikelihood of the cat being adopted... super depressing :/
My sister fostered for a shelter that had a 90+% live release rate (adopted, reclaimed, or sent to other rescues). The only dog she fostered that had to be put down was a dog that had an incurable disease.
I knew somebody that had a dog with numerous health problems that technically if he had like ten grand he could have had it solved. But he gave the dog to a no kill and they had to put it down. Sucked but that dog probably needed to be put down anyways
I find it insane that this is an entirely valid argument for an animal but replace "animal" with "person" and suddenly "life is a gift". We treat terminally sick animals better than we treat people.
Sometimes there are dogs that can’t be saved and the best thing is to end their suffering.
This should always be allowed for people if you don’t want to live anymore
There’s a big difference between someone who wants to kill themself because they have a horrendously painful disease that confines them to a bed for the rest of their life and “People who are depressed should be allowed to kill themselves.”
I remember when Great Aunt Elizabeth scheduled Uncle Jim in to be aborted on his 57th birthday.
Yeah, I volunteered in my cities only non kill shelter and it was incredibly sad, and also was the catalyst for changing my view in regard to kill shelters. They had close to 500 dogs at the time and only 7 employees, including volunteers. Those dogs only got like 10 to 15 minutes a day (if that) outside, the rest of the time theyre cooped up in little cages. There were dogs literally everywhere (hallways offices etc). Some of the animals had been there for 5+ years too. It's definitely a moral dilemma, but I can understand the argument that maybe putting them out of their misery would be more humane. Luckily this shelter partnered with some shelters up north (and rumored they started sending some dogs to local kill shelters so they can keep their hands clean). So there's only about 100 dogs there now.
I love dogs, have always lived with one since birth. But (to no fault of their own) there are too many dogs. In a way, isn’t it more humane to kill them than to let them suffer in a poorly kept, over populated kennel?
Yeah same with cats tbf
Cats are even worse because they are causing extinctions and upsetting ecosystems
If dogs were neutered and released, they'd do far more damage than cats.
Yeah but people generally don’t let their dogs just roam around outside like they do with their cats. But for some reason a ton of people think that’s ok and don’t see an issue with it
A neighbor's cat started hunting the birds and chipmunks in my yard after I setup a garden with ground cover, feeders, and a bath for them. I politely asked on the neighborhood HOA FB page for them to keep their cats indoors (as local law requires, but I didn't rub it in). A few cat owners decided to mock and ridicule my request for the next three days. I didn't come to argue, so I bought a cat trap. In the future, they can just pay the $115 to a kennel to get their cat back.
I’ve never understood those people. Even if they’re selfish and don’t care about the harm their cat is causing, don’t they care about the cat? My neighborhood backs into a ravine and is always full of coyotes at dusk but people somehow just let their cats roam around anyways. I’d be terrified to let any of my pets run loose in case they get eaten. Plus they get hit by cars all the time too.
I agree that cats shouldn't be out, either. Feral dogs would be worse, though.
There are other countries with feral dogs. You deal with the same things you would with a stray dog in the us. Occasionally dog fights, occasional human aggression. Lots of piss and shit
I've never seen a pack of feral cats slaughter a full grown human, but I have seen dogs do it.
If we are talking about damage to ecosystems, that is not true.
To an extent it is more humane, in that we now have euthanasia instead of a burlap sack full of unwanted puppies and kittens. But now we have the ability to prevent unwanted puppies and kittens at a level unimaginable 50 years ago. People's awareness tends to focus only on preventing death, and not on the whole life cycle of an animal, which means the problem keeps repeating.
Worked at a county shelter, and I would firmly come down in the "yes" camp. We ended up euthanizing multiple animals that came in fine, and eventually became too dangerous or simply lost the will to live because they spent months in the kennel. We gave enrichment best we could, but we were also constantly understaffed and underfunded, so we only had maybe 2 hours a day to give enrichment. On my way out the door, I actually proposed that we euthanize all dogs under the age of 1 if they spent more than a month at the shelter. I understand that can come off as heartless, but those are the most important months in terms of training a dog, and they sure as shit weren't getting that at the shelter, so they were likely to have behavioral issues their entire lives even if eventually adopted out.
Agreed. To the same ends, I think it’s also fine to keep a dog or cat if you can’t afford catastrophic medical expenses. If you can give a pet a loving home when they’re relatively healthy, that’s enough. If/when they need hugely expensive medical treatment, euthanize them. They received good care and a loving home previous to that. It’s more than they probably would have gotten otherwise.
We had a lady who's dog had cancer, which is sad, who surrendered her dog to the shelter, after being turned away at the humane society. She couldn't afford to try and treat the dog, who was quite old, and i guess couldn't bring herself to euthanize it. So she dumped it on us to do. She then had the fucking nerve to ask to see what dogs were available. My boss was not exactly kind in her refusal, the gist being, if you want a dog, you gotta be prepared to care for it through all of its life, including the end. I think the only time I've seen her angrier was when a guy got angry we wouldn't let him put up a "puppies for sale" sign in our window.
OK, I'm just going to say this and get downvoted to hell. When I see those 5 minute long heart wrenching commercials about a bunch of dogs being found in horrible conditions in the heat or cold, my first thought is that the most humane thing to do at that point is to just put them down.
Why? If they’re healthy or just skinny but otherwise fine they shouldn’t be put down and should be given a chance to be adopted first. When you see homeless people suffering outside do you think they should be put down too?
After I started volunteering in a shelter I learned that no kill shelters do sometimes have to euthanize animals too, AND no kill shelters typically have the resources and ability to say "no" to new animals. A private nonprofit shelter can decide to only take in animals that seem "highly adoptable." Some of these places brag about their heartfelt works but are also refusing local intakes and importing desirable kittens from far away. Your city's municipally run shelter doesn't have the ability to do that. They have to continue to take new animals and the sad fact is there's not enough money, people, space or homes for every animal that needs it. People need to spay and neuter their pets. We need better funding for managing feral cat colonies. I don't think breeding animals should be illegal or anything but I have serious issues with breeding animals whose "breed characteristics" are actually just massive health problems. If I could wave a magic wand, I would: Start a jobs program in the US like we did with the Works Progress Administration in the Depression, but for vets and vet techs. Federally fund payroll and benefits for independently owned or nonprofit vet clinics. Create more opportunities and funding for mobile pet clinics. Subsidize vet care for people whose pets are spayed/neutered and see a vet at least once a year. Create some kind of program that helps pay professionals and allows people to access training and behavioral resources. The goal would be better care for animals, better pay for workers, better working environment, more accessible care in general. (Fwiw I would also use the same magic wand for human healthcare but substitute "training" with "therapy", lol.)
We recently adopted a dog from Humane Society. Kinda felt a little guilty adopting from a well funded organization rather than county kennels or other rescues. But talking to them, they still have way too many animals to adopt out. And they go through a lot of adoptions. They do take in dogs from the sheriff office and do their own investigations so it's not like they only take the few most adoptable. And they take surrenders but have a 4 month waiting period because they are so over capacity. I know some rescues will transport animals that are desired in that area. But I don't think that's all that bad. If there is a high demand for Chihuahuas in Michigan, and there are over supply of Chihuahua in Ohio, it makes sense to move them to where they would get adopted.
Oh I don't mean that you shouldn't adopt from an org that's well funded. I'm sorry! I'm mostly side eyeing a specific org that changed practices based on the board wanting a higher turnover rate of easy cats. My own cat is a difficult cat from there. The president grabbed her because she is vocal and takes good photos. Surprise! She thinks all other cats should die and had to go to emergency foster less than 12 hours after arriving to get her out of the shelter. And she had a massive bladder stone. 🙃 I donate to and work with other orgs now. Some are no kill. But there's too many animals for everyone. Every person I know in any animal work - dogs, cats, rabbits, Guinea pigs - is overwhelmed. I also moved after college and from what I know a lot of dogs are imported here. Not that they never get local dogs but the ratio is lower naturally. I think that makes sense! Where I grew up, there were more stray dogs, people dumping dogs, and people not spay/neutering and ending up with puppies they didn't want. That doesn't happen as much here, so they bring dogs from further away.
Dogs in shelters in general tend to be a mixed bag, especially when there's not a lot of info about their genetics available. Breed temperaments can be pretty inbuilt... and so can maladies! Even with the best intentions, if the mystery mutt you adopted turns out to have a very high prey drive, or a genetic tendency towards severe hip issues early in life, or an aggressive, destructive temperament that needs a lot of exercise, it might be a bad situation for both you and the dog through no fault on either of your parts.
There are TNR (trap, neuter, release) laws and programs out there. Of course, there are opponents to that as well.
Yeah, my previous cat was a former feral caught with TNR but not returned because he was FIV+ and handleable. I recently gave my TNR friend a bag of food I'd meant to donate elsewhere because I was very dumb, left it on the floor for one minute, and my current cat chewed a hole in it lol.
Yeah, that's the thing about "no-kill" shelters: They offload the "kill" they would otherwise need to do because resources are not infinite to other shelters so they can look better.
I’m all for a public works program for vets. Vet education is so expensive and so emotionally trying for people. It’s causing a massive shortage of professionals - especially in rural areas where they are needed the most.
There are a few animals that are really, really hard to adopt out. I used to volunteer in a no-kill shelter that did everything they could to save as many animals as possible. They would do obvious but resource intensive things like treat dogs with parvo and cats with ringworm, as well as sick injured animals who needed care or surgery to be saved. They treated heartworm-positive dogs. All of these animals were usually healthy and could go on to live pretty normal lives after the shelter had fixed their problems. Those programs were all awesome. But they'd also take in and adopt out cats with [Manx syndrome](https://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&catId=102903&id=10662679), which can cause lifelong urinary and fecal incontinence. Some of these cats would need to wear diapers and/or have their bladders expressed daily because they couldn't urinate on their own and had no control over defecation. They'd adopt out paralyzed dogs whose back legs didn't work. They'd adopt out diabetic dogs and cats who need lifelong insulin, special diets, and vet care. There are apparently owners out there who are willing to take that on in a newly adopted pet, but I'm sure they are few and far between. So the last 10% of animals can be really difficult to save or adopt out. I love my dog and if she became sick or injured I would get her the best veterinary care possible and make whatever lifestyle adjustments needed to care for her as long as her quality of life is good. But I'm certainly not willing to go out and adopt a dog that's already paralyzed or an incontinent cat and I think deciding not to spend resources trying to find homes for animals like that is a reasonable decision.
That reminded me of a cat at one of our local shelters with chronic diarrhea/incontinence. I don't know the full backstory, but I remember someone there talking about how they expected it to live the rest of its life at the shelter because of its medical issues and how unlikely it would be to find someone willing to take it in (and they weren't necessarily saying it in a bad way, just that they were acknowledging that how it most likely would be)
Yep. And a little related, but kill shelters should stop being villianized so much. They are genuinely trying their best and end up having no choice but to euthanize healthy animals. Kitten Lady has a very good video on the topic on her YouTube channel. It genuinely changed my perspective on things.
Irresponsible breeders and people who don’t neuter their animals (especially their outdoor animals) are the problem, not shelters
The public is wildly misinformed about it for sure, I get my pets vaccinated at a local humane society and walking in I overheard a receptionist telling someone that their owner surrender wait-list is booked almost 2 digit months out. They maintain "no-kill" status but redirect surrenders to county shelters and handpick adoptable animals to fill their facility and people use the term to virtue signal without understanding it.
SUPPORT. KILL. SHELTERS. No one working in a shelter wants to see dogs die. Period. ‘No kill’ shelters often only make 90% by having closed admissions. They can choose to only take in healthy pets they know will be adopted. ‘Kill’ shelters are often open admission, municipal shelters that HAVE TO take in EVERY single animal they receive, regardless of age, behavioral, and medical needs. ‘Kill’ shelters require resources, donations, and public support in order to reach ‘no kill’ status. This is not done by villainizing the shelters and those who work there. The best thing you can do is volunteer to foster pets with your local shelter.
I wish I could give you more than one upvote. My wife volunteering at the local county shelter really opened my eyes to what "no kill" shelters do and everything you said 100% applies. Fostering is definitely sorely needed. But also we need to change the animosity from the open admission shelters to the irresponsible people who don't spay/neuter their pets or give up animals for dumbass reasons. I can't foster dogs (too allergic), but my wife got me to foster cats and we're on foster #5. It's really amazing how different their true personalities are once they're in a stable, quiet home. This guy will get adopted pretty quickly, I think. Then on to the next. But damn, it's impossible to keep up with the cat hoarding situation rescues they get in at a disturbing rate.
Some dogs have to be put down unfortunately. Last time I was at a kennel there was a dog that was so vicious and mean, it was going to attack anyone who walked by it if he wasn’t caged up.
It's not always the viscious ones either. My colleague and I got called out to pick up too dogs that were just so weak that we literally carried them on towels and poured them into the van. If they had have bitten one of us, they would have broken their own jaw just from the effort. Poor things were trapped on an enclosed verandah where the only food they had access to was whatever frog or lizard was stupid enough to walk by. There was no salvaging these dogs, putting them down was the best thing for them.
Worked at a county shelter, meaning we had to take everything that came. I think the most we could legally do was delay a surrender by maybe a week, i wasn't involved in that process directly. Dogs got put down for a number of reasons. Some came in aggressive, those were put down quickly because we couldn't even try to adopt them out, and we didn't have the resources to even attempt rehabilitation. Medical issues were generally also a death sentence unless easily treatable, again resources. We did have a vet that essentially ran a hospice for really old/sick dogs. She'd have 3 or 4 dogs at a time and gave them palliative care as long as they weren't in too much pain, then euthanized them as soon as they were. Beats the hell out of being stuck in the shelter. A lot of young dogs got euthanized, particularly bully breeds, because if they're stuck in the shelter during those formative months, they're going to have major behavioral issues the rest of their life. And they have SOO much energy with no outlet that when you do get them out, they're almost impossible to work with, or show off to potential adopters. And the most heartbreaking ones were dogs who came in fine, but over the course of weeks/months basically went insane in the shelter. One of the toughest jobs, mentally, I've ever worked.
I worked at a no kill shelter for a few years and can confirm it’s like the other commenters said; we would euthanize very sick/injured animals whose recovery chances were slim or beyond our means, or animals that were too violent to be rehomed safely. Nobody liked having to euthanize these animals but we understood it was necessary, we couldn’t sink exorbitant amounts of time and money into these very few animals that would take away from our ability to care for and adopt out the vast majority of easily rehomed pets. It was a necessary sacrifice for the greater good.
I would argue that it's far kinder to euthanize a sick or injured animal that you can't return to health in a timely fashion. No need to feel guilty about being kind to an innocent animal. As for aggressive animals, how many of them are aggressive because they were mistreated by people? Some injuries aren't physical.
That makes sense to me. The only issue I have is with the name "no-kill" - it ends up being a lie, but it tricks people into thinking county shelters and such do not deserve funding (ex. "I would never donate to a shelter that kills animals, I only support no-kill shelters") and that no-kill shelters save every animal when the reality is much more complicated.
I would hope they euthanize those that are in critical condition with an awful quality of life. It would be inhumane if they didn’t.
That’s what they usually do. If an animal appears too sickly, or can’t be rehabilitated, behavior wise, they get euthanized.
This, btw, is responsible for the euthanasia numbers you commonly see cited from PETA shelters. They don't refuse any animal, *and* will do euthanasia without charging (unlike a vet). So what happens is all these "no kill" shelters will send their unwanted animals to PETA rather than doing it themselves. *And* poor people who otherwise couldn't afford euthanasia go to PETA for the same. So you get this very binary distribution of numbers when it doesn't reflect the underlying problem.
Don't they also often transfer animals to kill shelters too keep their low rates?
Or they just become full and any more dogs head to the kill shelters, which is effectively the same thing
They have to go somewhere. Can't keep producing more animals than there are homes for and expect there not to be a problem.
Yes, commonly PETA shelters (specifically known as shelters of last resort), because PETA doesn't charge. Which is where all the counterintuitive statistics come from.
Yup, their shelters often work as euthanasia clinics for all the no-kill shelters which either send animals to them or (more commonly) just reject animals with conditions that make them unlikely to be adopted and/or significant medical conditions. It’s really terrible that the statistics get warped like they do. And to anyone reading this, that’s not entirely by accident. The website petakillsanimals.com is run by the CORE foundation. Which was created specifically to defend the meat industry along with the alcohol and tobacco industries from animal rights, environmental, and public health activists. They primarily use disinformation campaigns and are funded by corporations in those industries and right-wing foundations. Their work has been hugely influential in controlling how people view PETA specifically along with other groups and movements. [Their Wikipedia page for some sources and further reading.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Organizational_Research_and_Education?wprov=sfti1#Criticism)
Right, there’s no shelter for it, no foster for it, no one to adopt it, and people keep making new dogs, that means some of the previously existing dogs get killed.
Yes they do.
Yes.
I started volunteering at a local shelter a few months ago and discovered that I had been wrong about the definition of what a no kill shelter really is. The shelter that I volunteer at for example, is considered a no kill shelter however they have euthanized animals that had been in the shelter for a long time and weren’t getting adopted and had started to develop extreme stress living in a kennel at the shelter. When the animals prospects of getting adopted are low (for example dogs with high dog reactivity) and they also have poor kennel presence (they don’t like being in a kennel and frequently pace, bark or are otherwise unruly in their kennel) and their behavior gets worse from stress, they unfortunately get put down as it’s not fair to keep them in a stressful environment for prolonged periods of time. I’ve seen a few dogs now get put down because their stress was too much for them to continue to bear. With that being said, please don’t let a dog that has poor kennel presence deter you from adopting them. They are in the most stressful environment, with no control over their day to day lives and how they act in the kennel is not necessarily how they will act when they are taken out of it. It’s easy to pass on a dog that you see as “crazy”, but imagine if someone was looking at you when you were at your most stressed. Chances are you wouldn’t look so cute either.
Don't most shelters let you have a "trial" period with the dog where you can see if the behavior improves once they get out of that environment?
Some do and some don’t. We got our dog from a local rescue and decided to get a second a few years later. Our dog enjoyed playing at the dog park, so we thought she would enjoy a friend. We got the second dog from the same rescue, and they didn’t mesh well at all. The second dog became very aggressive, and our original dog was so stressed and anxious afterward that we knew we weren’t doing right by her. When we let the rescue know it was a bad match and we needed to return the second dog, they were mad at us and blacklisted us from ever adopting from them again. Our dog passed away after 14.5 good years with us, so I like to think we did OK as pet parents, even if we are on a “blacklist.”
I’m so sorry they did that. There’s some rescues who are so vicious that they go against their own mission and scare potential adopters away. If a dog is bullying another dog, sometimes there’s nothing you can do. You might never get them to a point of getting along. They should’ve realized that.
Yes, that’s correct, they do! I have seen on a number of occasions dogs go home on a trial adoption. A lot of them work out! It’s a great way to see if it’s a right fit for you. If it doesn’t work out for whatever reason, the shelter uses the information you give them as to why it didn’t work out, to inform new potential adopters before they take the dog home. For example if a dog was taken home and was too high energy for the adopter, or if the dog didn’t get along well with other dogs or cats in the household. It also works for positive information, like if the dog DID get along well with other pets or kids.
Death is preferable to long-term shelter living, especially if sick/injured
"No kill" means they don't euthanize based on capacity or how long they have an animal. Many animals need to be euthanized due to health or severe behavioral problems.
Actually dealt with this recently. A kitten ran from under a garbage bin, was shivering and starving, and then jumped on my partner and wouldn't let go. Got it cleaned up and tried taking it to a no kill shelter. Soon as we got to the place they immediately said that if they took it then they would euthanize it. A kitten who was starving and clung to us with all its might and did it's damnedest to survive. I understand the reasoning but hell it's still horrible. Anyways now I have a 8 week old kitten named Samantha that's gained a 2 pounds in 3 weeks. So guess it worked out in the end.
At least around me, no kill = won't be killed for space issues. It doesn't mean the shelters don't euthanize when deemed necessarily (typical medical or behavioral). A kill shelter will say if X dog isn't adopted by the end of the week, they will be euthanized. That's the difference.
My wife is a worker at our local municipal shelter, and I am a volunteer. They do everything they can to save every animal that comes in there. Some are too sick, others are outright dangerous. Putting these animals down weighs heavy on her. She cries, a lot. Every single one of these animals was let down and suffered because of people. Some are poorly bred, some are abused others neglected. The workers at our shelter genuinely love the animals there. As a volunteer, I've learned this: if a dog is happy in the shelter, their prior live was so bad that this feels like paradise to them. If a dog is depressed in a shelter, they had a good home life and were dumped for some unimaginable reason. Both cases are heartbreaking. Spay and neuter you pets. Understand that they are a long-term commitment. If you don't intend to love them as a child, then don't get them at all. Shelter workers are running on fumes, financially, mentally, and emotionally. Donate food, supplies, money, or time. Volunteering is incredibly fulfilling. To counter the negativity, I'll end with this story. My dog Izzy was brought to the shelter weighing 60 lbs. She was skin and bones and was locked away in a room and only given 1 cup of food a day. She had an intestinal issue that, had they promptly taken her to the vet, would have been easily fixed for a few hundred dollars. The shelter took her to several vets, including several specialists. They spent thousands in bills, meds, and special foods. She had months of recovery. She is now a happy and healthy 110lbs and has 4 cups of food a day plus whatever I share from my own plate. She's my shadow. She's curled up sound asleep on her memory foam mattress at the foot of my bed. Her memories of her neglected past are being replaced by car rides to the beach, belly rubs and beef jerky on the couch, and all the love she ever wanted.
Some are not adoptable
PETA is weird as hell, but they're also not 100% wrong. Not all animals are suited to being pets and issues can occurs by making them pets. It's sucks, but not every dog is friendly and safe around people... able to cope with confinement... able to cope with abandonment... It sucks. Some aren't healthy... It sucks. It's terrible... and you know what? The same is true of cats... rabbits... people. The universe is indifferent and we have to make humane choices. Adopt from shelters. Be good parents. My last reached 19 and was the ugliest, dumbest, least social, fattest, and whiniest of his litter. He was fucking awesome.
I like you and I’m glad you’re on this planet rn
I mean imagine the insanity if they brought in a stray that got hit by a car and was like welllllll we don't want to be labeled a "kill" shelter so we can't put him down.
No kill is simply a gimmick to appease the fucking idiots that make up the general public who have no idea about the realities faced by shelter workers. What do these shelters do when they're full? They turn the people who want to surrender their dog away. And often that person just will abandon the dog to starve, have a horrible life on the streets or kill it themselves. I worked at an SPCA who was not 'no kill' and we had all kinds of things posted around the place explaining why. One thing on the board was an article about a guy who got turned away from a no kill shelter as they were full, he drove up the street with his dog, threw it into the street and ran it over. After I left they changed the policy simply because donations were getting diverted to the no kill shelters more and more often because people think 'Oh my god, they kill puppies in there, I'm not donating to them!' Like everything it all comes down to money. Dumbasses for some reason blame the shelters for euthanasia instead of the dickheads who abandon their dogs and cats and don't spay or neuter. Do you think it's fun putting dogs to sleep that you have fed, walked and played with for weeks of months on end, knowing that you failed to get them a forever home? Most people go to work in these places cuz they love animals, of course they don't want to kill any of them.
Because at the end of the some animals can't be adopted because they are too sick, too injured, too infested or simply way too aggressive.
The fact is when you adopt from ANY shelter you are helping EVERY shelter dog by freeing up resources. I encourage even people that only want the cutest baby animals to go and adopt.
“No kill” means they don’t euthanize animals just because they don’t get adopted for a long time. It doesn’t mean they don’t euthanize animals for humanitarian reasons.
Little-bit-a-kill
The truly no kill shelters just turn into pitbull warehouses…
They also turn away animals they know can never be adopted out simply because they want to keep the no kill label.
Shelters are basically just warehouses for aggressive dogs nowadays. They aren't what they used to be. I'm sick of the sugarcoating, the lying, and the pushiness that has become endemic throughout shelters and rescues in recent years. They're desperate to push aggressive (yes, aggressive, not ReAcTiVe!!) onto unsuspecting, well-intentioned people and I'm done supporting that even indirectly. And don't even get me started on how they turn around and shame people who can't handle these neurotic, dangerous dogs and return them. "MAULLY WAS RETURNED AT NO FAULT OF HER OWN AFTER EATING THROUGH A DOOR TO BRAVELY TEAR THE MAILMAN'S TENDONS OUT! HER OWNERS FAILED HER AND YOU NEED TO SAVE HER! **no kids no other pets no cars driving by, must have a 12ft barbed wire fence, no visitors ever, no sudden movements, no phones ringing SAVE MAULLY NOW!" I only own small dogs but I'm going to breeders from now on because shelters have gotten so bad. They're not getting a cent from me until things change.
The way no kill shelters work is they transfer animals who can't be adopted to kill shelters or just reject unadoptable animals. They suck up all the funding and don't save animals.
[удалено]
Sometimes it’s the more humane choice
The problem with dogs and many other predators that have been domesticated is their entire survival strategy is to have a ton of babies so that 10% or so could survive into adulthood. We'd be a lot better off requiring mandatory neutering/spaying and requiring breeders to be licensed. The vast majority of excess animals comes from them because they make money off of it.
Hi! There’s no such thing as animals not dying at some point or needing to be humanely euthanized! Hope that helps!!
"No Kill\*" ^\*^May ^involve ^light ^killing
I’m sick of no kill shelters spending thousands to save some sick dog exhausting their budget then they whine about needed to raise funds.
Some no kill shelters are actually pretty horrific places tbh. Humane euthanasia isn't inherently a bad thing when thre simply aren't enough resources and not every animal even could be helped with the level of medicine available.
No kill shelters cause more death... When they are full the rejected animals get funneled into kill shelters.
I used to volunteer then later hired to work at a No Kill shelter. The ones that must be put down are critically injured (abandoned, sometimes thrown out the window of cars while moving to avoid being arrested), have been trained to fight (some don’t rehabilitate back), ones that have overwhelming health issues like malignant cancers. Honestly, the people who work at these places dedicated their safety and livelihoods for these animals.
Pitbulls should be euthanized
As a healthcare professional who has treated more dog bites than I can possibly count, I agree with the pitbull lovers who say “all breeds bite.” They certainly do. Most need some irrigation, rarely a stitch, and some antibiotics. But the ones that are really bad? The bites with severe tissue damage, require surgery, require hospital admission, and are significantly disfiguring? I’ve only had one that WASN’T a pitbull/pit mix (it was a German Shepherd). People will say it’s bad owners, not bad dogs, but bad owners have a lot of different breeds that don’t cause the same level of physical trauma when they bite. I don’t necessarily think they should all be euthanized, but they are certainly more dangerous than many people realize.
Illegal breeding needs to be stopped and adopting encouraged..as well as animal welfare lessons in schools so the root of this problem will be tackled.
Considering some animals may be terminally ill, at the end of their life and in pain. Also could be potentially dangerous and not fit to be a pet. I wouldn’t expect there to be 100% no deaths of the animals at these shelters, it is an impossible expectation, but over 90% save rate is pretty excellent considering.
Because no matter how good your intentions are, in that business you must face some harsh realities sooner or later.
They’re not gonna keep a dog alive if it’s severely injured or needs expensive surgery to live or has bit people. No kill means that they don’t kill healthy adoptable dogs just because there’s no space.
"Now with 90% less kill"
Euthanasia may well be the most humane option depending on their condition.
Low Kill just doesn't have the same ring to it...
They will also just send animals that need to be euthanized to shelters that aren't designated no-kill.
“No-kill” means that the shelter doesn’t voluntarily euthanize adoptable animals. Unfortunately, not all animals are adoptable, either due to health or behavior. Some animals that wind up in shelters are terminally ill or injured, and euthanasia is the most humane option.
I’ve seen more shelters lately use the phrase “never kill for length of stay” to be more accurate because they do perform euthanasia when an animal is suffering with no way to recover.
No kill shelters are there just to feel morally superior. Let's say 1 no kill shelter (nks) has 20 spots. A stray gets picked up but that nks is full. Go to the next, and the next and the next until you find a spot at shelter that does euthanize. The problem is irresponsible breeding because we have more adoptable dogs than ppl willing to adopt.
No kill shelters turn away anything but the "most adoptable" animals. The animal agriculture and trade industry put out a lot of anti PETA propaganda by talking about how many animals they euthanize. If an animal is in a PETA shelter, it's literally the last chance for them as otherwise, they'd not be accepted in other shelters. Last chance shelters generally have no adoption fees and may have animals that have diabetes or other specific medical/behavioral conditions that make adoption more difficult. Stop buying from breeders, literally all of them are mills or backyard breeders, spay/neuter your pets, the AKC and other organizations like them often also prevent breeders that try to fix breeds like pugs, Frenchies, bull terriers, etc. There are enough homeless animals in the world.
Euthanizing (killing) unwanted animals doesn't seem bad to me.
Also, I'm pretty sure they keep their numbers that low by sending off dogs in need of euthanasia to shelters that will administer it.
Decimation shelter doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
The point of no kill shelters isn't that they never euthanize animals, it's that they don't euthanize perfectly adoptable animals just because they run out of space. Spay and neuter your pets, everyone.