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sent by shelter manager to my Facebook


Boo and Gidgys Mom

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Boo and Gidgys Mom

I think our society needs a huge "Wake-up" call. As a shelter manager,

I am going to share a little insight with you all...a view from the

inside if you will. First off, all of you people who have ever

surrendered a pet to a shelter or humane society should be made to work

in the "back" of an animal shelter for just one day. Maybe if you saw

the life drain from a few sad, lost, confused eyes, you would stop

flagging the ads on craigslist and help these animals find homes. That

puppy you just bought will most likely end up in my shelter when it's

not a cute little puppy anymore. Just so you know there's a 90% chance

that dog will never walk out of the shelter it’s dumped at? Purebred or

not! About 25% of all of the dogs that are "owner surrenders" or

"strays", that come into a shelter are purebred dogs.

The most common excuses: "We are moving and we can't take our dog (or

cat)." Really? Where are you moving too that doesn't allow pets? Or

they say "The dog got bigger than we thought it would". How big did you

think a German Shepherd would get? "We don't have time for her".

Really? I work a 10-12 hour day and still have time for my 6 dogs!

"She's tearing up our yard". How about making her a part of your

family? They always tell me "We just don't want to have to stress about

finding a place for her we know she'll get adopted, she's a good dog".

Odds are your pet won't get adopted & how stressful do you think being

in a shelter is? Well, let me tell you, your pet has 72 hours to find a

new family from the moment you drop it off. Sometimes a little longer

if the shelter isn't full and your dog manages to stay completely

healthy. If it sniffles, it dies. Your pet will be confined to a small

run/kennel in a room with other barking or crying animals. It will have

to relieve itself where it eats and sleeps. It will be depressed and it

will cry constantly for the family that abandoned it. If your pet is

lucky, I will have enough volunteers in that day to take him/her for a

walk. If I don't, your pet won't get any attention besides having a

bowl of food slid under the kennel door and the waste sprayed out of

its pen with a high-powered hose. If your dog is big, black or any of

the "Bully" breeds (pit bull, rottie, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much

dead when you walked it through the front door. Those dogs just don't

get adopted. It doesn't matter how 'sweet' or 'well behaved' they are.

If your dog doesn't get adopted within its 72 hours and the shelter is

full, it will be destroyed. If the shelter isn't full and your dog is

good enough, and of a desirable enough breed it may get a stay of

execution, but not for long . Most dogs get very kennel protective

after about a week and are destroyed for showing aggression. Even the

sweetest dogs will turn in this environment. If your pet makes it over

all of those hurdles chances are it will get kennel cough or an upper

respiratory infection and will be destroyed because the shelter gets

paid a fee to euthanize each animal and making money is better than

spending money to take this animal to the vet.

Here's a little euthanasia 101 for those of you that have never

witnessed a perfectly healthy, scared animal being "put-down". First,

your pet will be taken from its kennel on a leash. They always look

like they think they are going for a walk happy, wagging their tails.

Until they get to "The Room", every one of them freaks out and puts on

the brakes when we get to the door. It must smell like death or they

can feel the sad souls that are left in there, it's strange, but it

happens with every one of them. Your dog or cat will be restrained,

held down by 1 or 2 shelter workers depending on the size and how

freaked out they are. Then a shelter worker who we call a euthanasia

tech (not a vet) find a vein in the front leg and inject a lethal dose

of the "pink stuff". Hopefully your pet doesn't panic from being

restrained and jerk. I've seen the needles tear out of a leg and been

covered with the resulting blood and been deafened by the yelps and

screams. They all don't just "go to sleep", sometimes they spasm for a

while, gasp for air and defecate on themselves. You see shelters are

trying to make money to pay employee pay checks and don’t forget the

board of directors needs to be paid too, so we don’t spend our funds to

tranquilize the animal before injecting them with the lethal drug, we

just put the burning lethal drug in the vein and let them suffer until

dead. If it were not a “making money issue” and we had to have a

licensed vet do this procedure, the animal would be sedated or

tranquilized and then euthanized, but to do this procedure correctly

would cost more money so we do not follow what is right for the animal,

we just follow what is the fastest way we can make a dollar. Shelters

do not have to have a vet perform their euthanasia’s so even if it

takes our employee 50 pokes with a needle and 3 hours to get the vein

that is what we do. Making money is the issue here not loosing money.

When it all ends, your pets corpse will be stacked like firewood in a

large freezer in the back with all of the other animals that were

killed waiting to be picked up like garbage. What happens next?

Cremated? Taken to the dump? Rendered into pet food? Or used for the

schools to dissect and experiment on? You'll never know and it probably

won't even cross your mind. It was just an animal and you can always

buy another one, right!

I hope that those of you who still have a beating heart and have read

this are bawling your eyes out and can't get the pictures out of your

head, I deal with this everyday. I hate my job, I hate that it exists &

I hate that it will always be there, unless we the people make some

changes and start educating the public. Do research, do your homework,

and know exactly what you are getting into before getting a pet. These

shelters and humane societies exist because people just do not care

about animals anymore. Animals were not intended to be disposable but

somehow that is what they are these days. Animal shelters are an easy

way out for ONLY YOU, if you get tired of your dog, cat, horse or

whatever.

Between 9 and 11 MILLION animals die every year in shelters or worse

and only you can stop it. PuppyMills (PetShops), BackYard Breeders &

irresponsible owners are the ones to blame for this. I just hope I

maybe changed one persons' mind about taking their dog to a shelter, a

humane society, or buying a dog from a PetShop or BackYard Breeder or

Online; because no matter how nice the site looks it could just be a

PuppyMill in disquise & those poor dogs are usually NOT well cared for,

spending their whole lives in tiny cages, many sick, malnourised,

overbred & rife with inheritaded defects! If you absolutely must buy a

PureBred Pet, PLEASE go to REPUTABLE BREEDER! SO PLEASE PEOPLE ~

SPAY/NEUTER ~ OPT TO ADOPT ~ MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING

INTO ~ DO YOUR RESEARCH ~ CHECK AT THE SHELTERS FOR PUREBREDS FIRST

THEN FIND A REPUTABLE BREEDER IF A PUREBRED IS WHAT YOU MUST HAVE ~

PROPERLY SOCIALIZE YOUR PET ~ DON'T FORGET SOME BASIC TRAINING, AT

LEAST SOME MANNERS.

For those of you that care--- please repost this to at least one other

craiglist in another city/state. Let's see if we can get this all

around the US and have an impact.

THANK YOU FOR READING & PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG. WE'RE THE ANIMALS' ONLY

VOICE!

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ShihtzuBeauty

Mindblowing, for those of us who have rescued or helped in a shelter or at least have walked through one realize the horrors involved I've also heard inhumane stories from my vet. I will never understand why "people" bring what Should be a family member home and treat them like garbage instead. I've had my own experiences throughout my life and have tried to make a difference.

Thank you for posting this it couldn't have been put in any better words.

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FairyTail Josette

This is heartbreaking. Everyone on this board is a pet lover and would do anthing for their pets or other animals. This is brilliant information. Has this info ever been published for flyers to be put on all car windshields in a parking lot, with approval of course? Or, a memo type of information to keep costs down, to be left at pet stores or anywhere else that will allow the information, such as car parts stores, car dealerships, grocery stores? I know some of our locally owned businesses would allow this, as, they have their own pets they dearly love. Thank you again for sharing. The euthanasia 101 is very sad, and the public should be aware.

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  • 3 months later...
luvmybabies

I found this very hard to read. People really need to know this info. I have forwarded this in an e-mail to friends and submitted it to our newsletter at the dog club I belong to for all our club members to read. We have members who work at our local Humane Society which thankfully is a "no kill" shelter as well as another organization that takes in dogs and finds homes, foster and forever homes. A lot of people coming to our club for obedience classes have taken in shelter dogs and we continue to educate people about dogs.

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I don't know where this shelter is, but it's a damn shame they are failing to properly euthanize their dogs. In grad school I did an extensive paper on job-related stress, and I spent a day with a humane society officer. We did euthanasias in the morning. They were ALL done respectfully, painlessly, and only one animal resisted--that dog was put aside for the vet. They had a part-time vet who took care of these dogs and cats, plus administered vet care. I saw beautiful, sweet dogs die, but every one died peacefully. The officers KNEW how to find a vein, they knew how to proceed slowly to protect themselves from unnecessary stress, and each pair of officers worked together well. If you clicked with another officer, you were always scheduled to work together.

I detest that we allow waste of life in our country. Human children are abused and killed on a daily basis too. In Mexico and many other countries, dogs are despised and they make their living by eating feral cats. They are infested and infected. Their lives are what we would consider hell, and if I were a dog in Mexico, I'd be first in line for euthanasia.

If this person were running a proper shelter, animals would not be terrified. They would not be killed if they had "the sniffles". Many shelters invest tons of time and money saving the lives of injured animals so they can be adopted. They need to do fund-raising and hire people qualified to euthanize properly. They should be doing public education, going into the schools, recruiting fleets of volunteers.

The shelter I visited is in a large west coast city. It was well run. Yep, animals died, but they were not terrorized first. My local shelter here almost NEVER euthanizes. I have adopted from my local shelter and spent time seeing how the animals are housed and cared for. Anyone running a shelter should be capable, educated, compassionate, and should stow their anger. Being pissed off at people is not helpful. If they can't handle it, they need to find another line of work. Maybe let someone else run the shelter, and go learn how to euthanize gracefully. I don't have much pity for this person. They're not right for the job.

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I love this forum and really get frustrated with this type of post. Don't you realize you're preaching to the converted? And even if you weren't, do you really believe the people you want to be reached will listen to the message you deliver?

All that comes across to me is your despair and judgment and the people you would want to hear you, don't want or need to be judged.

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Thank you, Claudia. Let's not make people feel like poop when they surrender animals. We need to educate, educate, educate, and accept "unwanted" animals when they are brought in. Maybe it's just me, but I think there are lots worse things than death.

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I love this forum and really get frustrated with this type of post. Don't you realize you're preaching to the converted? And even if you weren't, do you really believe the people you want to be reached will listen to the message you deliver?

All that comes across to me is your despair and judgment and the people you would want to hear you, don't want or need to be judged.

I agree with you 100%.

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mom2Gizmo

This has been around for a long, long time all over the internet. Being in rescue work, I have seen it many times. And sometimes yes, I do think people need to read this and understand that the shelters and shelter employees are not the enemy. They are simply cleaning up the messes of owners who did not care enough.

I was a shelter employee in a shelter that did euthanize, but it was not "high kill". At any rate, I think anyone considering buying a dog should have to spend a week volunteering in a shelter first. After working in a shelter I could never purchase a dog. Not after looking at all those faces everyday sitting in kennel runs instead of on someone's couch. I just can't justify it.

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mom2Gizmo

I don't know where this shelter is, but it's a damn shame they are failing to properly euthanize their dogs. In grad school I did an extensive paper on job-related stress, and I spent a day with a humane society officer. We did euthanasias in the morning. They were ALL done respectfully, painlessly, and only one animal resisted--that dog was put aside for the vet. They had a part-time vet who took care of these dogs and cats, plus administered vet care. I saw beautiful, sweet dogs die, but every one died peacefully. The officers KNEW how to find a vein, they knew how to proceed slowly to protect themselves from unnecessary stress, and each pair of officers worked together well. If you clicked with another officer, you were always scheduled to work together.

I detest that we allow waste of life in our country. Human children are abused and killed on a daily basis too. In Mexico and many other countries, dogs are despised and they make their living by eating feral cats. They are infested and infected. Their lives are what we would consider hell, and if I were a dog in Mexico, I'd be first in line for euthanasia.

If this person were running a proper shelter, animals would not be terrified. They would not be killed if they had "the sniffles". Many shelters invest tons of time and money saving the lives of injured animals so they can be adopted. They need to do fund-raising and hire people qualified to euthanize properly. They should be doing public education, going into the schools, recruiting fleets of volunteers.

The shelter I visited is in a large west coast city. It was well run. Yep, animals died, but they were not terrorized first. My local shelter here almost NEVER euthanizes. I have adopted from my local shelter and spent time seeing how the animals are housed and cared for. Anyone running a shelter should be capable, educated, compassionate, and should stow their anger. Being pissed off at people is not helpful. If they can't handle it, they need to find another line of work. Maybe let someone else run the shelter, and go learn how to euthanize gracefully. I don't have much pity for this person. They're not right for the job.

My guess is this is a county run shelter (pound) and not a Humane Society. I was an employee at a Humane Society. We treated all animals kindly. Trust me, there were still dogs that were terrified, no matter what.

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ShihtzuBeauty

This has been around for a long, long time all over the internet. Being in rescue work, I have seen it many times. And sometimes yes, I do think people need to read this and understand that the shelters and shelter employees are not the enemy. They are simply cleaning up the messes of owners who did not care enough.

I was a shelter employee in a shelter that did euthanize, but it was not "high kill". At any rate, I think anyone considering buying a dog should have to spend a week volunteering in a shelter first. After working in a shelter I could never purchase a dog. Not after looking at all those faces everyday sitting in kennel runs instead of on someone's couch. I just can't justify it.

I have to agree to a point w/this I think in an ideal world before rescuing or purchasing a new family member we should all visit the shelters and see what happens to these lost souls just because someone didn't do their research or simply didn't want to put in the time and effort it takes.

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The sad reality is that the more POSH STYLE PUPPIES are up for sale, the more MUTTS and yes, even some full breed, but not teeny tiny wanted babies..go to shelters...unwanted.

It seems the IN THING for people to not only have that PERFECT pet...but one that some call IMPERIALS, SLEEVE AND TEA CUP and are willing to spend thousands of dollars to buy one, because they are SOOO TEENY AND CUTE.

I thank the Lord my local shelter is a no kill...and the only time and reason they would have to put down, is through a vet due to severe illness!

I know more and more shelters are going no kill and using funding through charitable actions, donations, contests, etc...

to fund the feeding, medical needs and housing of the animals.

I also know in some locations funding is rare and the population of animals in their care are overwhelming and may have no choice but to kill...

But I know using the term Euthanasia is wrong in these cases. Euthanasia is a term used for the act of ending the life of an individual suffering from a terminal illness or an incurable condition, as by lethal injection or the suspension of extraordinary medical treatment. (definition of)

No.....These kill shelters are killing these animals..taking their lives, rather than making a stronger and wider effort to find homes, etc...for these babies.

My local shelter has many many volunteers on a weekly basis, who come in and feed, walk, bathe, clean kennels, etc... for NO PAY..and many other forms of ways they work hard to receive donations.. like they partner up with our local Petco and once a month bring some of the cats and dogs to petco for ADOPT A PET weekend!

That's how I knew Emmi was at my shelter...I saw 2 other black Shih Tzu's (one being my now..little Sydney) and I was told there was another one still at the shelter who was not ready to be adopted yet based on her filthy condition. That was my Emmi, who I fell in love with and in my heart adopted sight unseen!

I know the original poster posted this thread in the hopes it would SHOCK WAVE people into opening their eyes to the reality of loss of lives, but I seriously didn't expect to read something so graphic and heartbreaking here!

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mom2Gizmo

The no kill shelters turn away unadoptable (undesireable) ones. They only take in adoptable animals to their shelters. So that unadoptable dog that was turned away? Or the dog turned away because there is no more space left? Gets dropped off at the county pound that is not no kill. Nice, huh? Makes it easy to look like the good guy and call yourself no kill.

No dog should be living for a year or 18 months in a shelter while looking for a home. It is euthanasia. And there are worse fates. Let's stop blaming the shelters who are just cleaning up the messes others created. Of course, there are good shelters and badly run shelters. But just because a shelter is not no kill does not make it a bad shelter.

Edited by mom2Gizmo
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