Martha is an 83 year old woman. She's a lovely lady, but after losing her husband, is a bit lonely. Her children are grown, with children and agendas of their own. They're busy, they don't call as often as they used to. Martha wants a friend, desirous of the companionship she so misses. She gets in her car and makes a trip to the local "humane society." "May I see the dogs?" she asks.
She is brought into the kennel area. Looking over all the dogs, she finds one that tugs at her heart strings. Enter Beau, a seventeen month old black Labrador Retriever. Beau looks a lot like the first dog Martha and her husband George had adopted together. "That's the one," she says, pointing and smiling at Beau. The shelter volunteer nods, "that'll be $150 adoption fee and you can take Beau home today!"
Martha makes out the check and walks out to her car with Beau.
Three hours later, Martha and Beau are back at the humane society. "He's just too strong for me," she says. "I tried to take him for a walk but he pulled me over and hurt me. I don't think this is the right dog for me," she admits, sadly.
"That'll be a $50 turn in fee, Ms. Banks," says the shelter volunteer. For the second time this day, Martha pulls out her checkbook. She leaves the shelter, her feelings of loneliness still real as ever and now compounded with feelings of guilt, as though she had "failed" Beau.
The truth of the matter is, the shelter had failed both Beau and Martha. Neither Beau nor Martha had done anything wrong.
This is a true story. While we are quick to condemn puppy millers and other unscrupulous entrepreneurs that breed dogs for profit without thought of the well-being of both the dogs they produce and the people that open their homes to them, we are understandably reluctant to in any way critique shelter or rescue operations. The sad fact is, not all rescue or shelter operations are created equal. Are shelters, rescues, or humane societies that sell adopters false promises and offer no support any better? Aren't they, like millers, just looking to profit at the expense of canine suffering?
Not all shelters are like this, but I am sure that this humane society is not an aberration; there are likely others like it, possibly near where you live.
This shelter routinely adopts animals into homes without screening. One of the volunteers tells a trainer, "This happens a lot. They make more money if the dog doesn't find a forever home." Beau had arrived to the shelter with a $50 turn in fee. The adoption fee was $150. Each time Beau is adopted into a home and returned to the shelter, the shelter gets to make money off this dog again. Each time, the dog becomes more stressed and less homeable. Each time, well-meaning pet owners wanting to rescue an animal in need leave alone, frustrated, and feeling like failures, turned off by the whole sheltering experience.
Some shelters place dogs inappropriately out of desperation. They simply need to make space, because they cannot house all the dogs that enter their doors. They are forced to make difficult decisions - do we send this dog home with an owner who may not be able to care for him adequately, or do we euthanize him for lack of space? In this instance, there are no easy answers, but there are some options (more on that later). This rant isn't directed toward those shelters, but to the ones that have the resources to do better for dogs and choose not to.
I'm sure I'll get hate mail and people that think I'm the devil for daring to say anything against any shelter operation on the planet. People will remind me that resources are limited, a fact which I am well aware of. But if resources are allocated irresponsibly, people need to be aware. People make donations thinking they will improve the lives of animals, not realizing that many of these organizations have little or no financial accountability when it comes to the distribution and utilization of donated funds and items.
My business partner donated $5,000 worth of training equipment, leashes, harnesses, clickers, treat bags, toys, Kongs, etc. to a local shelter. When he went back the next week, all of the items were gone. He found them again, later that weekend, on a table at a local flea market, run by a shelter volunteer. Understandably, he never volunteered there again, to the detriment of the dogs and their eventual adopters.
Despite our distaste at the shelter's practices, our hearts can't help but ache for the dogs. Now we are forced to donate things that nobody would want to steal - towels, old blankets, second hand dog toys that are still in usable shape, etc. At least we feel relatively assured that these will go to the dogs.
Truly, there are some organizations which use the pretence of helping find homes for homeless animals as a smokescreen for their true motives, lining their own pockets. Why bother investing the time and resources into finding a dog the right home the first time, for a total of $200 received, when you can adopt him out to the wrong home 5x while raking in a cool $1000 on the dog?
The individuals running this shelter wonder, "why can't we keep volunteers around?" The truth is because the volunteers are discouraged. They love these dogs. They sacrifice time with their own dogs, families, etc., to donate of themselves, both their time and compassion. They see the same animals come back, over and over again, each time looking more sad and less hopeful than the last. The reward for their hard, uncompensated work should be seeing happy endings for the animals in their care, forever homes where dogs make people happy and vice versa. It's frustrating and discouraging to see that the volunteers care more than the shelter Board of Directors about homing the dog permanently.
The shelter I've mentioned here actively turns down offers of free assistance from local trainers who are volunteering their services to train the dogs on some basic manners, do a little behavior modification where necessary, increase enrichment opportunities and establish minimum standards of care, and screen both dogs and adoptive candidates to ensure appropriate and long-lasting matches. They are unwilling to increase adoption rates if doing so comes at the cost of increasing profit margins.
Few words could describe my gratitude to one of Dog Star Daily's founders, Kelly Dunbar, who has taken the initiative to develop a non-profit organization known as Open Paw (http://openpaw.org/). The organization's goals are:
Our primary goal is to provide people and their pets with the tools they need to develop lasting and successful relationships with one another and with their communities. We’re here to help prospective and existing owners learn what to expect from their pet, how to prepare for their pet and how to train their pet easily to express its dogginess or kittiness appropriately in a home.
Our secondary goal is to turn every animal shelter into a community education center. At these shelters, every puppy/dog or kitten/cat will learn basic manners and be housetrained, chew-toy/scratching post trained, and socialized to people and other animals. Shelters will also serve as learning centers for the human community, as they will be pleasant, friendly, quiet places for people to go to see basic training and behavior modeled in the daily routines of the shelter.
I think this is one of the most important projects dedicated to promoting the well-being of homeless animals and their potential adopters I've ever seen. Adoption rates and owner/dog placement satisfaction would increase exponentially if more shelters were able to incorporate Open Paw ideas and programs.
My frustration with the local operation in question is probably evident from this post. However, initiatives like Open Paw give me hope for what the future brings for homeless animals. While resources are certainly stretched in virtually any shelter or rescue environment, many of these organizations are not using the resources they do have (be they volunteers, donations, etc) as efficiently as they could. I, and the rescue and shelter dogs I've brought into my home as permanent companions, are eternally thankful to Open Paw for giving those shelters who truly are dedicated to the well-being of their charges the tools they need to set both dogs and adopters up for a lifetime of companionship, happiness, and success.
Maybe I am the devil for saying that some shelters don't have the best interests of dogs in mind. Regardless, I'm not one to give congratulatory back pats to organizations who steal money from the donation coffer, put dogs and humans at physical or emotional risk, really have no interest at all in placing dogs in good, permanent, well-matched loving homes, and treat volunteers poorly.
These organizations are a blight not only to the dogs in their care and volunteers, but to the global rescue and sheltering community as well - from such irresponsibility breeds beliefs like, "all rescue or shelter dogs are 'bad' or have problems," or that "all shelters are awful places," neither of which are true. It breaks my heart to know that in my community alone, there are many dog owners who would gladly volunteer of their time but have been so "turned off" from the shelter volunteering experience by poor treatment of volunteers, adopters, resources, and animals that they are now left saying, "I wish there was something I could do to help."
It just seems so wasteful to me.
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Agreed
I worked for a local shelter for 3 years before becoming a trainer. While they do a lot of good work it's not all wonderful. A lot of dogs are failed or simply handed over to small rescues who do not have the resources to help them. Volunteers and staff are mis-managed.
Worse still are the conditions at the local dog pound. They have almost no screening for adopters unless they are adopting "pitbull types" and the techs know nothing about behaviour despite attempts to reach out to them. They don't even take dogs back that haven't worked out.
There are also many small rescues that do not have enough resources to take on the amount of dogs they do which leads to crowding, no vet care and little screening before placing.
Rescue is an extremely difficult thing to do well. I think a lot of the groups in my area should take a hard look at what they have to offer and how they can improve. That being said I am thoroughly thankful they exist and animals are not simply being dumped outside.
Jade Robertson
Owner & Trainer, Where's Your Sit?
www.wheresyoursit.com
interesting
I can so relate to your frustration with your local shelter, Casey. I have banged my head against some walls at shelters in the time I've been doing this. I worked for a shelter with an enormous budget. They spent freely on high salaries for admin staff, fancy landscaping, a mobile adoption truck that nobody knew how to drive, and all kinds of other frills. Getting them to spend a few hundred dollars on staff training and supplies to improve the environment for dogs in their care, increase foot traffic and adoptions, and decrease returns was like pulling teeth. For a long time, they even strongly discouraged volunteers from doing things on their own time that could have done wonderful things for the shelter. It was infuriating, and it was tempting to blame them for sinister motives. It was also inaccurate.
These folks really did have the dog's best interests at heart. Running a shelter is really hard, and most people who do it - unfortunately - aren't in tune with a wider community of shelter professionals. Most shelters that I've come into contact with are either run by people who worked their way up the ladder of a poorly run shelter and are willing to work for peanuts or by people who are fundraising professionals rather than animal welfare professionals. Fundraisers focus on raising money 'cause it's what they know. Other managers become committed to practices because "we've always done it that way."
Shelter folks have good reason to be skeptical of offers of help. For every trainer who comes in and selflessly pitches in to make things better at a shelter, there are probably 10 who are either only interested in promoting their own business or who arrogantly start trying to reorganize the whole shelter. Similar things happen with other volunteers. People who come to volunteer at a shelter are passionate, and that can lead them to be overly critical and confrontational with staffs that are already overworked, underpaid, and deeply effected by the emotional trials of working in a shelter every day.
When you're there every day, it's easy to see how shelter management and staff can circle the wagons and become deeply skeptical of new ideas and suspicious of - or even hostile to - offers of help. That insular defensive attitude can lead to petty turf wars and monumentally stupid decisions that run counter to the best interests of the animals. It can seem callous or even crooked from the outside, but I think that in almost every shelter it's a case of intertia and ingorance rather than one of poor motives.
Organizations like Open Paw and others who are educating shelters about what can be achieved if they broaden their horizons a bit are a big part of the solution to this problems. Placing more professionals who know something about best practices in the wider sheltering world on shelter boards and in management positions would also help. It's not a simple problem, but my experience has been that almost everyone in the shelter and rescue world has good intentions. If they were looking to get rich or climb a corporate ladder, there are way more lucrative arenas for that than animal shelters.
Jeff Silverman, CDBD
Cincinnati, OH
www.trainingtracks.com
That Hit Home
Tell me that did not hit home Casey! You could be writing about the local SPCA IN Cecil County MD. I also volunteered training time and was turned away. Well, they wanted me to clean out cages is what they wanted me to do. I`ve cleaned many a cage and mucked out many a stall in my day. Unbelieveable to me that they would turn away someone with expertise in the field that could help dogs get adopted= do they really care?
Leslie Fisher PMCT CPDT-KA Look What I Can Do! Dog Training Where There Are No BAD Dogs, Just Dogs That Don`t Know WHAT To Do.
shelters too desperate
I have had clients bring me many inappropriate placements over the years. One shelter gave my client a seriously aggressive akita and this was my client's FIRST dog! Ever! I had another client who was given an intact male border collie! I practically fell over! I couldn't believe a shelter was placing intact adult dogs! And also the sort of thing you describe, I've had elderly clients with young bouncy dogs that gave me a heart attack just to watch. One feeble couple came into my program with a rescued bouvier PUPPY! Amazingly, it all worked out, but it wouldn't have worked out if they hadn't realized they were in a predicament that required the help of a trainer.
My plan is to market a class for people BEFORE they select their dog, and in this way I can support both people and shelters in that match-making process. I am also offering class discounts for people with newly rescued dogs (and discounts for dogs as they show advancement in training), to encourage them to start training right away, and to stick with training as a lifestyle! The shelters in my area have little to no money or space for training dogs OR staff, and shelter dogs are stressed, so just connecting with these organizations and letting them know that we have a program they can offer to their adopters (both before and after they adopt) is an approach that supports the good the shelters are trying to do, while also addressing the issues they aren't able to deal with. Shelters and rescues don't go looking for this sort of partnership, because they are just too busy to even think about it, but if all they need to do is put a brochure on their counter, then they seem pleased to do that.
Jenny Ruth Yasi Whole Dog Camp www.wholedogcamp.com
Great and Informative Article
Having volunteered at three shelters that did a great job (one that came under new management that is basically a pet store that imports puppies), I totally get what you are saying. Many rescues really work hard at what they do, and many rescues are overwhelmed with the work that they need to do. There are no easy answers, but one can only hope that there will be constant improvement of one sort or another.
I am going through this
I am going through this right now with a dog I eventually adopted from a close friends daughter. Ruger was purchased as a puppy only 6 weeks old by his original owner, and as cute as he is now, that is probably why they got him. Ruger is a pitbull/lab mix, and I would imagine as he got bigger, they begin to have problems with him. He was impulsive, untrained, had no daily excersize, had never walked on the leash, and worse, was given affection, affection, affection, and that is it. When he was turned into the shelter at 74lbs, I imagine he was just too much for the woman and her two kids to handle.
My best friends daughter wanted a dog so bad, she just had to have one IMMEDIATELY. So she goes to the humane society, she see's Ruger, and fall in love with him(I would have too). His paper work stated that he knew how to sit, lie, and stay, was good natured(that was true), but a "little" aggressive around cats and other dogs. She is a real petite young lady, and Ruger is as strong as an ox. On her first day with Ruger, he nearly pulled her off her feet when he saw another dog. She had to hang on for dear life to keep a hold of him. The same day, the little dog from next door ended up in his mouth, of which he brought it back to the daughter. No damage done, but this made the daughter realize that she had a dog that was not compatible with her lifestyle, or her ability to manage him. Then the city sends her a letter asking her to show up to a hearing because they wanted to list Ruger as a "dangerous" dog. She brought Ruger to me to get a behavioral analysis, and I found a dog that was so completely unsure on how to behave that he cowered around people, and bark and charged other dogs. If you don't know how to greet and interact with other dogs, your become fearful of them, and want them to stay away. It turns out that he did not know how to sit, lie, and stay, and he pulled wildly on his leashed when walk. I recommended two weeks of doggy camp, and several personal people training sessions for her. Her dad wanted her to give the dog back, but I flatly stated this was not a good idea. Ruger was a bull in a china shop, that is for sure.
Two weeks later when she came back to get him, he had learned to sit, lie, stay, and leave it. He got along VERY well with my two other dogs, and showed no agression towards them He no longer pulled on the leash, and his misbehavior towards other dogs had dramatically subsided. He became best friends with my dog Pepper, and they were inseperable. She then realized that Ruger was just not the dog for her, and that she had acted on her emotions and was impatient(I was supposed to go with he to pick out the dog). She asked me if I would keep Rugar, because she thought that was best. I agreed.
If the humane society job is to mate people with dogs based on their lifestyle, they failed here. However this is a success story, as Rugar has become as good a dog as my other two. He goes to the doggy park twice a week, and has shown no aggression towards other dogs. He loves to learn new things just like my other dogs, so I have had to teach him a lot of new things - which has helped me as a trainer to develop a larger tool belt.
This story has encouraged me to go to my local SPCA and volunteer with training and rehabilitating dogs that come there. There is always a rescue dog at my house, and my dogs help me with their rehabilitation(dogs can teach other dogs).
I wish there were more resources for adoption agencies, the humane society, and the SPCA. The people that run these organizations are doing such a great thing by rescueing animals, but they just do not have enough resources or support.