No kill animal shelters?

[tango]

They should change to no kill shelters and get people to adopt them!

If only it were that simple. Shelters overflowing with unwanted animals pretty much demonstrate that "get people to adopt them" is so much easier said than done.

 

[dogs4thewin]

They should change to no kill shelters and get people to adopt them!

If that worked, there would not be any kill shelters.

 

[psalms 91]

True, I think that there should always be no kill shelters, I would like to see all of them this way

 

[dogs4thewin]

True, I think that there should always be no kill shelters, I would like to see all of them this way

Problem is that there are too many of them.

 

[NewCreation435]

How do you feel about no kill animal shelters?

i feel like they shouldn't kill an animal unless it is suffering and ill or injured and there is no hope of recovery

 

[psalms 91]

i feel like they shouldn't kill an animal unless it is suffering and ill or injured and there is no hope of recovery

Yes

 

[dogs4thewin]

Agree and some kill shelters do that first before they kill the healthy ones.

 

[keith99]

I've had 2 dogs where I had to make the decision to end their lives. I was lucky, both decisions were as easy as such a decision could be.

The first one was our second dog. He had a tumor in his spleen and we spent a few thousand dollars on the emergency spleenectomy. The vet told us if the biopsy came back negative for cancer he would make a full recovery. It came back positive. Second choice to be made, spend a few thousand more on chemo with the expectation he would live 6 months and be miserable the whole time or do nothing and expect 3 good months. We opted for 3 good months. Just about 3 months later one afternoon when I was at work and my wife was at home he stumbled and fell into the pool. She barely got him out. I was not feeling well and left work to go home. To this day my now ex wife insists I was somehow linked to Joey and knew he was hurting. When I got home I took the dogs up the hill behind the house, Wheatley our first dog took off after something, Joey followed, for all of 2 or 3 steps and then he fell. We were barely able to make it down. Dinnertime came and we decided to feed Joey in the kitchen instead of the garage, where the dogs usually ate. He had no part of it, he insisted on going out with Wheatley to 'eat' dinner. He ate almost nothing and was barely able to make it back inside (the kitchen connects directly to the garage, 10 whole feet). By 5 o'clock things were to the point where each breath was harder than the last. It took a while but the vet finally came out. It cost 3 or 4 hundred dollars, but that was better than spending hours watching Joey slowly die.

Wheatley moped after that. We had some adventures finding him a new companion. In the process we visited at least 3 shelters.

Eventually Wheatley's time came. He was simply worn out. He was a 105 Lb. dog who was estimated to be 5 when we got him and we had him for 14 years. Long story short on this. Again a few thousand dollars. The last discussion with the vet was basically that all that remained was pain management which would be ineffective. There was one last set of tests that could be done, we did them and they confirmed the diagnosis. Those were specialized and had to be done at a specialized facility which was however less than a mile from our vet. One last walk from there to our vet. It was to the point where getting him in and out of the car was painful for him. When we got there the vet was so thankful we brou8ght him then instead of another day of him suffering. I see I omitted that he had stopped eating, almost entirely. Almost, he would still eat bacon. So instead of a few more days of pain and suffering he got one last day of bacon on request and when he died he was sedated enough that perhaps his pain stopped first.

In any case at least both died with their people with them.

Never is a foolish word. There are times death becomes welcome. Those who are unwilling to let their pets go as selfish, their actions are not for the animals welfare.

 

[Lamb]

Aw, I could cry after reading that. I miss my pets.

Having our cat put down when she had a huge tumor that was almost bigger than her body was such an ordeal for me. Our dog died a year and a half ago at home...the night before I told her it was okay to pass on So she did.

 

[keith99]

Aw, I could cry after reading that. I miss my pets.

Having our cat put down when she had a huge tumor that was almost bigger than her body was such an ordeal for me. Our dog died a year and a half ago at home...the night before I told her it was okay to pass on So she did.

I wrote that to lay the foundation for this post.

After getting laid off due to a corporate reorganization I volunteered at a no kill shelter for a while, specifically to walk large dogs. (My 2 maxed out at 110 and 120 Lbs. I learned to like big dogs). The first day, a Sunday I learned the system they used. There was a whiteboard with a map of the kennel which also had little magnetic stick on squares. When you walked a dog you took one and put it near his name so people would know which dogs had been walked. They also color coded each dog. white was any volunteer could walk the dog. Yellow and red meant you had to specifically be instructed about the dog. red meant more serious issues. Of 40-50 large dogs there were only 2 who were white. They were closed on Monday and that reset the week. The one WHITE dog I walked that day had not been walked all week. Same for a couple of yellow dogs. Most of the red dogs had not been walked, the volunteer who had been doing a lot of the red dogs for 10 years was away that week. This was normal and would be worse soon as summer was just starting and when it was over 90 dogs were not to be walked (and in their infinite wisdom they were open noon to 5, the hottest part of the day.

I walked a couple of dogs 2 days in a row and low and behold they were better behaved the second day.

One dog still haunts me. He was an older pit bull. Arthritic, he could barely walk, he was yellow tagged because of this so walkers would be aware of his limitations. In a heart breaking way he was difficult to walk, he wanted to go away from the shelter, he did not like turning toward his prison. More than any other dog there I dealt with he resisted making the turn towards 'home'. He was still a good boy, once the turn was made he presented no problems.

In short there were more dogs than could be worked with. It was feed them and give them minimal walks. My bet was over time they became less and less socialized and adaptable. If instead they had half as many dogs that could actually be worked with they would have been able to adapt out more dogs.

 

[MarkFL]

One of the most heart-rending experiences I ever had with dogs was about 8 years ago I had a male St. Bernard ("Zorba") and a smaller female terrier mix ("Baby"). Both were adopted through the local shelter. Zorba was left there because his original family was a military family being shipped overseas, and they couldn't take him along. I was on the shelter's list of people to call if a large dog was left because they are harder to adopt out and plus I have always loved St. Bernards too. They told me his name was "Buddy" but he ignored me if I called him that. Normally I try to keep their names (Baby responded to the name I was told she had). Anyway, I decided to give him a new name, and since he was so full of life I called him "Zorba" and his ears perked up as if that had been his name all along.

He and Baby soon became inseparable, and Baby at 30 lbs. was without any doubt the one in charge of Zorba, who was just shy of 180 lbs. They especially loved going for walks around my pond, and we would go several times a day. Well, one day I asked them if they wanted to "go out" and they did their usual dance of joy, and so I let them both out the back door and they bounded out where they would run around and past my Suburban to wait for me to catch up. I saw then disappear behind the truck, and only baby emerged on the other side. I thought that was odd, so I went around to the other side, and Zorba was on the ground convulsing. Within just a couple of minutes he was gone. He was no more than 4 years old and healthy as a horse, or so I had thought. I buried him in my pet cemetery.

Now, Baby was just beside herself for quite a while...she kept looking for her partner in crime almost every waking moment, and always sitting at the door wanting to go out to look for him. But what really tore at my heart was that Baby and Zorba each had their own array of toys each bought for a dog of their size, and Baby gathered every single one of Zorba's huge toys into a pile in the middle of the living room and would sit by the pile waiting for him to come play. She would bark, calling for her pal to come play, but he never came.

 

[psalms 91]

Those stories tear at your heart andI always try to get my animals at the shelter or one that needs rescued