Just finished reading our "favorite" blog and just had to respond. Does this "guest" blogger really think we are so stupid that we don't know to look for a lost pet at the shelters?
This blogger blows my mind with her recommendations for the shelter to spend more time (like they have any extra time) to look for owners. In this day and age, people don't have to be told to look in the shelters, they know to do so. And since when are shelters supposed to dedicate all their time to looking for an owner? Does this blogger not get it that the one thing shelters don't have to spare is time.
My local shelter goes down the kennels everyday, takes the lost pet sheets filled out by concerned owners, and tries to match the sheets with their impounded pets. When you call the shelter to report a missing pet, they won't take the info on the phone, asking you to come into the shelter instead to make a report. I have seen all the pets that were reunited with their owners from this procedure. I see on the sheets the mark through meaning the owner claimed them.
Does this "guest" blogger (and probably just a guest when it comes to the issue of animals as well) realize that not every owner wants to find their pet? That is the problem, not reuniting owners with pets. The problem is that people just "get rid of" their pets by opening the door, or throwing it out in the desert from a moving car. The problem is society as a whole and the lack of commitment from pet owners.
Again someone making it look like the shelters aren't doing their job. Some aren't, but many are and this continued generalization of shelters as all being bad, has got to stop. When will people wake up and realize that the shelter has not created the problem, the public has. Now the stupid accusation that shelters don't look for owners. Owners are supposed to look for their pets and unless the owner has spent the last fifty years in the wilds of Siberia, owners know that there are shelters and that is where they start looking. How many animals have I taken into the shelter feeling confident the owner would show and never did. I have posted signs where the pet was found, I have gone door to door, and exhausted all avenues finding an owner to no avail.
We have to stop skirting the issue and begin to put the responsibility where it belongs, on irresponsible pet owners. To continue to condemn shelters only serves to drive away potential adopters and it drives them straight to rescue groups. A social change is needed and this blogger needs to realize this.
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4 comments:
I believe that the guest blogger is a breeder who makes a good deal of money on those dogs.
It seems that breeders are the only ones showing up on Winograd's blog lately.
Excellent post Honesty. I too read that from the Kat Albrecht person and thought how uninformed and arrogant. Not every person may know about petharbor or petfinder, but they do know about shelters. If you don't find the pet once it is in the shelter you are stupid. I hate to say it but you are right. Most people can't be bothered. They just go get another when the mood strikes.
I left that point for someone else to make. Thank you for being so astute.
"To continue to condemn shelters only serves to drive away potential adopters and it drives them straight to rescue groups. "
That's exactly right.
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