[Gene]

So at our shelter dogs that come in sick or have been neglected for a long period of time are sent immediately to the vet. The Veterinarian makes the decision on whether or not the dog should be put to sleep. When a dog can be saved all medical bills are paid without a second thought.

Dogs with poor social skills (I am talking about just being knuckleheads, I call them “exuberant”, are not considered for euthanasia. They sit at the shelter unless they do something stupid. Certain people will work with them.<font face=”inherit”> The purebred that are hard to control we try to get them into a rescue say a Rottweiler or German </font>Shepherd.

At our shelter it is 3 strikes (bites) and you’re out, generally. Hard decisions are made all the time. I will give you a for instance. A stray 60lb pit bull came in and after a couple of days he started humping the people that were walking him. That is a bad sign. So now he is not getting walked except for a couple of people. He goes from the inside cage to the outside cage. He becomes frustrated and latched onto the back of a persons thigh.

Now volunteers really don’t want to mess around with him. There are only two, maybe 3 volunteers that have the experience to interact with this dog. This is one example. We take dogs in from kill shelters. They will call and say they have 4 highly adoptable dogs they can send us. Now we can only take 3. A month later a kill shelter calls and says they will send us 3, but we can only take 2.

Is it right that this dog sits at the shelter for 6/7 months or longer waiting for a VERY experienced person to come thru the door while maybe 5/6 dogs got put down in Kentucky?

This is a cruel to look at it but some dogs are holding up the line. To keep your sanity you say I had to let one go but I saved 3 or 4.

[Tommy]

Takoda this must be taking a toll on you

( I have experience with something similar)

Dead dogs don’t suffer anymore and they can’t do harm to anyone. this is a very hard and cruel thing to say but with limited resources it is a reality. You just can’t help everyone and have to focus on the right ones.

I am sure There are many really good dogs I the system and it would be a very sad thing to put down 1 or more of this dogs to try to save one “bad” dog just to find out you have to put him/her down anyway.

What if a dog got adopted and then seriously hurt someone

I know I would not have what it takes to do what you do for a long period of time

[Gene]

Our adoption rate is over 90%

[Ed]

Yes, I was looking at it from the perspective of someone dropping a dog at a shelter and thinking that just because it was a “no-kill” the dog was going to have a positive outcome.

[Robert]

This has been a lie that was pulled on the public. I’ve worked with shelters since day one of my dog training career. The other issues with “no-kill” are that many dogs are warehoused and kept in in-humane conditions for a long long time, there are deceptive metrics by which numbers are reached and it is a ploy for fundraising. Actually a bunch more that I may address in a future podcast!

[Terri]

I really appreciate seeing this topic talked about. I have been involved with shelters and rescues for over 20 years. Granted “No Kill” may euthanize fewer dogs than some others. Some rescues also euthanize. Just depends on philosophy. I think shelters have improved over how things were done traditionally but a lot of euthanasia is still happening. Even with the improvements, I am hesitant to take a dog with challenges to the shelter. My local shelter today is much improved over what they use to be. I see them promoted as “no kill” on facebook. The shelter told me they are not “no kill”. They are “low kill”. Either way a dog that is challenging has a lot of competition for placement in a adoption program. In stress situations good dogs can look bad. Their chance goes way down.

I know most rescues focus on dogs that are in animal shelters. Some rescues are very selective at what they rescue. (Not talking about breed rescue.) I understand it makes sense to select dogs easier to place. I would like to have a few easy to place dogs. The focus on shelter dogs as opposed to dogs at large is dogs in shelters are seen at greater risk of dying. If the dog at large is in the city he may likely get picked up. What about rural areas? I am not convinced that the risk to dogs abandoned in rural areas is less that that of shelter dogs.

I live in a rural area. Dogs are dumped out here way too often. There are many ways to die. We have coyote and bobcat. Stray dogs. Ranchers, farmers that will shoot a dog. Some people that will shoot a dog just to shoot a dog. Plenty get hit by cars. Starvation, dehydration in hot temps, freezing, overheating. We had temps so cold last year, a flash freeze hit, a neighbor found a blue heron and a cormorant flash frozen. I would not want to be out in that. Point is dogs abandoned in rural areas are at high risk.

I would like to see more available to this group of dogs. I am beginning to see some evidence of this but hope for more.

I wonder what thoughts are regarding the free adoptions that some of the large shelters and organizations do. I understand the feeling that they were kept off death row, but I cringe at the idea of free.

[Riggan]

Terri, I agree with you about dogs in rural areas. It can be a very harsh environment out there. As far as no-fee adoptions, my feeling is that if a person can’t afford to pay an adoption fee, then they probably can’t afford to properly care for a dog. Even if they can afford it, if they are looking for a “free” dog, I would question whether they really have the commitment and strong desire to make that dog a part of the family and care for it “for better or worse, in sickness and in health.” A nominal fee helps weed out unsuitable adopters. That said, I am sure there are always exceptions. I would not be against an organization being able to “bend the rules” when those exceptional situations come up, but they should be pretty rare.

[Ed]

The fee is an interesting question. I have not seen any data on that, that is, if a dog from a shelter that charges more is less likely to return. There is probably anecdotal accounts one way or another, but I’m not sure how significant they are. The amount of vetting shelters do on prospective parents is sometimes also a bit over the top. A good home is better than a perfect home — some of it, I suspect, may be because of specific volunteers doing some virtue signaling and stuff. It gets complicated.

[Riggan]

You are right – lots of factors in all of this. I live in an area where dog fighting is unfortunately still practiced, even though it is illegal. These people search for “free” dogs to use as bait when training their fighting dogs. These dogs would obviously never be returned to the shelter. So, I have a very negative gut reaction to people offering free dogs. Also, some shelters / rescues may be more concerned about placement rates than about the long-term welfare of the dog. But these are hopefully a very small portion of all shelters / rescues. If the organization does other vetting to ensure that the adopter can properly care for the dog, then I don’t have any problem with it. And there are certainly shelters that get hung up on their “rules” rather than what is best for the dog. I think the “must have a fenced yard” is a common example. There are cases where people are not allowed to have fences due to homeowner association rules. If they are able to ensure that the dog gets plenty of exercise, and especially if it is a low energy or older dog, then why would you turn away a loving home just because they don’t have a fence (and probably don’t even need one)? I was excluded from consideration for a couple of dogs before I got Lance even though we were going to be putting up a fence as soon as we could get the work done (supply chain problems caused major delays), even though I think I am a pretty good dog owner! It does get complicated, and every shelter / rescue is going to be slightly different.

[Ed]

Don’t have a fence either 🙂