I found it good as it was trying to address the stigma that is often associated with animals from shelters. The article notes that a pretty huge 33% of people they surveyed thought shelter animals had behavioral problems. It was mentioned by a particular shelter employee that the most common causes of animals ending up at a shelter was in actual fact financial issues or people having to move houses and pets not being allowed at a rental property, for instance.
What are your thoughts? Have you ever had a shelter animal? I've had 3 shelter cats in my life, and one shelter dog previously. They were all great!
I think that there will always be behavior issue with any pet that you get from anywhere, not just from a shelter. All puppies and kittens have to be housetrained, and then learn manners, and other necessary things, and a shelter dog or cat is no different.
Sometimes, they DO come with learned behaviors from their previous home that have to be worked out; but often, the dogs are given to the shelter because the family is moving, or an illness or other family problem where they cannot keep the dog any longer, not becuase the dog is causing a problem.
Sometimes, people will get a puppy, not realizing that raising and training a puppy is a full-time job, especially when they get a large-breed puppy; and once they learn how much work it actually takes, they give away the puppy.
I have had shelter dogs, as well as rescue dogs, and they were some of the best dogs I have ever had.
I don't think that I have ever gotten a dog from the shelter that was worse than a dog from anywhere else, except maybe the runaways.
Some dogs just like to run, and they will climb out, dig out, or just dash out the gate, just to go and run. Often, they then get lost, and will eventually be picked up by the animal control, and end up in a shelter.
Since the running is in their nature, they will usually try to escape and run, no matter where they live, and you have to either keep them in a kennel where they can't possibly get out, or risk the chance of them escaping and running off again.
(04-21-2015, 12:42 AM)Happyflowerlady Wrote: I think that there will always be behavior issue with any pet that you get from anywhere, not just from a shelter. All puppies and kittens have to be housetrained, and then learn manners, and other necessary things, and a shelter dog or cat is no different.
I love what you said here, about there being behavior issues with any pet - whether that's a pet from a pet store, or from a shelter or rescue. It's a very important thing to remember -- pet ownership presents challenges no matter how you look at it, and knowing that you will have to dedicate a lot of time to things like training and having them learn appropriate behavior is a big consideration when getting a pet from anywhere!
I think sometimes people tend to have that idea in their heads that pet store animals are a "clean slate" for a lack of a better term, so they can start from scratch with any training -- but this can be just as hard, if not more so, than working on training an animal who already knows some basics!
04-24-2015, 12:25 AM, (This post was last modified: 04-24-2015, 12:27 AM by Happyflowerlady.)
The other side to this issue , is that many people think that the ONLY place you should ever get a pet is from a dog pound or rescue shelter. This is like saying you should adopt rather than having your own children.
Whichever way you adopt your pet is your personal choice, and the main thing is that, regardless of where or how you adopt your pet, once you do adopt one, you need to care for and train the pet properly.
Many times, the pets that end up in the dog pound had simply strayed out of their yard, and been picked up by animal control; so they are apt to be well-trained housepets. Sometimes, people have to move to a place where pets are not allowed, and can't find a home for their dog or cat, and it ends up at a shelter.
If you do not have a lot of time to train a puppy, then adopting an adult dog is a very good plan. You do not have to go through house-training, chewing shoes up, and the yowling all night that many puppies do. Personally, although a puppy is adorable; I would definitely adopt an adult dog rather than a puppy, if I were getting another dog.
I wouldn't have a problem adopting a pet from a shelter, if not for the shelter's own policies and staff. I am sure they are not all so bad but I have had contact with several shelters, as I have dealt with some of them while employed by a premium pet food company, and I have considered -- but opted against -- adopting a cat three different times. I much prefer private adoptions.
As pet stores are going out of the business of actually offering pets for sale, the shelters have taken over, asking even higher prices and, in many cases, offering far less in the way of treatment for the animals in their care. Most of the animal shelters that I've been in were horrible; actually, they were all horrible but some were more horrible than others.
Then, they impose all sorts of rules on anyone wanting to adopt an animal. One even insisted that I sign a paper agreeing to feed the cat Science Diet food, although I was working for a pet food company that offered far healthier food than that. Regardless of conditions or areas, they insist that the cat never be allowed outdoors, and I don't agree with that. There are often yearly home visits, in which I would have to pay someone to come by my house every year to ascertain whether the cat is in a healthy environment after having rescued it from life in a cage, or euthanasia. I have raised three cats into their twenties; I think I know what I'm doing and I don't need a shelter volunteer to make decision for me, particularly when they have more than enough neglected cats still sitting in cages that they could otherwise be spending their time with.
Each time, I tried another shelter thinking that, surely they couldn't all be so bad, but they were.
I just finished reading the letter from the gas chamber guy at an animal shelter and the letter about Herbie the Cat. Both put me in tears. How can an articulate person like the one who wrote the letter that is supposed to be from someone who has to put those poor animals down, live with themselves? I sense from the letter they are having a difficult time with it and they are doing everything they can to relieve the suffering of these animals if even for a little while. The sad thing is that someone will be called upon to do it and rather someone with a heart like this person than someone who can do it with a hard heart. Still to have to make your money in that manner. I feel sorry for the man or woman who wrote that. The fear that these poor animals have to endure in the last moments of their lives. Its so sad. I can see why so few people have replied to this thread. What can you say? We have to do more to see to it that animals are not so cruelly done away with.
