I have been fostering some puppies recently, and a friend of my husband’s came over and asked me a whole bunch of questions about the dogs, saying that they would be easy to adopt out because they were cute, and puppies. Of course, he is correct.

I told him that the mother of the puppies was available at the shelter, noting that we had to wait for her milk to dry up before she could be spayed. He looked at me, puzzled, and said “Wouldn’t it be easier to adopt her out without being spayed so people could breed her?”

I had to walk away. It takes a lot to make me snap, and since there were children there, I had to calm down before I addressed him.

Now, this is an intelligent man, who owns two businesses, is self employed, educated, married to an equally intelligent woman with an MBA. I could not believe what came out of this man’s mouth. He thought an animal shelter should adopt out breeding animals?

I calmly explained that the reason animal shelters existed was because so many people do not spay or neuter their companion animals, let them breed accidentally, or intentionally, and then sell the puppies or kittens to people who do not sterilize and the cycle continues. Many of these animals wind up in shelters because the friends or individuals that were either given or who purchased these animals were not prepared for the time, cost or commitment of these animals. He was a bit taken aback by my fervor in explaining this matter to him, and I am sure that nothing I said resonated with him.

Today, my front office put through a customer complaint phone call to me. A gentleman was upset that our adoption fees for dogs are $200. The way he put it was “They do not even have papers and you are selling them for $200!”. He told me that he wanted to buy a puppy for his parents who had a 20-acre property somewhere. Lots of people think we judge a good home by acreage for some reason. I explained that our adoption fees did not cover the expenses to care for the animals here. Shelter animals cost an average of $350 from the time they come in until they are adopted out. I also explained that we sterilized the animals before they left. He said that I could save a lot of money if I did not spay and neuter them.

I told him that it would be irresponsible for me to adopt anyone a dog that would breed and possibly add to the thousands of unwanted animals in Wisconsin. He said that he wanted a male, so he would not have any puppies. I said maybe his dog could run away and impregnate a female somewhere else. He said that would never happen because he was too careful.

I said well, that was wonderful, but not everyone is as careful as he was, and we could not take the chance. He said it would be easier to get rid of the animals if we did not put money into them. I told him I was not looking to get rid of them, either. He then said “What, you want to keep them forever?”

Of course not. I want them to find permanent homes, not get rid of them, I explained. Around this time, I started to wonder if another shelter’s staff person was trying to prank me with this phone call. Then he told me that his cousin had puppies and he was selling them for $200, with papers, and that he could probably talk him down to $100. Am I Monty Hall? A Humane Society is not “Let’s Make a Deal”.

What do I have to do to get you to take this cat home today? I started to laugh a little at how ridiculous this conversation was, and that broke the tension a little.

I told him that he was lucky that he lived in America, and that he could choose to find a dog in any number of places. I told him that shelters catered to many different types of people with one common denominator. Shelter adopters want wonderful, sterilized companions, and they know that the money they spend on adoptions here has saved the life of the animal that they are now giving a home to. I said that he probably was not a candidate for a shelter adoption, since the only papers we would give him would be an adoption contract for a sterilized dog.

We agreed to disagree, and ended our phone call.

It is pretty sad that my 10-year-old daughter can understand and explain the problems of pet overpopulation, and why a sterilized pet makes a better companion than many of the adults out there.

I guess that we all know what we want to know. Some of us want to know all about sports, science, and other interests and go to games, read books, take classes to learn everything there is to know about the subjects we love. I know nothing about sailing, and I probably will never as I am not interested.

But, I hope that people who love, live with, or would like to find a companion animal for themselves start to do research on the world of animals. Not just about breeds, and care. But what the whole animal welfare scene is all about. Why a shelter exists. Why spay and neuter is so critical to us all. Why accepting responsibility for a life is a big decision, not a lark.

I am very sorry for not posting to this blog for a long time. We had a large event to put on late last month, and things have been increasingly busy as the number of surrenders to the shelter has increased, the number of incoming cats and kittens has skyrocketed, and the adoption rate has slowed a bit. We have a massive amount of animals here. Our staff is working like crazy, our volunteers have been here non-stop making sure the animals are being exercised and socialized, and there is no end in sight.

Lots of other things have happened, some good, some not so good, but that is always how it is when you work in animal welfare. Lots of people want to work in our industry. There are so many people starting up their own animal rescue organizations. They have great intentions, big hearts, and unfortunately are not always successful. I want to talk about a recent experience we had in order to hopefully educate others and prevent this from happening again.

We had a program (which ended because of this situation) called RAIN – Rehoming Animals In Need. This was a service for individuals who did not want to bring their animal into the shelter that allowed them to post their companion on our website in order to help find them a new home. It was seldom used, mostly it was used by rescue groups and friends of the shelter, but this incident involved a private person.

This couple decided they wanted to help animals. Not sure of how to start, they looked on the internet and stumbled upon one of several sites that advertise animals “in danger”, animals that were going to be put down tomorrow if someone did not pull them into a rescue or adopt them. They saw a dog that was supposed to be a Mastiff/Dane mix, felt compassion for it, and drove to Ohio to adopt the dog, and then brought it here to Wisconsin to adopt out to someone else. They filled out our paperwork and posted the dog on our website, and ultimately adopted her out. End of story? Hardly.

The person who adopted this dog after three weeks decided it was too big, and wanted to return the animal. He called this couple, who were now fostering a mom and puppies for a large rescue group, and they told him that they could not take the dog back. Since the adopter saw the dog on our website, he decided we should take the dog. I pulled the paperwork and saw that this dog was brought into the state from Ohio, and I got really angry. I was upset that this “rescue” was not going to be responsible for an animal that they adopted out by taking it back – which EVERY legitimate rescue will do. I was upset that they had the adopter contact the shelter, instead of calling me directly. I was upset that this animal was now going to take up a space in my shelter and might cause an animal from Wisconsin to die because I had no room to take it in.

I called this rescuer and confronted him concerning his irresponsibility, telling him that it is unfair to rescue a dog and then dump it on a shelter, that I am not to be used as a customer service department for his rescue, and pointing out that he is bringing in an animal from hundreds of miles away when thousands of ADOPTABLE animals in Wisconsin are euthanized every year.

Of course, we took the dog in. She will be adopted out once there is room to move her up to the adoption floor. The rescuer came in later in the day to meet with me to apologize and ask how he could make things right. I took the opportunity to read him a portion of an email that I had just received minutes earlier from a friend at a local animal control facility:

 “We are FULL, FULL, FULL right now...13 pit bulls came in on Saturday night from a drug bust, last week we had a cat house with 40+ cats, five dogs and four birds, and last night we had 13 exotics and 2 pit bulls come in from one location.  Plus we have all these safekeep cases of people in hospitals, house fires, etc.  Today we were forced to euthanize a bunch of animals just to make room...” 

This is right here in Wisconsin. There are dogs in danger right in our own backyard – adoptable dogs, and cats, that need help. Yet so many people feel that because they are seeing a website with photos of animals in “high kill” facilities that they have to rescue those animals, completely overlooking what is going on right here. I guarantee that there are people in those states that are just like them that will rescue the ones they can. We need people in Wisconsin to focus on animals in our own state. Why are we trying to clean up Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky when animals HERE are dying? Think globally, act locally, right?

Another thing that bothers me is that there are some all-breed rescues that will only pull purebreds, toy mixes, especially the small, white and fluffy kind, or puppies from other states. I have perfectly wonderful adult animals here that will not get a second look because adopters can rescue a puppy shipped up from Tennessee instead. I realize that many people want a puppy, but there is a saying that some groups are “Finding dogs for homes, instead of finding homes for dogs”. Animal welfare is not supposed to be about supply and demand. I know of two rescue groups right off the top of my head that have over 50 dogs each – more dogs than I have in my own shelter! Most of these dogs are from out of state, most are puppies or desirable purebreds or mixes, and why, when we already have the same problems, and the same animals, in the more rural shelters north and west of this area.

Shelters down south are often paid a “pull fee” to fully vet these puppies and dogs, who are then adopted out for two and three times the price to people up here. I am sure we could make the same arrangements here in our state with rural shelters. I get calls frequently from shelters down south trying to make a deal with us to essentially buy these animals from them. It sounds too much like being a pet store for us to do anything like that.

I urge all kind-hearted animal lovers to get into animal rescue – but not by starting a brand new rescue, or doing freelance rescuing. Find an established group and go and help them. There are MANY to choose from. We all need volunteers, foster homes, financial support, and even a shoulder to cry on. Once you have walked in our shoes, you will see it is not as easy as you think to be in this business. We are trying our best to save them all, and with your help we just might.