Pet Nazis, or "No Dog for You"

I haven't really followed the whole Ellen DeGeneres/dog story. I try to make a habit of avoiding tabloid stories whenever possible because it only encourages them. I have a loose policy of "No tabloid figures" on this blog, because the attention given to whether Britney gets custody, or whether Amy Winehouse is on drugs again, unless they can be tied to some larger current issue, are better left to the TMZs and the Perez Hiltons of the world, and besides, they are much better at it than I am.

But since I've been on both sides of the pet adoption issue, and after reading Heather Havrilesky's self-justifying critique of animal rescue groups, I thought I'd weigh in on what the real issue is: the responsibility of pet adopters and the responsibility of the rescue groups.

In the 1980's, I volunteered every Saturday at the Bergen County Animal Shelter through its associated volunteer arm. Every weekend we'd see families with crying kids as the parents led in terrified dogs, giving them up because "he dirties up in the house" or "he barks" or "the landlord won't let us keep him" or "we're going to have a baby" or "we don't have time for him." I always wondered what these crying children thought about their busy parents taking their beloved dog to the pound because they take too much time, and whether they wondered when they too would be shuffled off.

Sometimes the animal control guys would bring in a dog that had been found wandering on Route 17 -- dropped off on a highway by people who thought it was more humane to abandon a dog by the side of the road than to take it to a shelter where it might be euthanized -- or because they could delude themselves that some nice person would pick the dog up and give him a good home.

We'd also see people returning pets they'd adopted: "He's too scared." "My husband doesn't like him." "The kids are allergic." When we went through the few minutes of training required at the time, we were told that a family looking for a dog where the parent said to the kids, "Now remember, he's YOUR responsibility" was a giant red flag.

Because animal shelter volunteers are exposed to the irresponsibility, cruelty, and just plain stupidity of people every day, they do, after a while, start to assume that everyone is an idiot and no home is good enough. When you're a volunteer and you reach that point, it's time to take a break. I have a friend who after her second miscarriage years ago decided she wanted to adopt a dog. She went to the shelter and filled out the application. She had a full-time job, but her husband worked locally and came home for lunch every day. But because there wasn't someone at home all day, her adoption was denied. Although I no longer worked at the shelter, I knew the volunteer who denied her adoption, and yes, she was LONG past the point at which it's time to step away. The postscript to the story is that my friend ended up going to a pet shop and buying a puppy. I never knew if the three-year-old dog she'd been trying to adopt ever found a home. I didn't want to know.

I've been lucky with pet adoptions. It helps that we adopt cats, where housebreaking is not an issue. It also helps that I have shelter experience as well as a track record of pet ownership. I know that when you adopt a pet, or even if you buy one from a reputable breeder, the agreement always states that if for some reason you cannot keep the animal, you must return it. I think this is a reasonable policy. It protects both those who care about shelter pets and those who adopt. It gives the adopter an escape clause in case for some very good reason the adoption just doesn't work out. Shelter volunteers may be overzealous at times, but all they want is to see the animals in their care go to good homes. And when an adopter gives the pet to someone else, the shelter can't live up to its screening responsibility.

In this particular case, the smart thing would have been for the shelter to vet the family to whom the dog was given before simply yanking the dog away from them. But because everyone handled it badly is no reason to either drive people to pet stores where money talks and no questions are asked rather than go through the Spanish Inquisition in order to adopt a pet, or to call a well-meaning shelter with death threats. I also think it's incumbent on shelters to recognize when their volunteers are starting to go off the deep end and behaving in a manner that is not conducive to what the shelter's mission should be, which is placing animals on good homes -- and ask them to remove themselves for a while until they regain some perspective.