Days at the Pound

So today I got to play cowgirl. Well, not literally, but you try giving dewormer to a 150 pound Mastiff/Shepherd mix that doesn't want it and tell me that's not a rodeo. At least I had help. I restrained the dogs, and I had someone else administer the Pyrantel. Which means I'm the one that gets bashed into walls and beat up when the dog decides to not cooperate. But it also means that the other person is safe from being injured because I'm good at what I do because this was part of my training. The dog warden's office I volunteer at is seriously understaffed (like many) and since I have so much experience with canines as well as medical experience, I donate my time to help out the poor girl who's the kennel manager and does everything herself.

I became friends with the kennel manager the day I pulled my first fosters from this particular pound. They were Pits and scheduled to be euthed and she helped me get them out. I realized her desperate need for someone to help, and began going up there. Over the last eight months we've developed a wonderful friendship based on our love for these dogs and our compassion for their situation. She's one of the most wonderful people I've ever met in my life, and I'm so blessed to have her as a friend.

Some of the dogs up there are so pathetic, and their situations are not unique. There's a Chocolate Lab named Nellie that was abandoned there by her owners. They wanted her put down because she has a severe food allergy to corn and wheat that has caused almost 70% of her hair to fall out and her to skin to become inflamed and itchy. All she needed was a grain-free food and medicated shampoos to help her skin clear up and stay that way. They just didn't want to deal with it. So now she sits in her run, waiting for her mommy to come back and get her and take her home. Of course that won't happen and the kennel manager won't put her down unless she's told she has to. Unfortunately, the pound is full, bordering on over-crowded. We had three more dogs come in today and four yesterday. We have forty dogs right now in that place, so the ones that are less adoptable, like Nellie, are more likely to not have much time left.

Really, to save lives, three things need to happen:
1) People need to be made aware of the situation in pounds and shelters. They need to know that "no kill" is still inhumane because the dogs go "cage crazy" and are literally insane after years of confinment to a small run. They need to be made aware of what happens in a gas chamber, of what heartsticking is, and how horrible the lethal injection can be for some dogs. They need to know how these guys suffer every day and we just try to lessen it.

2) People need to start having their animals sexually altered and not letting them breed unless they are running a high-end breeding and showing operation for the betterment of the breed. If this were to happen, and I mean EVERY person was to have their pet spayed or neutered, shelters would be out of business in twenty years. God, I live for that day.

3) We need foster homes for dogs and cats. Instead of buying, why not take on a foster? You can do short-term (a few weeks to a few months) or long-term (until they find a home). You get the enjoyment of knowing that you're saving lives, making a huge difference, THE difference, not just to one animal, but to many. Of course, letting them go is hard, but it opens up the door to save another. It's a beautiful gift of yourself to these poor guys that so desperately need it.

The solution is simple. People just need to care, to be made aware of the harsh reality that those of us who work in shelters experience constantly. We have nightmares, we pray, we cry our eyes out. And they follow us to the back room, wagging their tails, because they trust us that everything will be ok.

A Bit About My Girls

Finally, they're sleeping. My girls are so nuts sometimes. I swear, the sock gnomes stopped stealing my socks and decided to jack up my dogs with jet fuel. That's what I get for having two high-energy dogs in the same house. They antagonize and feed off of each others energy until they're tearing around the house like it's the freakin' Daytona 500, only more hectic.

My big girl, Tifa, is a rescue that I adopted one-and-a-half years ago from a local shelter. She was four months old and nothing but a bunch of wrinkles and a squishy face. It was love at first sight. Of course, she's a Boxer mix, so she was incredibly hyper as a puppy. She'll be two next month, and has finally calmed down and no longer makes me wish I had a secret stash of Ketamine to knock her out with. All the work I've put into her training is finally showing, and she makes me so proud.

My little girl, Cammy, isn't so little anymore. She's forty-five pounds, so still smaller than Tifa's sixty-five, but I guess she isn't what most people would think of as "little". She is a foster that I pulled from a local dog pound. She was a three-month-old bag of bones scheduled for euthanasia in two days. She looked so pathetic and so sad that I had to try to help her. She didn't deserve to die just because she was sick and they didn'thave the room or the money to make her well, and because she was born looking wrong. Cammy was labeled a Pit Bull mix at the pound, and if they don't go to a rescue or foster home, they get euthanized. I made a decision that day to make a difference in this little girl's life. I brought her home, ran tests on her, got her the medicine she needed, and made her well. I've now had her for eight months. She'll be one-year-old in August, and is still waiting for her forever home. It's not that she's not sweet, or playful, or great with EVERYBODY (including cats and little kids), it's that she has to carry the stigma of being labeled a Pit Bull mix.

Well, you know what, being a Pittie or Pit mix is a GOOD THING people! A well raised Pittie is the epidimy of a loyal, devoted, intelligent family companion and protector. I should pray that everyone in the world gets to meet a Pittie like my little girl so that this misconception of a killing machine can be broken and people can come to realize what these amazing dogs were meant to be. Yes, there are Pits that maul humans and/or animals. Why do we always want to blame the dog? Why don't we ever look at the irresponsible owners that don't socialize their dog, don't have it sexually altered, leave it on a chain it's whole life, or try to make it mean DELIBERATELY for whatever reason, or a combination of these things? Why is it always the dog? Did that dog CHOOSE to be that way? or was he made that way by the master he loves and would die to serve? Well, I need to get off this topic, it's a subject for another entry, another day.

Maybe now I can sneak out while the girls sleep on my bed and get some dishes done and maybe even some shelves painted for the kitchen.