Most of you who read this blog are used to happy, perky content, where even the occasional sadness is spun with meaning, the painful is given hope. That’s one of the reasons I created this blog, to stay positive amidst the negative. Warning: This is not one of those posts. Warning II: This is raw, but this is ME – and some of you might not think as highly of me after reading this.
This morning, as I was getting dressed for my “day job”, I was planning a happy post in my head (which I’ll create another time) called “The Faces of Rescue.” I was going to work hard on it tonight and include some photos from Saturday’s work day at two of the sanctuaries, as well as some other pictures I had of our dogs, cats, and the people who care for them. It had been an exhausting and emotional weekend for a variety of reasons; but it had also been a productive weekend, sprinkled with a few good moments and some happy personal news to be shared later. So after a semi-decent sleep, I woke to a fresh Monday morning and vowed to leave any negativity of the weekend in the past.
Oh, what a few hours of Monday can do to a girl.
I took a first step and realized I’d pulled the daylights out of a couple of muscles – that’s ok, I’m thankful to have my arms and legs, blessed to walk. En route to work, the insignia blew off the hood of my car, hitting my windshield before disappearing – no biggie – I’m lucky to drive a nice car, and at least the hood didn’t blow off. The first voicemail of the day is “I hate to bother you, but I found this abandoned puppy, can you take it?” – I’ll deal with it, it’s what I do in my “spare time”; at least it’s a puppy and not a 7 year-old heartworm-positive, starving, aggressive pit bull, which is the usual call. “Don’t forget, you owe $1,260 Tuesday…” – I don’t get paid til Thursday, but I’ll figure it out, at least I do get paid Thursday. Work started out in an uproar – that’s ok, I’m blessed to have a job, and I’ve had much worse mornings than this. I took a break to check my personal email, and received a barrage of criticism and problems with my rescue – that’s alright, I’ve been ripped to shreds and laden with guilt before, and have survived thus far.
Then, I somehow received this, on my work email, where I have such items blocked:
In case you can’t read the smaller print, it says, “Our lab HoneyBear has chewed through our air conditioning line for the second time and my husband has lost patience with her and is taking her to the Memphis Animal Shelter on June 27 unless she can find another home before then.” It goes on to describe what sounds like a fantastic 1 year-old lab, then says, “I would be so grateful if someone would come get HoneyBear so she doesn’t have to go to the shelter.”
She would be “so grateful”…indeed. Memphis Animal “Shelter” is a high-kill rabies control facility. It’s the pound. In the Grand Ole South, dogs are killed in all the pounds when they fill to capacity, in most cases every few days. Those of you outside West Tennessee may not be aware of this, but I guarantee you this family knows it. In case anyone panics like I did, this notice was originally sent June 21, and HoneyBear has since been adopted into a loving home. Why this came to me with “June 27” clearly at the top, and I didn’t receive a follow-up about the adoption, is beyond me. Maybe it’s the gods’ way of telling me to give it up and stop being so damnedchipper today. Well, it worked.
So let me share a part of my real self and tell you how I feel about this family (whose name and email address I cropped off the notice after much deliberation). This family, who is sitting somewhere smug today, thinking what a great thing they did by their horrible dog – why, after all, they went to all the trouble of calling a dog rescue to help find their dog a new home, sent pictures, and gave the rescue 6 whole days to help before killing the dog!
The woman in the picture, happily holding her trusting dog who has no idea he’s about to be sent to death? I’d like to take her naturally curly hair with the lovely white flower, and smash her face into the pavement. I’d like to bring the husband to my house, ignore him until he’s so bored he chews my air conditioner wires in half, then take him to our local pound for a 3-day stay followed by what they lovingly call euthanasia. I’d like to take their poor son and teach him what it means to have compassion, responsibility, and heart, which are hopefully lessons he’ll somehow learn on his own, because he won’t be getting them from these idiots. Will I act on any of this? Sadly, no, I’d go to jail.
Want to unsubscribe to Putting on the Dog? Feel free. Because from time to time, honesty ain’t pretty.
You won’t see me unsubscribing.
After volunteering first with Luv-A-Bull and then with Downtown Dog Rescue, I became so dejected by what I saw of humankind. Call after call after call, we heard individual people hearing what felt to them very much like “individual” calls instead of “epidemic” calls. I’d wish they could hear the totality of the calls and understand that in most cases their motivations were selfish: they didn’t want to be the bad guy to just take a dog to the shelter. Those other dogs? Someone else’s business. If someone else took the dog to the shelter in the end? Well, they’d done their part.
It just felt so convenient to me: I did the right thing. Often I wished I could say, No. No, you didn’t. You did the easy thing. You passed the chain of guilt to someone else so you could have a free, clear conscience rather than thinking about the fact you’d rather a dog die than clean up poo in the house one more time. What part of life responsibility was hard for you to grasp?
Now I’m a mom and I’m driving 90 minutes more per day than when I first adopted my dog. When I adopted him, I made a commitment that he was my responsibility, until he’s breathed his last breathe . . . a thought that makes my heart ache, no matter how much he frustrates me some days. It’s easy to see why he would be frustrated. And yet, do you think that’s half of who/what he is? Not nearly. Most of that is patiently accepting my toddler’s loving attention.
I only had to deal with an incremental part of what you have to. But I’m still heartbroken and disgusted when I see how quickly people can pass the reins and then think what good people they are. I’m not saying everyone fits that bill, of course; there are circumstances where, unfortunately, folks have truly had to give up a beloved dog and been devastated by the possible consequences. That’s a whole manner of business.
It’s all so sad to me, though. Spaying and neutering would save so, so many lives. Why can’t people appreciate that those moments they take out, and that little bit of money they spend, is lives saved in the end?
Thank you for understanding! I would apologize for the momentary rage – but it’s not momentary rage. It’s a permanent affliction from years of hearing the same story every day. You said it, “…passing the chain of guilt to someone else.”
The sad thing here is, it’s not even the money or time for spay/neuter, as we have all kinds of discount programs and it can be done for $30 or less – it’s the mindset. There are honestly people here who don’t “believe” in it.
I can’t even get started today. GRRRRRRR….
Stopped by after you visited my site to see what you were up to. I for one appreciate a real and honest blog. My dogs have always been treated as a member of the family and they have always given us so much. It makes me sick to see other people treat them as objects that are easily disposed of instead of the loving, living creatures that they are. I don’t know how you treat those people how to love.
I appreciate that you work hard to save these poor animals from the heartless people who bought them.
Thank you for the words of encouragement. One of my favorite things about blogging is ‘meeting’ people from across the country who understand how animals should be treated! Those folks are few and far between here in TN.
I haven’t blogged in a while because we’ve had some crises at work (my day job), but I’ll get back on it this weekend. Actually that’s how I found your site; I am committing to the “post a week” challenge so I will be more focused on the blog, and I found yours there. I have a lot of great rescue stories I can’t wait to share from the past month.
I enjoyed your blog. The photography is lovely and I plan to add a link to your “green” post if you don’t mind. I have been really missing my grandmother lately, and I had forgotten about her fascination with green. Sometimes we get so busy in this life we don’t even see the grandeur all around us.