Well I've been on EVERY side of this fence. I work as a volunteer for six purebred rescues, I've volunteered at shelters, been a rescue and foster home - private, and adopted from rescues I didn't work for and from shelters I also didn't work for.
There are some rescues who will not adopt to me - too many dogs. Or when the property didn't have a fully fenced area.
I'm a retired dog trainer with over 30 years in dogs, in training, behavior, grooming and showing. I have nine acres. We own our home. Still some wouldn't have adopted to me.
I do do home visits for dogs I adopt out privately. I also do them for three rescues. Bloodhound Airedale and Malinois.
When I adopt out privately it's for what I spent on the animal in veterinary care and spaying or neutering, period.
Many of the rescues I work for do the same.
I've worked with shelters that hand out to anyone and shelters that do screen in some manner.
As a SHELTER worker, the dogs we see come in dumped - in a large margin - were bought or adopted by someone who was unprepared to deal with the animals needs, usually housebreaking, often to not bark, usually not with an ability or desire to obedience train.
Many are "moving" and can't take the dog.
Many adopted even though their parents didn't approve or landlords would not allow pets.
Many adopted even though they had no actual TIME for the animal - students who didn't anticipate the loads of work, dating and school and friendship.
Or full time working people who really hadn't realized what went into actually exercising, training and keeping up with a dogs needs.
Or couples who then had child or children and they "don't have time for the dog."
Then there's the strays - for the most part they are INTACT early to late juvenille dogs, up to about four if we're going to stick with the HIGHEST percentage - most have bred. They came from places without fences in many cases.
Strays even if healthy can TRACK disease from one area to another, strays who are intact breed other dogs while wandering - making more problems, strays can fight other dogs, injure someone else's pet or livestock.
Intact dogs make up 80+ percent of the dogs that are taken in stray. So yes, shelters and rescues in general prefer that animals they adopt out be altered.
The dogs dumped on shelters - by owners for whichever of ALL their excuses, are also in the majority intact. It's a trend no rescuer is going to miss.
Shelters are OFTEN responsible for cleaning up all the hit by car dogs in their area. If you don't think that colors their opinion of unfenced dogs - you'd be missing the point. They also pick up those struck, injured, maimed and dying.
Yes, some rescues go really far in trying to secure a permanent and safe home. Some are whacko enough not to acknowledge the purpose of the dogs and the work they SHOULD do. But that's not all of them. There are whackos everywhere.
And people who indiscriminately breed pet dogs are the people who are contributing to the local animal shelters problems.
It's true in Europe they tend to keep dogs intact and the population down. Part of that is that not every tom dick and harry is breeding his pet for profit and selfishness. Another is their laws that ENCOURAGE people to train and care for and socialize their pets by ALLOWING them almost everywhere. If we allowed a clean, well trained well-groomed pet to accompany their owner in restaurants and grocery stores and malls and other public areas - more people would spend time with their pets, train their pets, clean and groom their pets and the pets would STAY in their homes.
It is NOT the case in Europe that every nitwit with an intact dog is breeding puppies. Partly also because there are HUGE wads of law about zoning, which we don't have here.
Unfortunately too many people here breed too many dogs, to the tune of about 12 million deaths in shelters, on streets and in vets offices due to health or temperament, every single year.
Shelters and even rescues aren't wrong to address the multi-layered issues created by intact dogs at roam.
I ended up with two dumped puppies last month. That would have brought me to ten dogs, if one had not had to be PTS. Nine is still quite a number. The now almost six month old pitbull pup was of course, intact.
I have four shepherds and three mixes, one I got outside a
walmart, one in a shelter, one at the county dump, and one at a dumpster, and one dumped on my driveway.
I've fostered close to 100 dogs, privately and as a volunteer.
While I think many rescues have gone to the whacko I myself do NOT blame them for trying to fix the problem.
I do not blame shelters for the choices they make either. Theirs is a difficult miserable job, made more impossible by every new unwanted, unplanned litter.
And yes, from a shelter standpoint, having SEEN personally the fate of strays, misplaced dogs, dogs sold to the WRONG people without thought. It absolutely CAN be a BETTER outcome that the animal in question be put to sleep, rather than be placed into the WRONG situation.
There are about six million things worse than a painless death. I've seen most of them in 30 years. Whether people pay 10,000 or 5$, or pick it up off the street - some people informed or not, evil or not, well intentioned or not, inflict amazing and incredible cruelty and slow death on animals in staggering numbers and the people in rescues and shelters live that fact every single day.
Tell me how - beyond house checks, and standards, they're supposed to know the soul of a human? Because the rules got harder - every time they were lied to, every time an animal they entrusted to a supposedly well intentioned human was instead left to roam, or to suffer.
Those rules don't just appear willy-nilly, some human, some several - let disaster happen to an animal that rescue had all-but-bled to heal and place.
Betrayal is a powerful motivator. And rescues are oft betrayed. Shelters see dogs adopted out to smiling warm people, only to have them come back stray, or impounded for animal cruelty, or with a litter of unwanted puppies in tow.
It shatters the soul. And yet they do it because someone must. And I for one will not bash those people who do continue to try, despite the heart break, the betrayal, the horror.
And I hear you. If it's so bad - get out, stop doing it. Do you have any idea how many more would die, if the tired and hurting people who do this all quit? 12 million could easily become 14 or 18 or 20.
In the last three years, we have privately rehomed six dogs. Dogs who today would be dead. I have fostered another four. Medical fosters who without someone to volunteer to nurse them day and night, would have been put down. The pitbull must stay here, local shelters PTS pits on admit. That means he stays til he has a permanent home, and so far only people who are interested in fighting dogs have called. Fortunately I can spot those, he's not my first foster pit.
I do it because I want them to live, good long, healthy involved lives. Does it hurt, often. Did shelter work hurt, certainly. But I did give them care, I did touch them gently, I did feed them, saw to their needs. I did bear witness to the awful selfishness and betrayal of man.
This is huge long and if you've gotten here, thank you. Please don't blame those who are at least TRYING. They cannot see the hearts of men. They are very human.
As was pointed out, yes some will go unadopted and some will die, and someone will find another 10,000 who need homes on one list or ad or another. In the end, if you are a good owner, and you take one in, from a shelter or an ad, or a street, or a box, and you never breed it, and you provide love and food and grooming then terrific. You've kept a pet well. And that's more than most people can say. One in eight puppies born in the US will live out a normal healthy life in it's first home.
If everyone everywhere adopted 7 puppies per person in the household for this year, we'd almost account for every puppy born that needs a home. But then there's next year. I'm not up for28 dogs.
So yes, many will die. Do what you can. But don't throw stones at the people working against the tide.
