This week in Oakley provides a learning opportunity as to why pet owners should just not dump their animal in a public place hoping the community will step up to ensure the dog will be taken care of. Regardless of ones situation, this is the last thing you should want to do.
We may like to think people do the right thing, a most people do, but there is a lot that could go wrong when you dump an animal and the simplest way I can put this is you are gambling with your pets future.
Earlier this week, a beautiful black lab was tied to a pole at Raley’s and was left there by an owner. The owner, likely thinking a Good Samaritan will take the dog in left it there. But it was not that simple. Before the lab was taken into custody, she chewed through the extension cord freeing herself.
For two days, she ran away from folks who came near her, however, she stayed in the area where her owner left her. With the help of Delta Animal Safe Haven, the dog was eventually caught after they gained her trust.
Even worse than being thirsty and hungry, the dog was hit by a car.
Animal Safe Haven is now stepping up to foot the medical bill to get her back to health. So in this case she did wind up being picked up by good Samaritans but at what cost? She is now bruised and battered and could have been killed or starved to death.
How is this better than going to the shelter?
I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt here and say the former owner exhausted every avenue to rehome their dog, and due to what you have been told (the pound is evil) you simply can’t fathom taking your pet there.
This idea in thinking a pet will have a better chance if you just drop him off in some public place because it has a cute face has got to stop. For starters, there are so many unknown answers to questions when your pet is taken in by good Samaritans or rescue groups.
In the case of the lab in Oakley, she has been in the custody of Delta Animal Safe Haven for a few day now.
Delta Animal Safe Haven has taken all necessary steps to help reunite the dogs with the owner including filing a found report at the shelter and even posted to Fido Alert (lost and found networking page) but no one has claimed the dog now named Rayleigh.
Sadly, Raleigh is not the only tale.
Last week at Knightsen School a dog was also dropped in hopes that someone would just pick it up.
After a week of Good Samaritans at Big Dawgs Rescue trying to trap this dog, they were unable to catch it. The dog would run out of fear only to return minutes and even sometimes hours later in hope that its people were coming back. Day after day it was the same routine until the dog was found deceased from being hit by a car.
Again I ask how this is better than the shelter.
What people need to understand is that your dog may be a “people dog”, it may love kids, it may come running every time to get down on your knee and call it, but when you take your dog out of its safe place (home) and drop it off in an unknown area its goes in to survival mode.
The dog will not see people as helpful; rather it sees them as the enemy and a threat. Your dog will not run in to the stranger’s arms he will instead bolt and run faster than you ever knew he could run.
He will begin to see everyone one as the “mean people” trying to take it away from the spot its family is going to come back and pick him up from. Your sweet dog becomes nippy and may even bite.
Your family pet will more than likely end up being hit by a car and if you think bringing him to a country town like Knightsen is going to help because he will have lots of room to run. Think again, we have no street lights and no stop lights. Meanwhile, drivers are flying down the road at a speed your pet can not safely get out of the way of. If you pet is smart enough to stay away from the street he will have to survival the coyotes.
The truth is shelters are not big boiling pots of death in fact shelter workers and volunteers work very hard to place these animals in foster homes, rescues and forever homes.
It’s simply not true that every animal that goes to the shelter will be killed or that they have only a week to find a home.
I plea to all you “dumper people” to consider rehoming your pet. At the last resort please take to the shelter.
Written by Kristy Daugherty Keusch
Photo taken by Shauna Bingman Fackler
Delta Animal Safe Haven https://www.facebook.com/DeltaAnimalsSafeHaven
Big Dawgs Rescue https://www.facebook.com/bigdawgsrescue
Fido Alert https://www.facebook.com/FidoAlertECCC
