Hello I've Been Here Thirty Times

I couldn't volunteer today because we had an afternoon briefing scheduled at school, but I had a short time to show the Humane Society to the visiting family. The wife was very impressed with the new open-safari cat room, basically a free-roam area with about twenty cats comingling with a half-dozen different structures and trees and houses and ledges to climb in and on and through. It was raining pretty hard out, so I didn't walk any dogs, though I did let Asia out for a quick tinkle (she had that look). But the Rottweiler's cage was empty. "That's good news!" my wife offered.

I went up to the front desk. The people I know/knew are still gone, so I assume they've quit or have been laid off. Still, I asked the kennel manager where "my" Rotty went.

"Oh, are you the one who brought him in?"

First of all, NO dammit I VOLUNTEER HERE EVERY WEEK and NO I DIDN'T BRING IN A HALF-STARVING ABUSED DOG AND AM ALL OF A SUDDEN WONDERING HOW HE'S DOING WITH A BRIGHT CHEERY SMILE AND A THREE-MONTH OLD SON ON MY ARM. WHERE THE HELL'S THE DOG.

The lady just shook her head.

"...what?"

"He kept growling at people," she said.

"Never growled at me."

"Me, neither. Well, after he jumped on me that one time, and I told him to quit it. But (some vet) went in to listen to his heart and he even growled at him."

So he's dead now. The dog who nuzzled my shoulder and leaned into my hand and wagged his tail and said hello to me with his eyes and was getting healthier by the day was deemed scary dangerous because he -- bit? No. -- growled from his kennel in the lonely corner in the back. Any of the staff take five minutes to get to know him? Take him out for a stroll? Get him adopted? Call Rottweiler Rescue? Let me say goodbye? Anything?

In Colorado Springs, they had hundreds of pets and euthanized countless per day. I don't know how my wife stood it. But there, a kennel with an unadoptable dog in it was taking up space that an adoptable one might be able to use. It made sense. It was fair. Here? Four empty cages. Someone just gave up. That's not humane. That's just easy.


I'll be back next week. There was a scared dog up near the front that needs attention, Asia needs to lose some more weight, Fiffer still needs to learn some manners, Sheba too, and this one and that one...