There is a large number of the best...the very sweetest...the most loving...the most loyal...dogs in the world winding up in shelters all around the country. To add insult to injury, these dogs are often medium or large, mixed breed, adult, and some color (tan and black are the most common) that people just don't seem very interested in. They are also often in decent health, with even temperaments, which believe it or not, can hurt them in the attention-getting department.
If I post a purebred husky, lab, or golden retriever up for the world to see, sometimes people argue over who will get to take the dog into their home or rescue, and I often get many emails even after the dog is placed. Post some purebred or close-enough puppies, and watch the threads light up with "don't kill those babies!" and "I will take them!"...often with those puppies' mom being left behind to face death because she is not easily "adoptable", what with those new-mom nipples and all. Post a sickly dog, or a highly misunderstood breed with a rough life story, and people really want to help.
Now, I am not discounting the people that help with the above situations (except those of you who take puppies and leave the mom - THAT makes me angry). But for those of us who fight tirelessly for the underdog...for the poor, scared, forgotten, abandoned, adult "mutt"...it hurts that our babies don't get the same attention. It hurts us on behalf of them...because they deserve to be saved too.
Here's a good example:
I was pulling a dog a couple of weeks ago for a rescue. He was a husky, and a beautiful one. I was very happy that he was going to be safe and in a home of his own soon.
In the same row of kennels as this husky, I saw a medium-sized, tan mixed breed girl dog. She was laying at the back of her kennel, seeming to have lost hope that anyone was going to save her. She had an adorable boxer-ish pout, and a little nub tail.
The caretaker asked me if I would like to take her out of her cage, and told me that she was a really sweet girl. She didn't understand why people were completely overlooking this dog...person after person had walked by her cage without giving her a glance. She was sad and stressed out. Her thread on my animal control Facebook page was nearly silent, except for the occasional "shared". Nobody wanted this girl to come home with them, and for her, that was going to mean her death the next morning.
I took her out and walked her around. She was polite, great on a leash, and seemed to be very attached to her caretaker. She walked around cautiously, as though she didn't want to get too excited that she was free for these few minutes. She was introduced to some cats, who she sniffed and then didn't give a second thought to. She didn't jump, didn't pull, and didn't bark. She looked like she had been fed consistently (was even a little chunky) and her coat was nice.
I looked at this dog...this dog with a great (but not flashy) personality...this dog who already knew how to be good with people, with cats, could walk on a leash and sit on command...this dog who looked like she had been someone's good girl before she ended up at animal control...and thought "How could no one want her? She's perfect! Don't people want a good dog?"
Unfortunately for her, a lot of people are more interested in getting a flashy dog, an expensive dog, a purebred dog, a pretty dog. I was reading Ashley Owen Hill's Lucky Dog Rescue Blog last week, and she made a good point...that it's because the potential owners think that these traits in their dogs say something about their worth. Well, let me tell you...buying a purebred dog says nothing about your worth, or the worth of that mixed-breed dog that died because you weren't interested. All it does is continue the cycle that gets these dogs killed in the first place.
But back to this sweet little boxer mix at animal control...
I thought about it. I have three large mix-breed dogs. Two of them are seniors, coming in at 10 and 11 years of age. That's a lot of walks, food, and vet visits, and I didn't know how fast I would be able to place this dog in the loving family she deserves.
But I couldn't leave her to die the next day because she was not a fancy, attention-grabbing dog.
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| So in the car she went. |
She came home with me, nervous at first, and within a couple of days, blossomed into a happy, sweet, gentle, loving girl who loves to take walks, and wags her little nub tail (and her whole body) when someone talks to her or pats her on the head. She is the perfect dog for just about anyone.
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| That adorable boxer pout. |
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| I have blossomed into a happy girl! |
And she was going to die.
This story ends very happily - within a week I was contacted by the mother of a great girl who had adopted another dog that I pulled a few months back...she wanted my little nubby girl to come live with her! See, all it took was being out of the shelter, being allowed to blossom into the dog she really was, and someone saw in her what I saw in her - a great dog that deserves a GREAT home.
But that's not the way the story ends for so many...it's a painfully large number of these dogs that never get the chance to show what super dogs they can be.
I would like to encourage you to give that non-fancy, non-pretty, non-elite mixed-breed adult dog a chance to live. Help to crosspost the ones who are being forgotten. If you can, rescue them or adopt to rehome. Offer financial assistance to rescues that will take a dog that might not be a show dog, but will show someone all the love in the world and then some.
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| Dogs like Ava, heartbroken and alone at HCAC in Sebring, FL. She is so gentle, she let a little girl paint her nails. |
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| Or this sweet girl, waiting for help that may never come, at the same shelter. |
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| Or Channel, set to die soon because nobody wants her, despite a $175 sponsorship to rescue, at Collier County Animal Control in Naples, FL. |
I can guarantee you, there is no feeling that matches helping to save a dog that looked like it was doomed to die because it wasn't born fancy. Trust me, the dog doesn't forget it either.
