We Are "Breeder X"

UNITED WE STAND AND CONQUER, DIVIDED WE FAIL

I lost a friend last night.  Well not a ‘real’ friend really but a Facebook friend.  She 'unfriended' me on Facebook because when she posted some pretty hateful stuff toward people who we really need to influence I pointed out to her that judging and hating never influenced anyone to change.  I shared that personally I’m not here to judge or hate anyone but to help dogs and educate people.  I also expressed my personal wish that the people who believe that by judging and hating on people you can influence them to do better or do something different would leave the animal welfare community because it’s not productive, the judging and hating, and it only drags the rest of us down.  So she unfriended me which I am not taking personally in the least and to be perfectly honest isn’t a big deal to me.  I don’t view it as a personal loss but view it as an unfortunate move because one never knows when networking and joining forces will benefit a cause; so the community loses but not me personally.

I understand the need to vent.  I most certainly understand that being exposed to the injustices and abuses day after day after day can become painful and is as frustrating as hell.  I get frustrated.  I get so frustrated I think about giving up sometimes because it seems as if the harder we work the less we accomplish because on some fronts, like cops shooting people’s dogs or people fighting dogs or people abusing dogs or dogs needlessly dying in shelters because there’s no room or they have behavioral issues, it seems like we are losing a whole hell of a lot more ground than we are gaining.  I get pissed.  I get truly aggravated.  I want to slap people, kick asses and cuss people out.  But I don’t.  Why don’t I you ask?  Because although it may vent my anger, my frustration and my feelings of inadequacy, helplessness and hopelessness it doesn’t do anyone but me a damn bit of good.  It doesn’t influence any of those people who carry out the acts that are the source of my aggravation and despair to change.  It doesn’t manifest one bit of change and it sure as hell doesn’t help or save one single dog.  If you think that venting your anger, frustration, judgment and hatred over the things you see that are wrong on social media saves dogs then you are clearly not thinking logically or are under some sort of misguided idea that you have a whole lot more influence by being angry and being judgmental than you could ever have by reaching out to those people who you are hating on. 

In fact all it really does when I vent my anger among my fellow animal welfare friends is to motivate them to join in and vent their own anger.  So the next thing you know, usually on a thread started by a post to help a dog, the thread is filled with judgment, hatred and anger and not many of the comments are constructive in that not many of them are doing anything to help the dog.  So a thread started by a post to help a dog that is in dire need or maybe is in imminent danger of losing its life in a shelter fills up with people fuming about the piece of shit people who caused the dog to be in the shelter in the first place.  If you could I’d like someone out there to explain to me, in laymen’s terms if you will because apparently I’m just too stupid to understand this approach to saving dogs, exactly how hating on the people who caused the dog to be in danger of losing its life or in need of a home is helping the dog get out of the shelter and into a new home.  Yes all of you out there reading this please if you have an explanation of how this helps the dogs please share it with me because I’m just too damned daft to see it apparently.

In the end space on threads to help dogs is being taken up by the judgers and haters while a few of us try to pick through all the comments judging and hating to find the people who, like us, are trying to actually DO something to help the dog.  It’s very frustrating for me to have to pick out the helpful comments from all the judging and hating plus it actually makes me feel a bit ashamed to be a part of the animal welfare community at the same time.   So many say it’s for the dogs but when I see those comments posted on those threads I have to question some people’s motives.  Is it really for the dogs or is it just to fill our own emotional needs to be needed and/or to feel superior to those people who aren’t nearly as perfect as you believe that you are?  I’m far from perfect and have made mistakes with dogs in my lifetime so it’s easy I suppose for me to relate to those who simply don’t know any better and therefore don’t always do the right thing for the dog.  I do know that being judged harshly in a public forum for those mistakes would never in a million years motivate me to do better and I can’t be the only one…

My dear and very wise friend Foster Corder, that I admire immensely for his drive to unite the animal welfare community and help dogs, said something in an interview I watched yesterday that really struck a chord in me.  It was something that I think applies to this whole issue and that is that before we go around judging others we must first clean up our own house.  To me that translates into something very real and critical for us at this juncture in the existence of the animal welfare community.  If we are going to influence the people who abuse dogs, who fight dogs, who are irresponsible dog owners, who abandon dogs, who purchase dogs rather than adopt them out there in the general public then FIRST and FOREMOST we’ve got to get our collective shit together.  We need to STOP, CEASE AND DESIST with the public judging and hating on people on social media who don’t do what we believe they should be doing or who are doing things we don’t believe they should be doing.  If we are going to get them to stop doing what they are doing or begin doing what we want them to do then we MUST, MUST, MUST change our approach and that includes not bashing them or people like them all over social media every time a dog ends up abused or in a shelter.  This is critical to our success in encouraging, inspiring, educating and helping people change so that fewer dogs will end up dead in shelters or at the hands of humans.  That’s just it…we really need to encourage, inspire, educate and help people do better; not believe that we can judge and hate them into doing better.

This animal welfare community has been around a long time before I joined it by becoming a pit bull advocate and it will hopefully be around a long time after I’m dead and gone but our history isn’t the best due to the way a lot of our people operate within this community.  We haven’t done the best job we could do because those who ‘get it’ and can suspend judgment in order to reach people and influence them to do better are outnumbered it seems by those who choose to allow their emotions to rule them and rather than suspend judgment they completely miss the opportunity to help someone change for the better; for the next dog they get and the next.  When we spew our negative feelings all over social media about people it only serves to alienate the very people we need to influence. 

All I know is that by continuing to operate as a community in this manner it is truly a sign of insanity, which is what most ‘outsiders’ think of people in the animal welfare community are, because to continue to do the same thing in the same way again and again and again expecting a different outcome is the very definition of insanity. 

We’ve got to do better at policing our own ranks which means we’ve got to do better at helping those who lose their cool because they are frustrated and angry understand that while we do sympathize and even empathize with them that we must overcome the urge to vent out there on social media, to judge people on social media and to spew hatred out on social media.  We need to encourage those less hardy among us to private message their friends if they feel the need to express their frustration and anger about those people who just abandoned an elderly dog at their shelter or abused a dog or fought a dog.  We’ve got to do a better job of letting our fellow animal welfare advocates get that while we understand their angst we can’t tolerate their negative comments out on social media on the threads following posts to help dogs.  We need to make it perfectly clear to them that in order for us to be as effective as possible that the space, the time, the effort must be focused SOLELY on helping the dog and not wasted on condemning the people who caused the dog to need our help.  In other words those of us who ‘get it’ and who can maintain our cool when we want to bash the hell out of someone on social media need to let others know what kind of community we want to be and what kind of united front we want to show to the general public. It’s passed the time for us to show a united front of people who are focused ONLY on helping dogs, helping owners who need assistance so they don’t have to give up their dogs, helping the general public understand that as a society we need to be more responsible dog owners and if they don’t know what to do that they need to find out what to do; that they need to ask for help because WE are here to HELP, not to judge or condemn. 

There is a Wiccan code that Wiccans and witches, good witches of course, live by that states, ‘An' ye harm none, do what ye will. What ye send forth comes back to thee…’.  It’s a code that we need to adopt and live by in the animal welfare community in order to truly accomplish those things that so many in the community work so tirelessly, selflessly and generously to accomplish.  We must change because if we don’t change then progress will never be made and in generations to come people like us will still be facing the same challenges and obstacles that we face today and will be feeling and saying the same things which only means that our community is indeed insane…

Foster on Tuesdays 4hr shows!

WHEN FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT A GOOD THING

This morning this writer got a real eye opener, as if I needed one, in regard to the bias of the news media and how they use the ‘freedom of the press’ to drive certain ideas or limit others from surfacing.  I was watching, well mostly listening to, a local newscast this morning as I do every morning while putting on my make-up to ready myself for work.  This morning one of our local news stations, the one we watch every morning, had a segment about the Yellow Ribbon Project which is a grassroots movement by dog owners to create a way by which other people can understand that their dog should be approached with care or caution when in public.  If the reader hasn’t heard of this Yellow Ribbon Project the premise is that if ‘everyone’, and it would take EVERYONE knowing about this to work, knew that when they come across a dog sporting a yellow ribbon, a yellow collar, a yellow vest or anything yellow and conspicuous that the dog wasn’t one that was comfortable with being approached and one should ask the owner first and/or approach calmly.  I won’t speak to what this writer thinks of this method of helping one’s dogs feel less threatened by strangers or other dogs in this blog but at a later time I will give my opinion on the program.  Today I want to speak to what one of the news anchors commented during this segment, what the segment guest (who was a veterinarian) said and the stations reaction to the public’s comments on the post on their Facebook page that ensued.

At any rate I was listening to/watching this segment of the newscast and thought I heard the anchor man say something that didn’t sound quite kosher.  I asked my husband to rewind it so I could hear it again to be sure that what I thought he said was actually what he said.  Well yes he did say what I thought he said and that was, “So this yellow ribbon isn’t necessarily just for aggressive breeds like pit bulls right?”  To which the veterinarian replied, “Yes that’s right.”  I don’t know which person this writer was most angry with; the news anchor who suggested that there are aggressive breeds and pit bulls are one or the veterinarian who should know better missing the opportunity to correct the news anchor about his assumption that first of all there are aggressive breeds and secondly pit bulls are one of them.  Either way I wasn’t about to just sit there and listen to it and felt that as a pit bull owner and advocate that I had to do something to let the news station know that ignorance of that magnitude needed to be addressed and corrected.

So when I got to work I immediately penned a message to the news station that I posted on their Facebook page as a comment on the thread that was started by their posting of the information about the segment about the Yellow Ribbon Project.  It was calm.  It was rational.  It was pretty much a request for their anchor reporter to educate himself about aggressive breeds, in that there aren’t any inherently aggressive breeds, and about pit bulls in general.  I also invited the news anchor and any of their news reporters to meet with my advocacy so we can share some valid information with them as well as stating that there was a standing invitation to their news staff to join us on one of our monthly bully walks so they would be able to see that responsible dog owners have safe dogs no matter what kind of dog.  I hoped that through commenting in a rational, calm, non-judgmental manner and inviting them to come and learn from personal experience about pit bulls and what determines that a dog becomes aggressive that they might actually take us up on it.  I invited them to come meet with us or walk with us with or without their cameras in the hope that they might be interested in finding out some information that would actually be a benefit to the public to hear as opposed to misinformation and conjecture based on a news anchors personal opinion or maybe just a lack of knowledge on his part.

We all know the way the news media handles pit bulls when there’s an incident where an alleged pit bull has harmed someone and I suppose we’ve learned that there’s nothing to be done to change this approach by the news media, however suggesting in passing when discussing a totally unrelated issue that pit bulls are one of the ‘aggressive breeds’ is something that we can address and should not allow to stand without public comment.  So in addition to commenting on their Facebook page myself I called out the troops and asked all of our Bully Walks to please comment on the news stations Facebook page as well; on the thread about the Yellow Ribbon Project.  People started posting their comments and as requested by me when I called them to speak out they posted calm, rational and informational comments asking the station to please become more educated about what determines that a dog is aggressive, not the breed, and about pit bulls.  Some people posted photos of their dogs along with their comments.  I was so proud of the pit bull owning community because EVERYONE without exception posted mature, calm, rational and non-judgmental comments on that thread.  In fact so many people were posting that the thread kind of turned into commentary on how the news media presents information about pit bulls in general.  I guess you could say that we took the thread over but in a good way without a single negative comment.

Well I guess the news people decided that they would refuse to hear it so they took the thread off the page.  It started around 8:00 AM and by around noon the whole thread was gone…the original post and all.  People still posted their comments however without the thread being there which was good.

So there you have it.  The news media selects what stories to report and also what details they share when reporting a story.  I guess you might say that they own the information so they can twist it all they want (thanks John Mayer for the words) but if anyone stands up and points out that their information is twisted, inaccurate or incomplete they won’t have it.  Wow.  They have ‘freedom of the press’ and we are all expected to support their right as given by our forefathers so long ago by not trying to censor the press.  But on the other hand when they use their right to report what they want when they want and we stand up and ask them to correct it or withdraw it because it’s simply not true on any level then they feel they can censor us.  I’m not too sure exactly how that works really.  This writer is extremely confused as to why they can say whatever they want, true or not-based on actuality or not, and then when we say we won’t accept that information because we know it’s misinformation they can silence us; well at least when we are posting on social media on their account.  Freedom of speech is supposed to apply to everyone but I guess it doesn’t, not anymore, not in our country.

We Are "Breeder X"

IF IT DOESN'T HELP - THEN DON'T DO IT...PLEASE

There seems to be an assumption being made by a portion, sometimes a large portion, of the animal welfare/dog rescue/dog advocating community that publicly vilifying people who surrender their dogs to a shelter or rescue somehow helps aid the dog as it travels through the system.  I can only assume that this assumption exists on the part of a reasonable number of people in the animal welfare/dog rescue/dog advocating community based on the high volume of extremely critical, judgmental and very often hateful comments made by people when posting in Facebook threads where a dog needs to be rescued, fostered, adopted or has been surrendered and/or is in need of expensive medical care. 

Routinely, as I check my Facebook messages in an ongoing effort to network for dogs in need, there seems to be many people, more than you might think, who’s only comment is to say very nasty, judgmental and hateful things about the person(s) who surrendered a dog to a shelter or rescue.  There is no way to know if these same people also share the post with their friends, contacts and colleagues in addition to their comments about the people who surrendered the dog(s) but the only assumption I can make is that these people truly feel as if their harsh criticism is helpful to the dog.   These comments, that can only be counterproductive to the process of getting the dog(s) what they need from the shelter or rescue they are surrendered to, are often made with minimal knowledge of the details or facts surrounding the situation but yet these people still feel it’s ‘helpful’ in some way to spread their judgment and hatred around Facebook thread after thread after thread.  I assume, because at times it’s what I’m told, that many people who do rescue, who advocate or who work in shelters feel that if a dog owner is not perfect in every way (like they believe they themselves are) that means they are abusers, low life’s, horrible people who don’t care about their dog and should never own a dog…never again.  It is rarely, if ever, taken into account the circumstances that surround the situation and many assumptions are made in the comments on these threads as to what the former owner was feeling, how they felt about the dog and what kind of dog owner they were.  Most often it’s assumed and documented that the former owner didn’t care about the dog, was a poor dog owner to begin with and doesn’t deserve to have had the dog or to ever have another dog.  So often you will see people comment that they would NEVER do that no matter what; however saying one would never do something when one isn’t faced with the situation or circumstances only reflects intention but can’t reflect actuality.  In fact it's possible that the very people who surrender their dog to a shelter may have themselves once exclaimed that they would NEVER surrender their dog to a shelter.

Sure venting personal opinions or aggravations is a part of Facebook, sometimes more than a huge part of it, and sure everyone is entitled to their opinion and entitled to express that opinion.  But when people are working tirelessly, some people 24 hours a day, to help a dog why do so many feel it necessary to take up space on the thread to vent their anger at anyone who would ever surrender a dog to a shelter?  I couldn’t venture a guess as to why they do it but all I can say is that they do it, they do it very often, they do it with much vehemence and they seem to feel as if it somehow is helpful to do it.  Concurrently while these harsh assumptions may be partially or even completely true about the surrendering dog owners how can airing the suspicions in public help the dog?  Can pointing out that the former owner didn’t really care about the dog, like the person commenting believes people should care about their dogs, pay for medical care?  Can it pay for boarding for the dog?  Can it find a foster for the dog?  Can it get the dog adopted?  Based on what I see time and time and time again on these networking threads to save or help a dog apparently there are some, many, people who do believe that their personal opinion about the former dog owner(s) is helpful and will make a difference in the ultimate outcome for the dog.  If people are overpowered by the need to vent about the dog owners who surrender a dog to a shelter then perhaps they should consider beginning a new thread where they can vent to their heart’s delight while leaving the thread posted to help the dog to only that; to help the dog. 

However there are people in the animal welfare/dog rescue/dog advocating community who choose to suspend judgment and instead help those dog owners who feel that their only option is to surrender their dog to a shelter.  These people operate under the assumption that not everyone is resourceful and therefore when people come to a shelter to surrender their dogs there are a significant number of cases where the people can be provided information or assistance that will allow them to keep their dog and therefore keep the dog out of the shelter.  It surely is considered a radical approach based on my experience with the animal welfare/dog rescue/dog advocating community but I am hoping it will become the norm in our community.  I’d like to think that as more and more of us suspend our judgment so that we can help the dog by helping its owner that in time attitudes will change and more of our community will avoid the harsh, judgmental, hateful criticism of anyone who would even remotely consider surrendering their dog to a shelter no matter the reason why.  I feel it prudent to mention here that IF the most horrible, hateful and abusive thing that any dog owner can do is to surrender their dog to a shelter then what does that say about how our shelters are being run?  What does that say about how we choose to operate a shelter and what being in the shelter means to the animals?

There’s an organization who saw a need and filled it; Home Dog L.A.  Their story is one of looking beyond the action of surrendering a dog to a shelter deeper into the varied reasons why the dog owners feel they need to do it.  They decided that perhaps being understanding and compassionate would be a much better way to help the dog(s) than to simply pass judgment on the owner and take the dog.  Through this unfortunately unique program/organization untold numbers of dogs have been helped to stay out of the shelter and to go back home to lead improved lives by helping their owner instead of judging them.  The time has come for the paradigm to shift in the animal welfare/dog rescue/dog advocating community and I hope that this organization will catch on so that once and for all as a community of people who claim to only be interested in helping the dogs we will also learn that by helping the dog’s owner the dog is being helped and room is being made in shelters for dogs that have no owner or have been removed due to abuse.

To find out more about the organization who is helping people keep their dogs in Los Angeles go to Home Dog L.A.