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.