FOR THE LOVE OF DOG

My father and I went to the animal shelter today.

The shelter itself was nicer than I expected it to be. The dog kennels had ample room for the dogs to stretch out and walk around. There were two sections in each kennel, an inner one and an outer one. The inner ones faced indoors and let the dogs watch people go by, while the outer ones faced outside and let the dogs get away from people or pee/poop. There was a wall with a doggie door style opening in the middle separating each section. Most dogs got their own kennels, though the smaller ones were doubled up. The cat cages were a lot smaller. They looked like the typical small, rectangular animal shelter cages, though. All of the kennel areas smelled, but it wasn’t horrible.

Despite the relative cleanliness of the shelter and the spacious facilities, I think the animal shelter was one of the saddest places I have ever been to. I regret ever wanting to actually buy a dog. When I first walked in, the first sign I saw was a warning about owner surrender. I forget the exact wording, but the last line of it said something like, “Your animal may be euthanized before you even get back to your car. Some animals will never get a chance to be adopted.”

The dog kennels are split into two sections, adoptive kennels and stray kennels. The dogs in the adoptive kennels are ready to be adopted on that day. They’re the owner surrenders. The stray kennels hold stray dogs and confiscated dogs. On the door of each of the kennels is a date. The adoption sheet I had picked up at the front desk called it a “due date”. The dogs in the stray kennels can’t be adopted until that date, because they must be evaluated for health and temperament first. If anyone wants to adopt one of them, they put their names onto a waiting list. The thing is, though, if a dog isn’t adopted by that date, he or she is put into the adoptive kennels if there’s room. Usually, there isn’t.

The first dog in the adoptive dog kennels was a Bernese Mountain Dog mix. He looked about six or seven months old. He was already adopted, but he didn’t know that. When I crouched down next to his kennel, he got up and stick his paws through the kennel wire so I could pet a small part of him. When I stopped petting him, he shrunk back into his kennel and went back to sleep, as if he had given up all hope of being adopted. There were a lot of dogs that acted like that, but they weren’t as lucky as he was.

It was really depressing. All of the dogs got about a half hour of exercise every day, but the shelter had a lot of young, high energy breeds that needed much more than that. Many of the Labrador Retrievers ran back and forth in their kennels continuously. They seemed to scream, “PLAY WITH ME!!!” Only people who are considering adopting the animal can interact with it, so I couldn’t fulfill their request. They had too much energy for a household with a two year old.

The stray kennels were even worse. The sign on the outside of a Rottweiler’s kennel said he was only 67 pounds. “Despite his obvious full grown Rottweiler head and structure, he must simply be a growing Rottweiler male!” thought I. But no! The dog was horribly emaciated. I could see individual ribs in his rib cage, along with the tops of his back hips. He’ll probably be euthanized. Shelters don’t have the time or money to nurse a dog like that back to health. He licked my fingers and seemed nice, but my Dad refused to sign up for him. “We can’t adopt a dog that’s been abused! He’ll TURN on us!” I hate his belief in stupid myths, but I can’t do anything he doesn’t want me to. We’re making progress–he finally changed his belief about adopted dogs. He originally believed only adopted puppies made good pets and older dogs were as good as dead. Before, “We don’t have TIME for a puppy,” was met with, “Puppies and it’ll be your problem, anyway.”

In the back of the stray kennels, there was a group of pit bulls. Well, ‘pit bull’ isn’t really a breed, but I don’t know enough about bully breeds to really identify a specific one. Anyway. Most of them were covered in injuries. An ear on one of the pit bulls was completely ripped off, while other dogs were covered with gashes and scars. They look rather frightening, but when I walked by them, they didn’t jump, growl and act as if they wanted to kill me, as per the pit bull stereotype. No, they stood up, wagged their tails and barked at me, hoping I’d bend down and give them some attention. It’s amazing how, despite the horrendous abuse they’d been through, they still trusted and loved humans.

We went through the kennels several times before registering for a dog. My father liked a long haired Malamute. He play-bowed a lot, but he wasn’t as high energy as the Labradors. Malamutes don’t do well alone, though, so once we found out there were already three names on the list for him, we didn’t sign up. He should get a good home, or at least, a home.

There was only one dog that I really liked. It was a black and silver German Shepherd Dog, also a stray. He looked like a bicolor or a blanket back with a large blanket. Either way, despite the fact that he was the second kennel in the stray kennels, he was pretty much ignored. Big, black dogs are always the last to be adopted, if at all. When I crouched down next to his kennel, he tried to poke his nose through the wire to get to me. He licked my fingers when I petted his muzzle, though when I stuck my fingers through the wire, he started licking and gnawing on my fingers. Nothing remotely painful, but it might be a problem. When I got up and stood in front of his kennel, he jumped up and put his paws against the door. Jumping may also be a problem with him, but that’s not hard to fix. When I stayed standing, he sat down and then laid down. He got up and did it a couple other times when I didn’t do anything. Smart dog. Considering the way he acted, he must have been someone’s dog. The repeated sit-downs make it seem like he’s used to the Nothing in Life is Free training policy, plus the gnawing seems like his former owner let him do that or he’s just got good bite inhibition from being with other dogs for a long time. I love him already.

We signed up for the Shepherd, but we were second on the waiting list. Monday morning, 11am. That’s when my Dad has to be at the shelter to claim the dog. We only get him if the first name on the waiting list doesn’t show. The first name lives in Concord, so I hope he or she doesn’t. If we do get him, we don’t get him until Tuesday.

I hope we get him. I hate going to the shelter.