Bonding "problems", Part 4

We received this from staff yesterday:

Cornbread in Kennel 55, ID A499195 had to be euthanized yesterday. His ringworm had gotten worse and worse and was not responding well to treatment. He then developed some sort of infection in his eye and we just didn't feel he was doing well here in the adoption program.

We then got another email from staff:

Everyday TLAC staff has to make tough decisions about which animals get to go to adoption and which ones don't. These decisions are never, ever made lightly. With limited kennels, limited resources and the reality of dogs in our care deteriorating no matter what we do to try to protect them - TLAC Staff makes theses decisions every day. Our hope is that before staff, and especially volunteers, get attached to animals that do not have a very good chance of ever getting reclaimed, rescued or adopted, the animal leaves the shelter as quickly and peacefully as possible.

Is this the best solution? Of course not, in a perfect world every animal would be given a chance at adoption, no matter how long it took. We are not there yet - each and every one of us is moving towards that goal in every moment of our lives - but we simply are not there yet.

This brings me to Lefty. He had a bum front left leg - no telling how long it had been that way and what it might have taken to fix it. His mouth was full of infected, abscessed teeth (the ones he had left anyway). We was high heartworm positive. He was a two year old unaltered pit bull. Could he have gotten adopted? Perhaps. But each day he was in an adoption kennel, countless other dogs, more adoptable, healthier dogs, would not have even been given a chance. We had to take all of these things into consideration when we decided to remove him from the program this morning.

We do our best to keep dogs who we truly feel are not good adoption candidates from landing in adoption kennels, but sometimes they slip through the cracks. I apologize profusely to anyone who may have become attached to Lefty during his short stay in Kennel 49.

I need to comment on a few things here. First, this sentence: "Our hope is that before staff, and especially volunteers, get attached to animals that do not have a very good chance of ever getting reclaimed, rescued or adopted, the animal leaves the shelter as quickly and peacefully as possible. "


I suppose that this confirms what I'd feared...that staff is trying to euthanize dogs faster who might have issues so that we won't become bonded to them.


Whenever they euthanize a dog and volunteers get upset, we are always told that "These situations are not about what is best or easiest on our own human emotions but on the needs of the animals. " (See letter from staff at end of this posting.)


So, it's "not about what is best or easiest on our own human emotions" when they kill a dog with whom we have bonded, but then they're killing dogs sooner, before we've had a chance to bond, to help protect us from our own emotions. Seems to me like if it's not about our own emotions, then we shouldn't be proactively killing dogs to avoid potential heartbreak in the future.


Next, the part about Lefty slipping through the cracks and making it into the adoption program, has already been commented on by another volunteer:

First, I was dismayed that Lefty was described as falling through the cracks because he made it to adoption. I would say he had every right to make it to adoption, and should have been given every chance to succeed. I would say that he fell through the cracks when he was euthanized at TLAC. I am sorry that Cornbread was killed because of ring worm and "some sort of eye infection."

Which leads me to the last piece on which I want to comment - euthanizing Cornbread for having ringworm and an eye infection. This posting is already getting very long. I think I'll save this one for the next posting.