Gone Off the Deep End

After I graduated high school, I moved to the Greater Cincinnati Area and soon found work in an animal shelter as a caretaker. Later I even worked for a veterinarian as the same. I love animals, grew up with a menagerie of pets on our 23-acre farm, and since having to rent, I’ve owned only cats, dogs, ferrets, and usually kept a nice aquarium—and still do.

Now let’s fast forward about fifteen or twenty years. What the hell has gotten into animal rights activists, shelters, and fostering agencies for animals? They’ve gone off the deep end and are often extremists, imho.

Before anyone who works/volunteers for an animal shelter or some sort of animal rescue place or hospital gets your panties in a twist when you read this—I do love animals, and like I said above, I’ve worked for a shelter and a vet. However, I draw the line when I’m told what I can and cannot adopt, where the dog/cat is to be kept, and how many visits to the veterinarian I am *forced* to make with my pet. The amount of hoops adoptive owners now have to leap through to give a poor kitty or dog a home nowadays is unbelievable.

I believe it's easier to adopt a child from overseas than it is to adopt a dog in my area. I'm not kidding. My oldest daughter recently went through this with one of our local shelters. Moreover, she was told she could not take the dog out of the county. Say what? I can hear myself ranting if I had been in her shoews... Look, chickiepoo, you should be grateful I’m shelling out nearly $200 for said mutt and providing a good, warm, loving home for it, so don’t get up on your socialist high horse. You're full of crap if you're telling me we have to stay in the current county because of a dog! And don’t you dare tell me I have no choice but to keep it indoors. If I wanna adopt a dog to help me in herding the sheep or corralling the cows, it’s going to have a nice doghouse or a spot in the hay barn to sleep. Not all animals are required to live inside. The medieval days of sleeping with the livestock for warmth are over!

Again, I am totally serious about these policies. I can't stand to deal with the county, let alone higher forms of government. Too many brainless officials running a muck.

My mother adopted a cat several years ago. She was told when the adoption was all said and done it would cost her $70. It took ALL afternoon for the paperwork to be completed, and by the time she left with the cat, the shelter had charged my mother $115. She came out of there with tears in her eyes because she had to dip into her emergency money to pay for her new companion.

I was furious. I was told to get in the car....

So, anyway, now shelters are forcing owners (don’t tell me to say pet parent or I will throw up) to take their pets to the vet x amount a times per year—and they check with the pet's vets to verify this then call you and bitch if you’ve missed an appointment. And then these people have the nerve to get on TV and go on and on about how everyone should adopt a shelter animal, how fewer people are adopting, why aren't more people adopting...

First, if I’m gonna have to pay out the butt for a dog or cat I might as well pitch in another couple hundred and buy a purebred with papers, not to mention it’s easier and less time consuming! Oh, and let’s not forget the nosy, nitpicking employees who drive out to your home to inspect it before they’ll even consider allowing you to adopt that beagle/basset/shepard mix that has been waiting for a home for the last 18 months.

I realize the shelters want to stop animal cruelty and they want the pets to have good homes. I feel the same way. But for crying out loud, when it’s so difficult to adopt an animal because of all the rules and regulations, plus the high prices to adopt, these organizations have no room to complain. And don’t even get me started on ‘oh, but the meds, vaccines, and vet bills come out of those fees’. Again, I worked for a veterinarian. Vets make excellent money. Anyone who has had to pay for surgery to be done on their pet knows you need to sell Great Aunt Gertrude’s silverware to pay for the procedure. Yes, some vets donate money and time, but all vets should do this (and human doctors should do the same to say thank you for their BMWs and Porches). Both professions are to help others, not rake in the dough.

Also, what happened to our rights? When someone is tossed into a jail cell because he’s stomped a dog to death—and this is a horrible crime, indeed—but a woman can’t get the law to protect her from a husband who beats the hell out of her and the children, there’s something wrong with this picture. Our local news stations are always looking for something to report, so we hear a lot about abused animals and the perpetrators serving jail time for it. Fine 'em, give ‘em 90 days, but for Heaven’s sake, but what makes that more important than a woman entering a hospital because her boyfriend or spouse broke her jaw or snapped her son's arm?

Society's principles are questionable at best. I’m sorry about the li’l dog, but that woman and her children’s well being is more important. I feel like common sense has gone the way of the dinosaurs.

Wow, I’m on a big soap box today...ahem!

So, my daughter wanted a couple of dogs. Her landlord said that was fine and even lets her have them inside. However, there’s a big mouse in their rental they’ve tried everything to catch; it’s a smart, evasive li’l sucker. She asked the landlord if she could adopt a cat and explained it would be a mouser as well as a companion. The cat is a big, beautiful gray fella. After all the trouble she went through to adopt him, after her landlord said she could have an indoor cat, he comes into her home, takes one look at her fat, fuzzy pet, and orders her to get rid of him. And this was after having the cat for nearly a year. Seriously? After she’s had it a year and it’s nothing but a lazy lap cat?

So guess who has the cat now? [shakes head] Yeah, you guessed it. I do.

Why do people have to make everything so difficult? And why does the county government have to be as nosy as the state and federal governments and yet toss people to the curb who need help?

It’s like finding out how many licks it takes to reach the center of the Tootsie Roll Pop. The world may never know.