animal shelters - something very wrong - part 238

I carelessly typed in a Facebook update. 'Something is very wrong' I wrote, as if by giving voice to this cry for help, I could calm the simmering roiling muck which was keeping me awake at night and giving me a sort of acid bath in the pit of my stomach by day. Yeah - I know, it's called anxiety. Just pop an Ambien Jill, you might say, or drink yourself to sleep, or just 'set some boundaries' (I hate that phrase almost as much as I hate ' I want my dog to have just one litter of pups').

We are who and what we are and I have come to understand that who and what we are is set pretty early on and we get our whole lives to try to make sense of that unique jigsaw and try to get it to fit into a societal template - which more often than not involves amputating parts of ourselves. Unless of course you are part of the 90% of the world living in poverty in which case the self indulgent therapizing we do here in the other 10% is not an option. Shall I use a recycled paper bag, reclaimed plastic bag or a reusable canvas tote (printed with some environmental cause logo) for my groceries? Most of the world is asking 'What groceries?'

But I digress. And that is one of the jigsaw pieces I have a hard time fitting into the template. As is my inability to sit still for long, my dread of being inside a building for too long, my sense of being suffocated by any number of harmless things. And my fear of hypocrisy.

I know that some, maybe many, think my pre-occupation with animal issues, and specifically animal shelter issues is a distraction from 'real' problems.

And it's true - my fixation about animal shelters, about how we might be able to alleviate just one of the problems in my community does keep me awake at night.

Here's the thing - in Alameda County - where the People's Republic of Berkeley sits in a sort of 'lost in space' trance - there are municipal tax payer funded animal shelters in Oakland, San Leandro, Dublin, Hayward, Fremont, Alameda and Berkeley. There are non-profit humane organisations that have shelters - the East Bay SPCA in Oakland, the Dublin SPCA and the Berkeley Humane Society - just miles from one another; there are animal rescue groups with names like Home At Last, Island Cat Rescue, Hopalong Animal Rescue (which merged with Second Chance), Furry Friends, to name but a few; there are feral fix programs run by Fix Our Ferals and a myriad of welfare and advocacy groups like BadRap and PAWS (Pets Are Wonderful Support); individual 'rescue' groups, breed specific rescue groups, senior dog rescues, feral cat taming programs and....that's just Alameda County. Head to San Francisco County, Contra Costa County or Marin County and you can start all over again....Marin Humane, San Francisco Animal Control, San Francisco SPCA, Contra Costa Animal Services, Martinez  Animal Shelter, Pinole or Antioch Animal Shelters, Rocket Dog, Wonder Dog, North Bay Canine, Milo Foundation...is your head spinning yet? It's the American way - choice. Or confusion.

And if the animal is found one block into El Cerrito in Contra Costa County - over the border from Albany in Alameda County - it is supposed to go to Pinole Animal Shelter where they built a new smaller shelter a few years ago - essentially a holding tank - so many just get held for the required 72 hours and then get transported to Martinez animal shelter for euthanasia. If the animal is lucky enough to stray into Albany and gets picked up, it will go to Berkeley Animal Shelter where - unless it is a psycho killer - it will still be there one year later waiting for someone to think 'huh, that's my dream four-legged companion'.

There are 58 counties in California and every one of them has a different form of animal control (and care - depending on which county you are in). Some are run by civilian management (San Francisco, Berkeley), most are run by Police departments (Oakland, Antioch) or Sheriffs departments, some are under the control of a board of supervisors (Contra Costa County), some are contracted out to a non profit (Peninsula Humane, Marin Humane) and all are responsible for enforcing local and state codes, operating some sort of rabies control program, picking up stray, dead, injured wildlife and domestic animals - unless the animal is on a freeway in which case you have to wait for Caltrans to do so - sometime - and 'sheltering' those animals until owner redemption, adoption, rescue or death. Non profit agencies are not supposed to take in stray animals and almost every agency resists taking owner surrenders even though in these harsh financial times that means an increasing number of animals. And 'shelters' often charge money for taking them.

And if you walk into a municipal shelter in tears trying to surrender your animal to a shelter because your landlord just threw you out, or your husband just beat the dog one too many times - they will ask you what city you live in and if you don't live in that city - they send you away with animal in arms and tell you to go somewhere else. It might be the only shelter open that day and you are in a crisis. Not from the right city? Tough.

Am I the only one that thinks there is something seriously wrong with this picture? A woman walked into Berkeley Animal Shelter one Sunday afternoon. She had found a small, sweet 10 pound papillon mix dog running loose on one of Berkeley's busiest streets. The sign separating Berkeley from Oakland was somewhere close by and the city of Emeryville is a few blocks away. The dog could have run from Oakland into Berkeley or she could have been a Berkeley dog, or an Emeryville dog or a dog from freakin' New York City. The closest animal shelter, just a mile away is Berkeley. The Oakland shelter is five miles in the other direction. The woman brings this shaking beast to Berkeley but when she describes where she found the dog the staff member pushes her and she gets flustered and gives an answer which he pounces on - ah, that's in Oakland (by 25 feet). 'You have to take the dog to Oakland Animal Shelter.'

The woman leaves in tears. With a dog she has saved off the streets in her arms. She will not take it to Oakland. She is heading to work in the opposite direction, she is late, she was trying to do a good thing, the staff member makes her feel belittled, as if she is wrong, and a small, probably unspayed female dog is not safe in a shelter, but in the arms of someone who now feels desperate.

A family from a different city buys a sick pup from a flea market in Richmond, then panics because the pup is vomiting. They want to surrender it to a shelter on a Sunday. They go online, find the nearest shelter to them and drive there. They are turned away, but they have no money for a vet. They come back after dark and dump it in the night-box. Are they bad people? No, they are desperate people, uninformed people, they may simply have made a bad decision. Sometimes they are truly fucked up individuals. What does it matter? Take the damn animal into the shelter.

You think I'm just a crazy animal person? Think again. I care that a person who is trying to do a good thing is not given the support she needs. The animal needs to get off the streets and into safety. Well, relative safety, depending on which animal shelter it is turned in to. And people in our community need to feel that they can be part of a solution.

There is plenty of evidence that - the person turned away will return later and dump the same dog in the night kennels after hours, or drop the dog in a park, or just let it go where they found it, or call a friend and say 'take it' thereby depriving a potential owner of finding their dog.

NOTE TO ANIMAL SHELTERS - take the freaking animal in. Then you can decide what to do with it. And another note. If you are a non-profit animal shelter who is not supposed to take strays - take the frickin' animal in and then transport it. Fuck the jurisdictional lines. What outcome do you want? Fewer animals stray on the street, fewer unwanted litters of pups, fewer dead bodies littering the freeways? Take the animal in. Even if it ends in a euthanasia. Take the animal off the street. 

This blog is way too long, and it isn't even written very beautifully.

Comments

[susie fought]

to hell with beauty. you hit the fucking point spot on. now i'm angry too.

[Zerbina Louise Feathery's mom (zee was my first sheepdot, hee hee, I mean sheepdog)]

Jill, Our Hero, take heart.

In these hard-shelled times, as others look away, cower, quit, walk the other way, shrug, give in, or give up -- you've never failed to fiercly love.

We are one family who owes our familyhood to your tenacity, and we hold you in the light.

(And hey, the light we know is from the pure, clear, high peak of the top slopes of the mountain where we live.
Cleveland.)

(Hee hee, we're only in Cleveland temporarily.)

We normally live in Mt. Shasta, and that's the place we go in our minds when we think of you.

You brought us Neville (a silky little bundle of protesting border collie, taken too soon from his birth mother)

and Gillian (sturdy little stubby-legged sheepdog with polka-dots and a loud woof)

when our beloved Old English Zerbina was in her wheelchair, blind and fading.

Zerbina smiled as the puppies caused trouble -- all of them Berzerkley through and through. Because of you, Zerbina felt she could let go and leave her aching human mama, and go to her peace.

Oh my, oh Jill, we'll never be able to thank you enough.

We follow your blogs.

We buy your books.

We enjoy your thoughtful photos (and your x-rated ones, too, truth be told).

We cry with you, and we chew up the furniture and electronics with you too.

In our world, every big-woofed, shaggy, butt-wag (Gillian's) and every impish, doe-eyed, "dare-ya" yip (and nip) (Neville's) not only brings happiness to our active family -- but sends merit to you.

As the Buddhists wish, we wish: may all sentient beings know the goofy unconditional love of a couple of Jill-rescued sheepies!

Jill, we love you. We lick your picture. Our doggy breath -- your salty face. Forever.

Think of us when "it" gets you down.

We'll see you the next time we're in Berkeley, tangling up one mama in our leashes, in excitement to see our other mama, the mama of Calvin, Frankie, Roo and the new guys.

Till then, we recommed peanut butter, cheese, stolen donuts and racoon poo
-- you know, comfort foods!

Chow for now.