How to Rescue an Animal from a Rescue ShelterHeather Callaghan In a lot of cases, it just isnt ending well. More often than not, the animal will end up in a shelter anyway. Have no illusions about it they wont be there long, but not in a good way. If you question a no-kill shelter long enough, youll find out that a better slogan might be We dont do the actual killing, but well send it to a place that will. Warm fuzzies. Is that what we call a rescue? Of course, they will try to find a home, but the animal if even deemed acceptable has a rapidly approaching death row date. In your hands, it can be a different story. Heres the scenario. A friendly dog shows up in your yard its been waiting for you to open your door and starts wagging its tail. Its been starving for awhile now and hasnt had water in who knows how long. You decide to fill a bucket of water with the hose and bring food fit for a king dog. It drinks down the bucket and has to wait to even gobble the food due to dehydration. You tell a few people, who respond: Uh-oh! Shouda never fed it hell never leave its your dog nooooowww. You make a mental note reminding yourself that youre not a d-bag for what you did, and a mental note of said people for when they show up hungry at your door one day. Also, its not your dog now this is only one stop until it finds peace with a new family. I think descriptions like that are meant to be paralyzing so that you just hand it over (for easy disposal). Truthfully, who even needs to look up something like that? Heres why I skipped all of that it had no collar (nor signs of ever wearing one) and was a small mix with some pit bull. Poor dog was born with a scarlet letter. A person can easily figure out if its dangerous, lost, abused or abandoned. No need to cower and shake behind a curtain animal control, help me! Please noose and tranquilize this beast!It maddens me that people are encouraged by the police department to call them for issues with their pets or their neighbors. Just no. While I cant prove the dog was used for fighting or as bait as people love to say, it had been in some former scuffles. The point is, dog fighting is unfortunately very prominent in this area so it would have been absolutely stupid and naive to go around with posters or saying Is this your dog? Uh, yeah, thats my dogum come hereerBruiser, yeah Ill take him backoh, its a her? Oh yeah So, Im Rescuer #2 (R2), for lack of a better word, and theres also an R1 and R3. R1 got dogfood from friends who no longer had a dog, but they could not take it. R1 posted pictures to a Facebook group. A number of years ago PETA wrote an open call to Craigslist saying Why Craigslist is on our S*** List. Because they allow pet transactions, and free ones that could end up with the animal in the same cycle of abuse. Fair point as dog fighting, giving to research facilities and other twisted ends are real possibilities from posting free to a good home ads. So Craiglist posted a warning, but PETA is still mad. Well guess what, PETA? Youre on my S list. Shutting that down completely would make sure that animals go to shelters and you seem to think euthanasia (good death) is a proper and dignified way to go that these animals should all go to the proper authorities even though you say they are overrun. You are oddly silent about police killing pets, and I could go on. But again, how is this a rescue? Just to be clear, Im not knocking rescue volunteers. That is not an easy job and the idea is to rescue and find another home. But why is the call always about overpopulation with the main solution being to euthanize? This part of the system is easy not to think about and its out of whack. On that note, I am thankful for the spay and neuter Facebook group that allowed animal postings this is what ultimately led to the dogs new home, believe it or not. R2 wrote a Craigslist ad, making sure to charge what they call a rehoming fee high enough to deter people from taking the animal for bad purposes. Its just a really bad idea to say free to a good home. I like Craigslist, though, because its about the only free classified option. There are pet sites to post listings to or newspaper ads, but they are insanely expensive. Heres a tip if you decide to use Craigslist: take nice pictures and write the profile from the dogs perspective, letting its temperament show through. Include all the info you would like to know if it were you searching for a new pet. Unfortunately, the rehoming fee of $25 was set too low and led to getting sketchy messages in the middle of the night. Facebook worked better and was more transparent. If using Craigslist, you could ask for references (vet, landlord, neighbor, friend) as a way to find out if this person is legitimate about housing the animal. Again, if you look online for more input youll find a list of questions that if uttered would make the Spanish Inquisition look tame. Paralyzing! Common sense and intuition work. After a Facebook answer and further contacts, R1 and R3 borrowed a truck and a leftover kennel cage and took the dog to the prospective family to check things out after some initial conversation on the phone. They had a code phrase to say if one of them felt uncomfortable about the situation. The key is to use your gut every step of the way and keep the animal in mind. Thats it. It was a long drive and a long evening for them, but the dog was happy and settled at its new home. Now, we truly can hope for the best. So, yeah, that was a lot of work (searching, caretaking, finding) for a seemingly insignificant undertaking. It could have lasted even longer than one whole weekend. Its not easy when everyones skint and overworked and there all these organizations ready at the helm. But, no! My intent for writing these two stories was to point out how conveniently easy it is wash our hands of it. The term surrendering your [pet, cat, dog] is the actual term created (by shelter groups?) to describe dropping it off. Ominous? Also, I didnt know how many blocks there could be if you deviate from the norm. The so-called authorities and experts want you to hand it over to the professionals see a pattern? It is possible to do something without centralized middle men. They have an attitude that because of your irresponsibility, they must take over, roundup and kill (its your fault we must do this). In the end, its you as the community that gets openly blamed (even though you the individual didnt do anything wrong). Its the animal that gets punished and sacrificed, though. I dont need that kind of help. We as individuals found other individuals who did something. I believe the price of outsourcing these responsibilities may have led to the original problem of just dump it off somewhere, someone else will take care of it. But why is the answer always to kill? Its the lazy option. Heather Callaghan is a natural health blogger and food freedom activist. You can see her work atNaturalBlaze.com and selfnewsPost.com. Like at Facebook. Recent posts byHeather Callaghan: 