Saturday, April 6, 2013

"A LESSON FOR ALL"


This was found on a Facebook page but it just had so much truth, especially in light of the puppy that is being used to condemn Devore currently. How many times has Devore been condemned when the truth was that no one came for the pet that was euthanized. 

THIS IS SHINE ON'S TRAGIC STORY

DISCLAIMER: Names have been left out of this story to avoid all drama. I do not want drama, all I want is for people to be educated and because this has to STOP happening and to help others NOT to make this same  mistake. The only name I am using is the name of the person who wanted to adopt Shine On.  IF the person involved in her "rescue" wants to post on this thread and call out the perpetrators that is HER choice. My point here is to EDUCATE

Shine On arrived at Miami Dade Animal Services on 01/02/2013. Like most dogs that arrive at the shelter Shine On's picture was uploaded to many Facebook networking pages and so the networking and rescue of Shine On began. 
Shine On caught the eye of Julie. Julie fell in love with Shine On and decided to focus on her rescue and so the process began. Since Julie does not live in Florida she did not know how to go about rescuing a dog from Miami Dade Animal Services. So she did what most people do, she jumped on the thread and asked for help on how to get Shine On to her. People from all over the place started giving her suggestions on how to get Shine On out of MDAS and into her home. Like most people working dogs from MDAS, people started telling her to contact a local Boarding facility that helps pull dogs and helps with transport. So she called the boarding facility, had everything arranged, and a hold was sent out for the dog. According to everyone on the thread, Shine On was safe. A mistake most people make when networking dogs. They NEVER follow up on the dog. NEVER. 
A couple of days later Shine On was pulled from the shelter and taken to the boarding facility to await transportation. As Julie mentioned, she was being charged $11 a day for Shine On's stayed at the boarding facility and she was quickly running out of money so she begged for a foster in order to give her time to arrange for transportation. A person saw the request for foster and decided to contact Julie and offer her "fostering" services for $50 a month. Yes, some fosters out there charge, a red flag in MY opinion.
A friend of Julie's transported Shine On to this so called foster and as you can see from the picture at the botton, Shine On arrived at the fosters safe and sound. 
Here is where things started to go wrong. Julie started to request pictures and info regarding Shine On and the foster would not answer. The foster never provided any more info after the below picture was taken. From there own Julie's ordeal in finding Shine On began. 
But here is the problem, Julie NEVER received an adoption application from the rescue that pulled Shine On. As a matter of fact she did NOT even know who the rescue was, all she knew was that the local boarding facility had pulled the dog for her and that was it. So basically Julie was NOT the legal owner of Shine On and therefore had NO right in requesting info regarding Shine On. So this slowed down the process even more in finding Shine On. The drama continued between her and the foster, who by the way continued to avoid Julie and Julie's questions (this according to Julie). Julie contacted several people on Facebook, including several administrators of these networking pages, who instead of helping blew it off, defending the foster, and or just blamed Julie. Shine On's threads ( there are multiple threads for her) continues to have no updates on Shine On. No information on her whereabouts. Nothing. And of course NO ONE HAS EVEN BOTHERED TO ASK. NO ONE!
I contacted Julie and offered my assistance in trying to find Shine On. We started by trying to contact the boarding facility in order to get the name of the rescue so this way they would send her the adoption application and Julie would be the LEGAL owner of Shine On. Also the micro chip number was needed in order to register it into Julie's name so in case Shine On was dumped at a kill shelter, Julie would be contacted. We called all the shelters in the area, we continued on trying to get a hold of the boarding facility and rescue. And this went on for the past two weeks. Well, Julie had been dealing with this longer I just started assisting 2 weeks ago. 
Sadly, and very tragic, we received an email from the shelter stating that the foster had dropped off Shine On at a local kill shelter the same day she picked her up. Shine On was dropped on January 14, 2013. The shelter tried contacting the rescue registered to the micro chip. This is the rescue that pulled her. After MULTIPLE attempts from the shelter of contacting the rescue that was register on the micro chip  Shine On was KILLED on 01/24/2013. 10 days after being dumped at the shelter by the very foster who claimed was going to care for Shine On. How do we know it was the foster, because the shelter provided the name of the person that dropped off Shine On at the shelter. 

And in all honesty I do NOT care to hear anymore detail of this, point being is RESPONSIBLE PROCEDURES were not followed which ultimately caused the dog to die. All this caused for Shine On to be killed at another shelter. 
So I repeat, leave ME out of the drama and focus on this EDUCATIONAL MESSAGE!!! 
I am not taking any blame away from Julie, from the foster, from the boarding facility, from the shelter, from the transporter. Point being SHINE ON IS DEAD. KILLED! KILLED! And sadly there are MANY more dogs out there that have disappeared, that are dumped at other shelters, that have been murdered. 
PLEASE DO THINGS RESPONSIBLY!!! PLEASE! It really doesn't take a genius. It really is LOGIC. 

How could this have happened? How did the system fail Shine On?
Here is how:
1) If you are out of state and you want to adopt a dog CONTACT A LOCAL RESPONSIBLE RESCUE who can assist you. The responsible rescue will follow the necessary RESPONSIBLE procedures like: home check, vet check, reference check, adoption application, responsible transport, vet care for the dog before leaving etc. CONTACT A LOCAL RESPONSIBLE RESCUE PERIOD!

2) Make sure they give you ALL the paper work (adoption application, medical records, micro chip,) this will ensure that the dog is YOURS LEGALLY

3) Fosters. Come on! HOME CHECK PEOPLE! HOME CHECK! No one bothered to check on this foster. NO ONE!  

4) When networking a dog on a thread DO NOT just jump on the first person that says they want the dog. Before doing that find out who this person that wants the dog is. Come on? if you would not do that to a child, than do NOT do it to a dog or cat. 

5) FOLLOW UP. People this is very important. FOLLOW UP. Go on thread ask for updates on the dogs that safe. THAT IS THE RESPONSIBLE THING TO DO. COME ON!!!

8 comments:

  1. I just finished reading your post and I whole-heartedly agree with the information you shared, and people need to find a rescue. But unfortunately if you are someone like me who stumbled across a FB page, you really DO NOT know how it works and you must rely on people/strangers to guide you to a good rescue.

    Some of us who find these dogs via Facebook, and who live out-of-state, don't always understand how it works. I am not an idiot, nor do I lack common sense, but the rescue network was unknown to me.

    In my situation, the rescue I was working with wanted to make certain I could actually transport the dog before pulling it for me to adopt.

    The rescue also wanted verification I am not a nutter butter, and I wanted verification they were not trying to rip me off.

    I did find tranportation, but it took several days. I worked on it diligently and I even had a pilot who flies rescue flight in a different part of the country who generously contacted friends! I ended up finding a transport that comes to the area and was thrilled. I immediately contacted the rescue, but hours earlier another rescue ended up with the dog I was trying to adopt. I am very thankful the dog is safe, but of course now it was almost like starting over.

    I am now working with the new rescue, and of course I checked them out. They only want to use tranport with whom they are familiar, which makes sense. It sounds like mine will work out after-all, but there was a moment I wasn't sure.

    I would say the proper procedure is find a reputible rescue who will give you phone#, email, and address, and will go over the process with you, discuss TRANSPORTATION options (who do they use/recommend, any fees, do they even travel in your area)and THEN look at the dogs. I discovered many transports (even a paid one!) don't come to my area until the "weather" is better which I personally thought was ridiculous. The other option is be ready to pay for a flight on an airline.

    I think, like me, people see the dog FIRST and end up working backwards. They don't always know the questions to ask. I didn't even know I could ask for "freedom pics" until I saw it in the comments section of a different dog. (I was sure to ask for them...) Of course that seems like "common sense" to you, but as someone who always adopted locally, it was never something I had to do before and strangers had to guide me. You don't know who to trust at first.

    It would also be useful to have an easy to find list of rescues by state, and transportation by state. I wasted a lot of time trying to find transportation that came to my state. Sabine Vetten posts transport information to the comments sections of dogs, but if she didn't, I would not have known how to start and not all rescues have tranportation that runs to every part of the country. I received 5 rejection emails.

    Finally, I did this all with the best of intentions, and even thought about it from the standpoint that there are dogs in my own state neeing homes and here I am trying to bring in a dog! I just felt I was doing the right thing for this dog. Even though I am not a perfect person and didn't go through the process the "right" way, I am doing the best I can. People need compassion, too.

    Sorry this was too long. I just thought it was an important piece to what you are saying.

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    Replies
    1. Not at all too long, good info. The point is that is the duty of those who do rescue to insure that the pet is going to a quality life. I know those who do responsible transporting but not massive, loaded UHauls. And they do the transporting themselves, within their groups. Transporting as a money maker, or a scam, is the problem now.

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  2. A Lesson for All
    on responsibility and accountability

    Does anyone know...

    How many of our local animals have been removed from the shelters only to be transported to another shelter for euthanasia?

    How many animals have been removed from our local shelters by rescues?

    Is there paperwork for each rescue which lists each animal they took and where the animal was transported?

    Does the paperwork state the name, address, telephone number and contact name where each animal went?

    Has anyone conducted an unannounced inspection of the foster home or rescue organization?

    Does the paperwork say at which veterinary clinic each animal was spayed or neutered?

    How much time and money will be taken away from shelter operations to conduct this research?

    Whose job is it to hold the unregulated rescues accountable?

    How many more animals will suffer and die before someone steps up to protect them?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Find a responsible rescue?

    How does anyone do that with the nutcases running rescue these days

    Some of the rescues that have gotten all kinds of positive media attention and great references even by veterinarians have turned out to be HELLHOLES that kill animals the slow kill way

    The only responsible rescue is the one near you (or within travel distance) that you can investigate personally and visit personally and ask questions of lots of local people

    This long distance adoption thing is set up to fail. Seeing a picture and "falling in love" long distance with a dog sets up a chain of disasters and the dogs lose, and it also opens up the ability of scammers to steal your money.

    On a positive note, the IRS is now investigating tax fraud on Facebook and Twitter such as breeders selling dogs through those sites and these rescue scammers collecting chip ins and not accounting for the money as well as selling dogs. Please report these animal abusing scammers!

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  4. There are risks no matter what. Local shelters can adopt to nuts, too. Local shelters here also adopt out of state on a case-by-case basis. Adopting a pet can be a crap shoot for EVERYONE on a lot of levels. Dogs behave one way at a shelter and another in a home. Some behaviors don't show up right away. Dogs (and people) have issues and walking out the door with a new pet involves risk.

    Bad people will always find a loophole. There are bad vets, bad rescues, bad adopters, bad breeders, bad parents, bad teachers, bad drivers, bad doctors, bad shelters, bad police officers, bad sanctuaries...I still stand by the idea that there are good people, too. I think getting the message out and exposing the "bad" so others don't get screwed is very important.

    I don't think dogs should be shipped by the truckload all over the place, however, I think there is room for individuals to follow this route. Having things in place (such as vet references) doesn't guarantee anything, but neither does location.

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    Replies
    1. You're right, adopting from a shelter is a crap shoot. That is why we need to present shelters in an extra special way to overcome that instead of condemning them. The public already thinks in those terms about shelter animals, and No Kill isn't helping with demonstrations, condemnation, etc. Rethink rescue - rescues could be offering services to adopted shelter pets like free obedience training, fence repair, etc. rather than concentrating on just pulling and adopting. Make those shelter pets better than others, already altered, shots, training, turn key pets should be the goal of rescues wanting to help shelters.

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  5. I agree with you 100%! I think you could convince a rescue or two to do that...But how do we make that happen? Or rather...do you have a method in place to get there? I am not being a smart ass. I think you have good ideas and just am wondering if your relationship with any rescues could begin to develop those ideas.

    There will always be No Kill people on the far extreme and extremists are extremists. But my feeling is there a middle of the road people, like me, who want to see animals find homes, keep animals from being bred, keep animals in their homes, etc. but often need someone to lead and organize them.

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  6. "Local shelters can adopt to nuts, too."

    But they can more easily check things like references, whether landlord says ok, etc. There's zero control after the dog gets shipped to who knows where

    "Dogs behave one way at a shelter and another in a home. Some behaviors don't show up right away"

    But it's a lot easier for the dog to safely get back locally than from some transport where they are shipped thousands of miles away



    Trasnsport could be a good thing but the lunatics took over the asylum and this long distance pulling of dogs placed by private people out of their homes has become so filthy I don't know if it will ever get fixed.

    If all these nuts that are shipping dogs everywhere would just start focusing on spay and neuter and getting some programs and clinics in place (and how about free training clinics locally so dogs don't end up in the shelters?) then the suffering and numbers of unwanted dogs would drop instantly.

    but they use rescue to put up pictures of photos with words like will die under them to extract money from people, and that money isn't being used to fix the problem from the start. It's just cleaning up after breeders, and the breeders are breeding more and more without regulation, and the problem is getting worse every day.

    I know a nutty woman who keeps shipping in dogs to her area thousands of miles away from some rural county in Alabama. She is spending huge amounts of money on the shipping! Well think of that money getting spent to spay dogs in that county instead. Theres another problem. The locals know they can just dump their litters at animal control and the nutty out of state rescuer will find them homes. They have no motivation to spay and neuter. If this woman just set up a spay neuter clinic with a vet in that rural area, as well as education, the numbers dumped in the shelter would immediately go down.

    But the nutty rescuer can't see the forest for the trees, and she is more interested in calling herself a savior and massaging her ego that actually doing something to fix the problem.

    ReplyDelete

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