The Rules

           This blog is to chronicle my everyday work at a local humane society.  I am not the director of operations or the manager or the executive director. I am just a front-end clerk.  The ordinary person who adopts out animals to hundreds of people, vaccinates and impounds animals, reclaims lost pets to their owners (or otherwise known as RTOs) and help people make owner request for euthanasia.  I don’t work at a “no kill shelter.”  If you talk to anyone who has worked at a humane society there are two types: open admissions and closed admissions.  Closed admissions are the happy places that you hear about on the news that never kill any animals.  There is a reason why they have this privilege.  They are closed admissions; meaning they can determine what animals enter in to their facility.  They rarely have contracts with municipalities to intake animals despite their capacity.  They get their animals from transfers.  When they have room in their shelter, they send out a request to open admission shelters to take some of their animals.  But if they are filled, the public cannot bring them strays and they can deny surrenders.  This is where open admission shelters come into play.  They accept every animal that walks through their doors.  Despite the animals’ mental or physical health, we take them.  This makes it almost impossible for us to save all the lives that walk into our shelter. 

            According to my specific state’s law there are only certain conditions under which we can release various animals.  Probably one of the most crucial is that we cannot release an animal unless it has been fixed.  For animals that do not like being handled by people, this spells the end of their lives.  The greatest example of this is that of feral cats.  While many groups have tried to start trap-and-release programs, in which the animals are fixed and then released as barn cats, unless if the funding is there, for most shelters these types of programs are not possible.  For thousands of feral cats, unfortunately, this means they must be put down.   

            Dogs have slightly better odds if they suffer from behavioral issues.  There are very few dogs that have lacked so much people interaction that they are considered “feral”.  However, dogs have their problems too.  Generally from people being really stupid to them throughout their lives.  If a dog is food aggressive, has barrier issues, is possessive over his toys, or is sensitive to touch, these are all conditions under which the dog’s life could be placed in the balance.  Fortunately for these dogs there are closed admission shelters and rescues that have more time and resources to work with them.  These behaviors often can be trained out of dogs.  If a dog is lucky enough, he will come into an open admissions shelter at the right time when a transfer to another shelter is possible.  Or even better an open admissions shelter that has the resources to train the undesirable behavior out of him.

            Still, there are two Golden Rules to being a dog that if broken will end up getting one lead into the dark room.  The first is a dog cannot bite a person unprovoked and break skin.  To do so, surely means death.  The second, is one has to get along with other dogs.  If a dog has a history of attacking other dogs, its time will surely be limited. 

            These are the conditions under which I work.  On most days I find it incredibly difficult, heart breaking, and rewarding.  It always amazes me the love in which an animal can offer people after repeatedly being abused by people.  Humane societies often say that they offer second chances to animals.  But I find, in most cases, it is the animals that are offering us the second, third, forth, and fifth chance.  On any given day I will always say it is people who make my job awful, never the animals.  People destroy hope.  But they can also give it.  And that’s where my job steps in.