Am I in the Wrong? (shelters, owner, people, rescue)

[dogmomof2]

One other thing to keep in mind is that animal control functions differ by area. Ideally, you take a dog to a shelter or make a report and someone investigates, but in real life that's not always the case. I know of an area where the dog warden will not investigate abuse, and the shelter keeps dogs for 3 days then euthanizes them. They don't put dogs on Petfinder or make an attempt to adopt.

[bustaduke]

Originally Posted by phonelady61

As A volunteer who went to katrina I find your post appauling and we should have just left dogs in the water to be snake bitten huh ? or to die from all the sewage being injested when they drank the water huh ? wow no wonder some ppl think twice before they help or volunteer . This is the attitude that makes ppl think twice . To the Op you are doing the right thing morally .

I never once said that. I appreciate that you helped rescue these pets. But where you and others crossed the line is when you decided to give these pets away.

Better arraignments should have been made to hold them and at least try and find the owners. And pets were also taken from throughout the Golf Coast area, even the north shore where no flooding occurred.

And before you assume I'm a bad pet owner you should know that my pets go with me every time I leave.

Unfortunately some people don't have a way of taking there pets. Plus you have to remember that we were told that this storm was going to miss us on Friday only to be told Saturday afternoon that we had to get out before Sunday morning.

Not much time to prepare so a lot of people were only able to get their families out. Hell even some people weren't able to get out. Do you even remember that?

What you and others did was take it upon yourselves and decided that these people's pets would be better off with someone else. That's not you place nor is it you job to decide this.

busta

[bustaduke]

Originally Posted by mrs1885

Or they should have been taken WITH their families who ran to save their own lives, leaving their loyal pets to fend for themselves. Instead of crying that the pet they abandoned is now sitting in a wonderful loving home, they should be grateful.

And for the record, I grew up on an island in south Florida. I'm very familiar with hurricanes and evacuating. And even as a dirt poor single mom of four, when my family evacuated, it INCLUDED our family pets. If it meant I had to walk them out of town or sleep in my car, the pets were part of the family and our family evacuated together.

So I guess everyone in Florida takes their pest with them, or do people come in after a storm and steal them also?

busta

[PacificFlights]

Bustaduke, ignore the holier than thou crowd.

The truth is katrina/Rita was something that caught everyone with their pants down. There were story after story of people who followed the evactaution orders but had their pets denied passage. They were truning over their pets to local groups who did intent to reunite them but in the madness, they lost track of what dog was what. Soon even they needed rescuring and pets were mixed and mingles to where nobody knew what pet was what. Hundreds were rescued only to be abandon when the rescue groups were forced to leave as well. I wouldn;t balme the owners, the rescue groups or the transpoters, the fault wa that until katrina/Rita happened there were no organized system to handle pets and what they had was nothing short of a screwed up assembly of nonsense. from the start it was clear the rescuers were more concerned about rescuring the animals than they were about ever dealing with how they were going to reunite them with their rightful owners. That sort of thinking led to what happened. Save the pet, screw the owners.

The reason this got such negative press was because after things started calming down, the rescue groups, for whatever reason, decided that the effort to reunite them with their owners wasn;t something they wanted to deal with so off they shipped them to parts unknown. There were reports of dgs that were chipped and the owners were huinting for them but still they were adopted to others even though the chip information would have reunited them with the owner. It was almost as if once they had the pets int heir hands, some of the do-gooders felt it was now theirs to do as they want. I look at it as the finder-keepers mentality.

there were many dedicated and caring people who responded to animal rescue during Katrina/Rita, but somewhere along the line they lost sight of their mission which was to rescue the animls from harm. The changed into rescuing and keeping. Not all, but enough that its a black mark on anaimal disaster services.

[phonelady61]

Wow is all I can say jeeze again another reason not to help people because you just get bitten in the butt for it , but you know what I will always help an animal if needed because they are at least grateful that someone took the time to stop and get them out of harms way .Some people are just never happy no matter what you do to help them ...

[PacificFlights]

Originally Posted by phonelady61

Wow is all I can say jeeze again another reason not to help people because you just get bitten in the butt for it , but you know what I will always help an animal if needed because they are at least grateful that someone took the time to stop and get them out of harms way .Some people are just never happy no matter what you do to help them ...

I'm not saying your work wasn't appreciated!
I'm not saying your to blame!
I'm not saying the animals aren't greatful for what you did!
I'm not saying the time you took to do this wasn't appreciated

What I'm saying is the whole thing was a scewup and nobody and everyone is to blame! Things screw up all the time and the real mature person is one who can look back and say "Hey, i did my best but you know, things were so ****ed up and things did go wrong."

Do you want a medal for what you did? Fine here's a medal with the thanks of the pets. That still does not mean that everyone involved needs to look back and wrap themselves around the screwups so that they don''t make the same mistake again. But if you ****ed up but still want praise for being a ****up beacuse you took the time to be a ****up, you ain't going to get it from me. I will thank you for the efforts but that doen;t mean we shouldn;t accept the mistakes we all made for whatever reason and try to learn from them.

[mrs1885]

Originally Posted by bustaduke

So I guess everyone in Florida takes their pest with them, or do people come in after a storm and steal them also?

busta

I can't speak for an entire state. I can speak for me and for my opinion, and that is I'd no more leave my pets behind than I would my 2 year old child. They rely on their family to care for them. If people chose to abandon them - and not for a second do I buy that people had NO choice - then if they wind up in a home with people that would never abandon them in any circumstance, then better for the dog. You're entitled to your opinion, but don't expect me to agree with it or to say it's okay that people left their pets behind. I think it's just as sick as the retirement facility that left the elderly behind with no one to keep them safe. Children, elderly and domesticated animals all look to responsible adult humans to care for them and I don't think they should ever be neglected or abandoned or abused in any way.

[mrs1885]

Originally Posted by PacificFlights

The truth is katrina/Rita was something that caught everyone with their pants down.

Are you freaking kidding me? Anyone that lives on the coast knows for a week in advance that there is a hurricane out there. You not only make plans well in advance of hurricane season, you start making plans when there is a hurricane out there, period. It's called being responsible.

They were NOT caught with their pants down at all. The people that died there were either incapable of caring for themselves and were abandoned or they were total freaking morons that decided to 'ride out the storm'. Thank you Darwin Awards. But they were NOT caught unaware by the storm. They knew well in advance it was on the way. Only a person incapable of caring for themselves and a complete moron - who in my opinion this planet is better not having around - died in that hurricane.

So if these people had infants and there was no room for them, they'd have left them? When you have another being that's relying on you for safety and care you step up to the plate and handle it. Regardless of how you have to do it.

[luvmycat]

Originally Posted by mrs1885

I can't speak for an entire state. I can speak for me and for my opinion, and that is I'd no more leave my pets behind than I would my 2 year old child. They rely on their family to care for them. If people chose to abandon them - and not for a second do I buy that people had NO choice - then if they wind up in a home with people that would never abandon them in any circumstance, then better for the dog. You're entitled to your opinion, but don't expect me to agree with it or to say it's okay that people left their pets behind. I think it's just as sick as the retirement facility that left the elderly behind with no one to keep them safe. Children, elderly and domesticated animals all look to responsible adult humans to care for them and I don't think they should ever be neglected or abandoned or abused in any way.

I agree with this 100%...I would never leave my animals in an emergency situation like this, NEVER! I would risk my life for any and every single one of them, period. The rescuers could not just leave the animals there to die, and we all know how stacked every single shelter is...finding them homes was not only necessary but the most noble and ethical decision they could have made, and I for one have ENORMOUS gratitude for their efforts...if a person left their animal behind to die, they don't get to whine about the fact that it's in another home now, in fact they should be grateful their pet is alive and cared for!

[skelaki]

Originally Posted by bustaduke

This reminds me of what happened here after hurricane Katrina. These rescue groups came in and scooped up all the cats and dogs they could find.

They didn't try and find the owners, they just shipped the pets off to different shelters throughout the country.

A lot of people came back and could not find there pets. Some people found their pets were adopted but the families that adopted them would not return them.

These pets should have been held in shelters close by allowing for people to get them back but the people who came here decided they knew better who should own them.

busta

Absolutely true! Not only did they ship them off, they told frantic owners who were searching for their lost pets that they had not found them especially if they happened to be smaller in size. I know this for a fact because a friend of mine lost one of her Toy Fox Terriers in precisely this way despite going every day to search for her and asking the "rescue" people if they'd found her (with photos of the dog). btw, she did NOT abandon this dog. It was with her sister at the time who was it's co-owner.

Please turn this dog over to Animal Control.