Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Around Town / Phillips What Happens When You Drop Your Animal Off in the Country
Posted by Betsy Phillips on Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 9:45 AM
Comments (53)
Showing 1-50 of 53
I can't agree any more with this article. I grew up in the country where it was quite popular to drop off unwanted cats and dogs. We took in all we could, but there comes a time when we just couldn't take in another stray. It's socially irresponsible, selfish, and completely ignorant to think these animals have a chance in the wild after a life of domesticity. Thanks for the article!
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** applause **
Yes, 99.9% of the time they die. It is far less cruel to take them to an animal shelter where they are put to death somewhat humanely (we hope). And there's at least the slight chance that they will get adopted.
Animals dumped in the woods starve, get hit by cars, are preyed upon by coyotes and other wildlife. It's a slow, terrifying, tortuous death, the cruelest thing imaginable for animals meant to be pets.
My beloved little dog Zelda was dumped in the woods at Land Between The Lakes. When I took her in she was covered in tick bites and sores, was emaciated and scared to death. I don't know what the people who dumped her there were thinking, but she was absolutely helpless. There is no way in hell she could "hunt" for her food. Hell, she'd been eating dirt for three days.
She was one of the teeny, tiny fraction of a percent of animals who got lucky and found a home. Do not think this is what happens to the animals you throw away like so much trash. She was the exception.
We always say there is a special place in hell for the puppy dumpers. And I mean it, too. You folks need to get your heads of your asses. Get your animals spayed and neutered. If you can't afford it there are non-profits that will help with the cost. If you can't keep your animals, take them to the shelter. It's the grown-up thing to do.
Thank you for this Aunt B.
My cat was a rescue, someone having a baby who decided they didn't want a cat anymore and left him outside when they moved. Nice. A neighbor took him in but couldn't keep him and that's how I ended up with him. Whatever I've given him in vet treatment, food, and a warm place to sleep he has paid back several times over with unconditional love and pure entertainment value.
I don't know how people can even think about abandoning animals like that.
There's a slightly different breed of pet-owner who are also causing problems, albeit on a more environmental scale. That is people who buy exotic snakes and fish and then, when they can't handle the size anymore, dump them in the woods or in some waterway. This has become a major problem in the Everglades, where non-native pythons and Boas have multiplied greatly. These snakes don't die, instead they've become a major environmental nuisance that is threatening native species, including homeless cats!
Two different kinds of pets and different kinds of pet-owners, but the same selfish, arrogant attitude.
Thanks so much. I'm sick and tired of my neighbor, who has had a beautiful Pyrennees, lashed to the front post since early spring. One day it wrapped itself so many times around the pole all it could do was stand up straight, or choke to death. I called animal control and they worked out some wonderful arrangement, now the dog is lashed up in the backyard, out of my eyeshot. Down the street, another pitbull chained to a tree. Let's get our lawmakers on line with a simple new rule: if you own an animal, it must be in a fenced yard and cannot be affixed to a tree, post, car bumper, plastic Santa, etc.
was rescuing a free Black Lab/Godzilla mix.
She's a sweet mutt who will try to eat almost any Jehovah's witness who comes knocking on my door unannouced and uninvited. She even made one cuss.
Her big scary teeth are just what I needed for a little protection.
But what they don't know is she is almost 80 pounds of pure and sweet sugar. I've never seen an animal recognize the fact that "Hey that lady feeds me every day and gives me a warm comfy bed, sometimes her own. So, I think I will love her forever." She is taller than I am, but begs to sit in my lap. It's a funny sight...
And my mutt dog accidentally caused me to believe in heaven. I was a skeptic. But when I see how trusting, forgiving, and patient she is with me, I have to believe that there is a good place for a creature so sweet to rest in peace.
You know, she didn't ask to be a mutt and she didn't ask to be turned over to the Wilson County pound. She just wanted an owner that she could love and protect. Well, she got so much more!
Thank you to everyone who rescues sweet mutt puppies and kittens. They appreciate it. I promise!
Older animals have it even worse than puppies and kittens. A cute puppy or kitten has at least a fighting chance to be adopted from a shelter. Older animals, especially ones with health problems, aren't as attractive to prospective adopters. Even worse, puppies and kittens don't know anything; a pet who's been with you for many years thinks it's a part of your family.
When you got your pet, you made an unwritten contract to be responsible for it, until your death, or the pet's death. That responsibility includes ending your pet's life as humanely as possible if that's the only choice left. If your pet is old and in pain, you OWE it a quick, painless way out. I am certain my old, arthritic, beloved German shorthaired pointer Susie agreed.
Old-time Tennesseans used to say, "You've got to be able to shoot your own dog." Dumping your old pet to die slowly, out of your sight, makes you a welsher, a four-flusher, and a coward. It you don't have the guts be your pet's final friend, take it to a vet who can be.
My dad has gotten a myriad of other people's pets dumped on him over the years, but out of the countless dogs and cats he has also gotten 2 pot bellied pigs and a camel. Go figure.
How on earth do you drive out and dump off pot bellied pigs? They don't stay small and cuddly, but get quite big. Be a responsible pet owner like everyone above says.
These animals don't get loving homes, fed, taken in or magically find pet nirvana out in the country. Most of them do go to pet heaven very quickly.
My wife and I were on the Natchez Trace Parkway several years ago near the AL/TN state line. We came across THREE dogs that had been left roadside. They had been left with a metal tub of what appeared to have been a thin layer of dry food with mostly gravel underneath it.
We contacted a ranger as to the situation (this was late afternoon or early evening) and inquired as to possibilities for them. The best we could do was leave them in some outside cages at the Florence, AL animal shelter after hours. We left them there with some food and modest bedding. It was a several-mile drive there and believe me we wanted to take all three home with us but knew we couldn't. I think about them sometimes and wonder if they found good homes or at least a more peaceful death compared to being where they were. It scares me to think that people capable of this may be raising children in this deteriorating society.
We had to get rid of two cats last year due to a change of housing and were able to find them homes via Craigslist. One of them, incredibly enough, we found while looking at a house that had been vacated and the owners left a DECLAWED cat outside to fend for itself. We took her in and gave her a good home for the time we were able to keep her. The other was a rescue from Rutherford County PAWS that we took in during a moment of insanity, but we loved her and hated to give her up as well.
Considering the ratio of "getting rid of" to "taking in" on Craigslist was probably 100 to 1, I consider us very fortunate to have found them good homes.
so sad but true. When we had a farm we once found three tiny puppies dropped off at the dumpster site ... I supposed some idiot thought that since it was a well-used spot someone would give them a home. What they never bothered to consider was the 90+ temperatures, which caused the dumpster's metal to heat to scorching. And of course the puppies were too tiny to move far, and one's actual skin was stuck to the hot metal; he didn't survive. The other two became our "pets," and loyal pets they were except Pete was a little "addled" from being his sun exposure and not the brightest dog in the world. We were constantly "finding" puppies, dogs, cats, and kittens wandering in the countryside, which we ended up taking to the local animal control simply to keep them from dying the type of death described in the article.
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for writing this. Now if only the people who do these lazy, cowardly things could be made to read it. Assuming some of them know how to read.
Mark, I appreciate your passion, but "welsher" is an ethnic slur. So, cut that shit out.
Sadly, this is all too true. I live out in the country and currently have 6 cats; all found their way to my house, from the road. I also have the sweetest 80 lb. lab/coonhound mix that I found last year, shivering in the cold, January rain on the side of the road. I stopped, opened the door of the truck & she hopped right in.
To the person who dropped her off on my road: "Lucky" doesn't miss you at all. She has a much better home now. Unfortunately, most abandoned animals aren't as lucky as Lucky.
Apologies to Aunt B and JR. I didn't have any idea...and won't use the word again.
Mark, best you better bridle your tongue and mend your incorrect ways. You need to carry a laminated card in your pocket with all the forbidden words and phrases listed and consult it often. No more goddamn 'W' words, 'N' words, 'P' words, 'I' words, 'G' words, etc. if you don't want to get shot with a barrel full of your own snot.
Dear E-Larry:
I made a bad word choice out of ignorance, not malice. Upon review, B and JR were correct: the term "welsher" or "welcher" is an old English pejorative attributing the supposed cultural characteristics of the Welsh to someone who refuses to carry through with an obligation. In short, the word is as offensive as any other which implies a negative stereotype to an individual simply because of membership in a racial/ethnic/national origin/religious group. You know: prejudice.
Had I known the word was an ethnic slur, I would not have used it. I made a mistake, got called on it, and I confirmed by research that the smackdown was warranted. Appreciative of the lesson, I then apologized for being unintentionally offensive.
This apology does not make me "politically correct," whatever the hell that means. If you will note, I was TRYING to be intentionally offensive to people who abandon animals. I did not intend to slur everyone from Wales, a fact that has nothing to do with the topic under discussion here.
As I said, I spoke in ignorance, not malice. What's your excuse?
Mark,
I have traveled through Wales and learned these people do "welsh" and you had better watch it. They want to be free of the English, BTW.
Some of posters should take in a pit bull or two, keep the house safe.
Mark, I thought about this all the way home, how much it sucks that you didn't know it was a slur. I'm speaking as a person who loved to call rambunctious children and ridiculous pets "wild honyocks" because I had no idea it was a slur against Hungarians. (And probably a slur only very old people would know, which is pretty mortifying when you realize you've been running around making people's grandmas feel bad.)
It's really awesome when you know the history of a word, like, say, "cat" and you realize that you could go anywhere an Indo-European language is spoken at any time in history and you'd still hear people calling that animal that word (though with slight regional variations). Those kinds of linguistic legacies are awesome.
But at the same time, it sucks when you are conscripted without your knowledge into decades' old (or centuries' old) linguistic strife.
You just want to use a word and the best word you've been given, unbeknownst to you, is designed to make sure that Welsh people don't forget what the English thought of them.
It just sucks. And I'm sorry I came down on you with both feet. I thought you knew.
Electric Larry, you know you're still free to use all of the slurs you want, whichever ones you want. The rest of us just don't feel any obligation anymore to pretend like you're not an asshole.
I remember being sent out by my father countless times to shoot dogs that had been abandoned on our little country road and were chasing livestock. Thanks for the article, maybe it'll save some other farmer's son the emotional toll and the cost of some ammo.
Thank you so much for posting this article and bringing light to the truth. So many of the kitties that are brought to our organization have been spared this horrifying fate, but there are so many more that need help and there are not enough foster homes to go around... I hope more people can face the "truth," take responsibility, act with respect for all living creatures and spare more animals a terrible fate.
Megan Brodbine, Nashville Cat Rescue
"Harvey has ruled against the verb "to welsh," apparently because two or three Welshmen with nothing better to do have elevated this common word to an ethnic slur. "Though it can be found in some dictionaries," Harvey recently wrote, "the term originated as a negative stereotype directed at Welsh people and should be avoided."
Actually, it's wrong to say it appears in "some dictionaries." So far as I can discover, it's in all of them, usually defined as "to cheat by failing to pay a bet." And, from Gage Canadian to Cambridge International, the dictionaries carry no warning about offensiveness.
What does the word have to do with the Welsh? Nothing, so far as I can tell. The Oxford English Dictionary's lengthy entry doesn't mention Wales. "Of obscure origin" is all the OED can say about the background of "to welsh," and the American Heritage Dictionary says "Origin unknown." So what does Harvey know that Oxford and American Heritage don't?
She may have in mind something like the letter received by the late Mike Royko at the Chicago Tribune in 1993, after Royko wrote "welsh on the deal." Rees Lloyd, head of the Welsh-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, insisted that this "dreaded slur" was an "ancient racial epithet invented by the Anglo, Saxon and Norman invaders of Wales in order to degrade the native Celtic peoples." That's not a claim you can easily substantiate.
Clinching her argument, Harvey says the word expresses "a negative stereotype" about the Welsh. She must mean a stereotyped view that Welsh people don't pay their debts. That would make sense, except that in 60 years of consuming books, movies, TV, radio and private conversation, I have never once heard anyone accuse the Welsh of any such thing. Have I somehow missed this ugly racial prejudice? Or could it be that no such stereotype exists, and the rumour of it was invented by people yearning for a grievance to call their own?"
Betsy, bless you for taking in an abandoned kitty. Dogs, cats and other pets are truly sweet gifts from God because they give us so much love and joy! And yes, they also give us a few hairballs every now and then!
I'm currently feeding an orange cat that hangs around outside; she's sweet as can be and most times wants affection more than food. I don't know where she came from, but she brings a smile to my face everyday when she greets me after work. Every so often she brings a mouse to my porch. Animals are humble and grateful, and I applaud you "calling out" the lazy cowards who can't be bothered to go to a shelter or make effort to find a home for an animal.
"Robert Fulford," why, yes, I'd be delighted to school your ass, even eight years after you wrote that whining, crying piece of shit column. (Seriously, the amount of crybabying done by people who are all "Boo hoo, it's so unfair that I can't use racial slurs without people being upset. We are in an age of timidity." is hilarious. If you're so brave, use the words, reactions of others be damned. But now, not only do you want to use those words, you don't want to be called on it. Thus making you the timid folks you accuse others of being.)
First, not only are the roots of the word "to welsh" obscure, the roots of the word "Welsh" are also obscure. This does nothing to prove that they aren't related. In fact, considering that "welsh" seems to come from the same word as "walnut," and that the word "walnut" meant a nut from continental Europe, we have linguistic evidence that the term "welsh" has been, from its inception a term that literally means "foreigner" or "foreign thing."
After all, "Welsh" isn't the term Welsh people called themselves.
So, is it any surprise to learn that the same negative characteristics that we attribute to foreigners today was and has been ascribed to those "foreigners"?
No.
As for not being aware of any negative stereotypes of Welsh people, well, I'm sorry you've never read a book of nursery rhymes, but people who speak English have been reciting "Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief" to their kids for at least four hundred years.
It's a pretty solid stereotype. And one Welsh people have a legitimate gripe about.
Give 'em all hell, Aint Bee!
Especially the animal dumpers. I have 12 cats and two dogs right now -- all but one of them rescues or strays and some of them deliberately dumped. One cat was found in a dumpster with the rest of his littermates when he was just a day or two old. He was the only survivor and a woman bottle-fed him until he was old enough to be adopted. We've now had him for about 8 years. We started fostering rescues (temporarily, in theory). We've found homes for a lot of them, but there are always more that we can't take in. It's just mind-boggling to see the cruelty that people so casually and mindlessly inflict on animals.
"It's just mind-boggling to see the cruelty that people so casually and mindlessly inflict on animals."
No argument about that. But, how about casual, mindless cruelty inflicted by people upon other people--our own species. That bothers me a whole lot more than the animal stuff. Particularly when one considers that the offensiveness originates with pursuit of money. Pieces of paper for God's sake.
What's interesting to me, AuntB, is that Wales and Welsh comes from a root that means, basically, "foreigner" (and shares a linguistic ancestor with "Wallonia" and "Cornwall"), but the Welsh words for themselves ("Cymry") means "compatriot."
The Welsh call themselves "us"; the English call the Welsh "them."
Definition of a nightmare: you screw up and inadvertently sound like a racist ass, then "Electric Larry", "John", and "Robert Fulford" defend your right to be an ass.
Let me make my position clear: I am satisfied, having now consulted enough dictionaries to be convinced, that the word choice I used carried an unintended cultural slur. The fact that I didn't mean the slur is no more a moral defense than it would be if I shot someone with what I thought was an unloaded gun.
In discussing this whole incident with my wife (a former newspaper editor) this morning, she was shocked to learn of the pejorative meaning of the word "welsh." This means that at least two people have learned something for the price of one screw-up. That's the positive thing I take from this episode.
Please, guys, stay off my side.
Mark - I'm the one who raised the original concern with AuntB over on Twitter.
The interesting thing about "welsh" is just what you said - nobody seems to recognize that it's an ethnic slur and that it perpetuates a stereotype the English, especially, have held for hundreds of years that the Welsh are unreliable.
I figured you, like most people, didn't recognize it and I think you did a stand-up job or saying you were wrong, you weren't defensive and, hey, you got to learn something!
Mark,
Thanks for your comment about older dogs. I'm pretty sure my Nana was an old girl just dumped in the woods of West Virginia. She's a beautiful Australian Shepherd. I adopted her 9 months ago, and she's got to be 300 years old in dog years. She had an abscessed tooth and a piece of wood protruding from her upper jaw from where it looked like she'd been eating wood to survive. She was obviously someone's indoor pet because she's housebroken, and she couldn't have run away because she's very slow at her age. One person's negligence has become my joy, though. Don't know what I'm going to do without her personality when she passes.
Animals are left beside the road to starve to death, die of dehydration and to be killed by predators. I don't know how this hienous cruelty can be corrected. Can ignorant, selfish brutes be educated? Maybe a public awareness campaign?
Animals are starved and unwatered in their barns and homes. The laws are weak. Ten to one that father/son team who abused those 84 horses will go Scott free.
My experience with local Animal Control officers has not been impressive.
Animals are left beside the road to starve to death, die of dehydration and to be killed by predators. I don't know how this hienous cruelty can be corrected. Can ignorant, selfish brutes be educated? Maybe a public awareness campaign?
Animals are starved and unwatered in their barns and homes. The laws are weak. Ten to one that father/son team who abused those 84 horses will go Scott free.
My experience with local Animal Control officers has not been impressive.
from Tiny Cat Pants:
"Are there any rules for commenting?
You must respect and strive to maintain the frith of the community. We argue, fuss, and fight because there are folks here from a wide variety of backgrounds who disagree on just about everything. The only way it can work is if everyone agrees that having a space like this is worth-while and worth treating well. That can only happen if everyone respects each other, even when, or especially when they disagree."
Does that apply here also, or just at TCP? Does calling someone else's opinion a "whining, crying piece of shit" really show respect for them?
Um, Anon, you know that's not really Robert Fulford, right? And I didn't call him a piece of shit. I called his article a piece of shit, which it is.
Seriously, someone can run around being an idiot and it's supposed to me more respectful of him to pretend like what he's doing is okay than to call it like I see it?
Please.
So, the answers to my questions are "no" and "no." And you don't yourself follow the rules you set down for others (who include "idiots" who disagree with you).
Got it. Thanks for the clarification.
Anon, really, what's your deal? Of course my rules for my own blog don't apply here. And there's no way in which I understand "respectful" to mean sugarcoating my response to what is meant to be a provocative article.
If you see that as hypocritical, well, more power to you. My name's on the top of every post I write here and you obviously know my blog, and the internet is a wide place, go read other posts.
Unless, of course, your goal is to passive-aggressive me half to death. In which case, you've certainly succeeded.
"Of course my rules for my own blog don't apply here"
They could if you wanted them to. But it seems you don't. But it is more fun to throw civility out the window and just call things shit and people idiots.
Anon, this is (God deliver me) Aunt B speaking.
"Mark, I appreciate your passion, but "welsher" is an ethnic slur. So, cut that shit out."
Well, what is "cut that shit out"....?
Welsher does not seem very bad, at least not till just now, but cut that shit out seems more offensive, more up-to-date and modern.
"Indian giver" has been worrying the shit out of me all day.
Kemo sabe
Someone dumped a dog on Highway 31 in Cross Plains. He/she had been sitting on the side of the road for days. Kept crossing the highway almost getting hit each time. He will not allow anyone else to pick him up. Runs off when someone approaches him. He'll probably get run over. Thanks to whomever dumped him! What a nice Christmas present you gave your dog!
This is a great blog. I have a dog that someone dropped off at the Kroger parking lot a while back. He kept going back to the parking lot barking at people in cars because he wanted to go home. It was really sad.
It's just pathetic how we treat helpless pets these days. We have really fallen as a society and it's no wonder we are on the verge of economic collapse. If we must have water boarding, it should start with the animal convicts
So why the hell haven't you fed the Cross Plains stray, Kelly? Or didn't your compassion extend quite that far.
Food offered to a hungry critter will overcome fear in short order. Then you could tuck the poor thing in your car, take it home and sleep with it. And Merry Christmas, sweet doggie.
Thank you.
Apparently as the 'burbs start to peter out toward Joelton and things become more pastoral, Nashville's worst pet owners decide they have found a Canine Garden of Eden. In recent years I've had to deal with around 20 poor creatures some sociopath decided could survive in the "wild."
Anyone who does this should face felony animal cruelty charges, but that might require police officers being pulled off speed traps and such things.
Thank you again.
I've got a ferret,I can't imagine ever leaving her out in the middle of no where.
It surprises me how people are so callous when it comes to dumping off animals in the wild expecting them to suddenly switch from domestic to wild.It's almost like dropping your kid off out in BFE and expecting them to learn how to survive.
Take care of your pets assholes,or don't bother getting one.
this truly saddens me...we had two MORE dropped off BIG dogs...we took care of them as long as we could. We can afford ONE dog. That is why we have ONE dog.
People put on your big girl panties and take care of your own business. Don't drop it off in front of my house.
