Surrender

Every day, animals are surrendered. Some days it takes all that I have to keep from being a real bitch about these surrenders.

My dog is my life, and I cannot, at this point, think of a single thing that would cause me to turn him into an animal shelter and certain death. I have rearranged my life for him- taken a job where I could bring him to work, driven him around in the car so he wouldn't be home alone, shortened my social outings for him, paid more for apartments that would allow a "power breed," moved in with my dad for awhile while looking for an apartment, etc. But I also understand that I haven't been everywhere, and that I am lucky in so many ways- I am healthy and stable enough to be able to support myself and him.

People surrender animals for reasons that really cause me to bite my tongue, and could be fixed with a little work. There was the outside, declawed, all white cat a couple of weeks ago, that apparantly bit the grandkids. The woman who surrendered had no will to separate the kids from the cat, or to bring her cat inside (the cat had skin cancer when it was surrendered). We get animals all the time with the "moving, can't keep" explanation, or the "got too big" or "allergic" explanation. I have never quite figured any of these out- a german shepherd that got too big for the kids? Um, right. A husky that keeps escaping that is kept in the yard all the time? Okay.

The other day, a couple came in with a cat. The cat was 15, and they had had her for 15 years. They were being forced out of their home. No rescue group or individual would take the cat. Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita animals are all the rage around here, and this was just a local animal, with nowhere to go. The women really hoped that I would have good news for them, but I knew that we would not be able to place their beloved pet up for adoption. I explained to them that they could surrender the cat to us and we could evaluate her, but that most likely, she would be humanely euthanized. I offered them a form that would give the shelter permission to euthanize the cat immediately, after her evaluation, instead of sitting through a hold period in a small cage, in the chaos of the shelter.

The women left for a few minutes to talk about this, but they knew that it was coming. The cat was no longer consistently using the litter box. She was a stray when they found her- not exactly feral, but not anyone's pet. They socialized her, had her fixed, and made her their house cat. And now, life had changed, and their time together had come to a close, through no choice of their own. I was in no place to fault them for that.

They signed the release for euthanasia, and made a donation to the shelter. Life changes, kitten season, and national natural disasters had made for a sad ending to their cat's life.