"Tee" wrote in message
...
"Sunflower" wrote in message
...

"Susan Donym" wrote in message
om...
http://www.petfinder.org/shelters/WV39.html

Plott Hound
Coonhounds
Rottweiler
Dalmatian
GSDs
many Black Labs
Beagle
Doberman
Pitbulls
Husky

An astounding number of young, nice-looking puppies!

Calico kitten (always popular)
Siamese cat

And lots of other nice, young mixes, and loads of cats, too. Please
help!

So how many are you taking?

Why the attitude? I know alot of shelters that do this, either in-house,
or
they ask rescuers & PT volunteers to do it for them. The idea is that if
just one person sees the list then maybe one dog or cat will make its way
out whether its via rescue or adoption. Some of the shelters I've worked
with in the past have told me that they can't count how many times people
come in and exclaim over & over about how they never would have imagined
healthy or pretty or even purebred dogs might be there. Guess they think
its a mangy-mutt-hotel only. Anyway, I think posts like these have their
use and the person doing the posting is doing some form of volunteer work.
Any help is better than no help at all don't you think?

--
Tara



Sorry. Frustration speaking. The post just struck me as the "somebody
needs to do something" syndrome, which really means "anybody but me do
something". We're overcrowded and just euthanized a couple of great
purebred GSD's and a whole litter of almost pure lab mixes. We network with
rescues all over the country and they're all currently full and couldn't
help. And another chow mix was tied to the fence yesterday morning with an
extension cord. And another 8 year old cat was left at the door with a note
telling us how wonderful she was but she was peeing all over everything but
they were sure we could find her a good home.

I need a vacation. But we currently are low on volunteers and I can't spare
the time, and all the hammock on a beach funds were spent on buying new
stainless steel pet bowls and new kennels ,and vaccines because we're
broke---again.

I coordinate Basset Hound rescue in West Virginia...and I live here.

Part of the problem is that folks are so preoccupied about bad old West
Virginia that a number of rescues and lone rangers **** folks here off. That
does NOT help save any dogs.

Jeez, one starts thinking that one of Ingrid "Should have stuck being a
butch county mountie" Newkirk's vegan storm troopers was out to sabotage
rescue. The inane vitriol in some groups' web sites isn't helping. Please
save the crap for use at home.

I can't count how many times I have had to go in behind some manic radical
and try to keep a shelter or dog warden willing to call me when there's
another dumped hound.

The Mason County Shelter IS NOT closing! The County Commission HAS NOT
called in an air strike with napalm for the shelter. The facts are serious
and are being intelligently approached, but when some neurotic wacko from
the Hamptons calls the county government with accusations which have a
supermarket tabloid state of accuracy, and scream 'Hillbilly' at some
official, they are NOT helping. There is a serious problem now, but it is
being worked here.

Mason County just took a $220,000 hit from a revised state tax formula.
That may not sound like a lot in Sausalito, but for most rural counties it
IS a lot. The first and hardest hit are the activities that do not have a
statutory entitlement, and don't appear to involve voting two-leggers. The
revised limits are still almost three times the statutory five day hold on
strays. Of course those of us who have volunteered at this fine shelter want
to help get the successful rescue program made whole. I was a budgeting guy
for a long time. In this opera, the fat lady ain't even to the dressing
room yet.

How many shelters use official vehicles and pay overtime to shelter staff to
help get dogs and cats a couple hundred miles closer to rescues that can
help? Not many. Mason County did until this fiscal crisis. How many rural
counties ANYWHERE have mandatory spay/neuter requirements? Not Many. Mason d
oes. You want to visit a hopeless shelter....go to Washington DC....lots of
rottie and pit fashion accessories from the 'Hood...and the unclaimed all
DIE! Drive all night and park your rescue vehicle close enough to the pound
gate that the employees have to wake you up to get to work on 'kill day'. Go
to a southwestern VA 'shelter' where local Sheriff's storm troopers run the
place. Pulling a Basset and waiting for the kill vet that had been the
rescuee's practitioner to get records...I got to see the Sheriff's armed
morons hold their routine weekly 'selection'. They weren't even full.
Improvement is certainly needed in WV, and is being made. There is now a
felony animal cruelty statute on the books. IT'S NOT JUST WEST VIRGINIA.

Many of the dogs that got left in Mason came from across the river in Ohio
where the legal hold is three days.

Rescue folks in West Virginia are busy. We appreciate everyone's concerns.
Please don't make the government relations job any harder for us. Tell the
manics to stop bashing WV and let in state folks have a chance to improve
animal welfare. Some folks out there need a few hits of "Howlium". Some need
an overdose.

Remember: Pillage First, Then Burn

Charlie Meyer
WV Coordinator/Board Member
Basset Rescue of Old Dominion, Inc.
Keyser, WV

Basset Recsue: I work with women and pick up dogs.

"John F Richardson" wrote in message
Thwack!
Frustration is in ample supply.
My own frustrastion with WV
is that many people both locally
and on the east coast and in
the midwest have been pulling
aggressively (or as aggressively
as they can, anyway) and our
efforts to create even just a
little breathing room in WV
in which conditions could start
to improve have been met with
a spate of total abdications
of responsibility at the county
commissioner level as several
shelters are closing or are
being threatened with having
to close. Of course, I have
my own local frustrations as
well.

The post just struck me as the
"somebody needs to do something"
syndrome, which really means
"anybody but me do something".

I certainly know that attitude.
Few things get my teeth grinding
more than the old "I'm so concerned
that I've decided YOU should deal
with it" syndrome, especially when
it is followed by "I thought you
cared" when it is explained that
we have no space, no foster people,
no funds, nothing to offer right now.
But my experience with the people
who post from WV is that they
and the groups the belong to/work
with do a hell of a lot more than
just post. I don't know whether
this is the case in this particular
instance, but I'd err on the side
of assuming the best till something
else is proven.

We're overcrowded and just
euthanized a couple of great
purebred GSD's and a whole
litter of almost pure lab mixes.

Where are you?

I must say that this has been
the suckiest summer in memory.
Our own adoption doldrums
began in mid-May and while
there is some evidence that
this early start may well be
paired to a somewhat early
end to the summer doldrums,
the evidence is slight and I'm
not at all sure that I'm not
just hoping...

JohnR
Pit Bull Libertarian

Never sneer at the power of a little
pink squeaky toy!

I really don't know how else I can refer to folks that seem to feel a need
to simply vent at the expense of painstaking efforts by folks actually
trying to get counties, pounds, and shelters to work with rescues. There
seems to be a number of folks who feel that "it's my way or the
highway"...and expect a mass conversion after spewing invective. As for
'lone rangers', there are folks who may mean well, but obviously got bad
marks in Kindergarten for "playing well with others". The synergy of
volunteer efforts in a group gets far more done than an individual on a
crusade. And yes, a lot seem to come from wealthier locales. It's hard
enough to keep good (and underpaid) shelter employees from burning out even
faster than they already do, without some self styled "animal rights"
dillatante princess several hundred miles away verbally abusing them under
the guise of "helping the animals". When they attack the local governments
(who many times deserve some complaints), those officials quickly start
losing any inclination to help, making it harder on those of us who are
saving animals....not just looking for a soapbox to rant from.

If folks who want to help save homeless dogs and cats would stop bitching
and actually do something, more could be saved. There is always room for
more shelter checkers, transporters, and, above all, fosters. Those whose
only contribution is ranting 'advocacy' make it worse for those of us
actually working in rescue. And working with others in rescue.

When I deal with a shelter staff that just got one of those ranting
long-distance cell phone know-it-all lectures, and I try to tell them all
the good that they're doing, the terms I want to use for the "soapbox
rescuers" usually can be gleaned from many years as a sailor. I'm also
wondering if any of the screamers actually bother to give any of their time
to their local shelter or rescue...or "they would love to if they weren't so
busy". Talk is cheap. Checks are needed, but as a great foster in WV puts
it: "It's easy to write a check." despite a very challenging practice and
other volunteering. Her latest foster showed up with parvo....but is making
a full recovery in foster care.

The shelter in question has reduced non-veterinary euthanizations from over
a thousand a year to six in 2003 and three so far this year. That record
would be the envy of virtually all shelters....regardless of location. That
success was done by a lot of shelter staff and rescue volunteer teamwork. As
for losing the 'war', the knowledge that so many have been saved means that
we will keep on trying, not just screaming about it. If it can be done once,
it can be done again and further improved upon.

99% of the problems in rescue are attributable to two-leggers.

Charlie

"John F Richardson" wrote in message
...
charlie meyer writes, in response
to my post:

Part of the problem is that folks are so preoccupied about bad old West
Virginia that a number of rescues and
lone rangers **** folks here off. That
does NOT help save any dogs.

Actually, I'm mostly preoccupied
with bad old New Jersey, where
*I* live. I have a wait list a mile
long, EVERYONE wants to get
in here because they know
their dogs will be toast in any
of the other shelters, adoptions
are way slow, one of the local
shelters has been charged by
the SPCA with improper use
of impounded animals for
the second time in two years,
I am helping someone coordinate
rescue of a skadillion or so Beagle
Mixes that were seized by the
SPCA about 15 minutes from
my shelter and we've been getting
little help and more than a little
attitude from other local shelters
with vastly bigger budgets than
ours and all this while two bills
of urgent importance, one pro-
dog and anti-dog, are moving
slowly through the legislative
process, but not slowly enough
to allow me enough time to
feel that I'm able to keep up...

That said, however, while I do
very much appreciate the background
info you've shared re the counties
of West Virginia and their shelters,
cuts are cuts and it DOES feel as
though all the prior efforts to create
some breathing room in WV and
elsewhere have been squandered
and then some and one therefore
is left wondering whether there
is any point left. Are we helping
a system get better or enabling it
to remain the same or even get
worse?

And mind you, WV is by no means
the only place making me feel this
way. There is a shelter is DE from
which my shelter and many other
shelters and rescues have pulled
many, many dogs and it just seems
that the more we do, the more
screwed up this place becomes
and the more urgent pleas we
receive. I just got a call last night
about six dogs that apparently aren't
even at the shelter yet, but are
nonetheless already DOOMED
DOOMED DOOMED.

Whatever.

At any rate, there are even as
we speak three WV dogs in my
NJ shelter, all great dogs. No
regrets bringing them in at all.
But if, for WHATEVER reason,
the WV shelter system starts
jacking up the euthanasia rates,
then the war is being lost,
regardless of how many small
battles are one. And it'll be hard
not to feel disappointed by that.

Meanwhile, relations between
governments and rescuers is
a two way street. It offends ME
that anyone would start using
terms like 'hillbilly' when addressing
WV officials. And it offends me
when people refer to rescuers
who work within a remarkable
NETWORK of on site volunteers,
transporters, rescues and shelters
are called "lone rangers" or
"neurotic whackos".



JohnR
Pit Bull Libertarian

Never sneer at the power of a little
pink squeaky toy!