Why is it so hard to adopt a dog from the dog pound? I can buy a dog on Craigslist or at a pet store, and take him home right away. But when you try to adopt a pet at the pound, they are so careful about who is allowed to adopt that I am sure many people just give up and find their animals elsewhere.
I recently adopted a nice little doggle from the Humane Society in Galveston. They were wonderful people and very helpful, but it was still a complicated procedure. I even had to have a police officer visit my home to look around and make sure it would be a safe and proper environment for little Pookey to crap on. The whole process took over a week.
Yeah, I know that there are some people who would adopt a pet, then mistreat it. Nobody wants that to happen. But even with all of their caution, it will still happen sometimes.
The kind of people who make bad pet parents might not be able to get a stamp of approval from the Humane Society or the SPCA, but they will nevertheless get the pets they want, one way or another. They will buy them from dealers and private sellers. Heck, they will even steal them.
It’s normal to spend over $50 to adopt a cat from the pound. They are as careful about cats as they are about dogs. If you can’t convince them that you are going to be a good Cat Daddy, they will not let you take one home.
Meanwhile, there are free kittens available everywhere, and nobody wants to know how many square feet of carpet that cat will have to sharpen his claws on.
You might remember Whiskerville Animal Sanctuary, the private shelter in Texas City where the animals were neglected, and a court case finally resulted in an Animal Cruelty conviction against Mrs. Wydell Dixon.
Although she was vilified in the press, Mrs. Dixon was (and is) an animal lover who spent her life savings creating a sanctuary for cats.
Unfortunately, she ran out of money and couldn’t maintain the population of animals which accumulated there. As things went from bad to worse, she couldn’t bring herself to close up and turn the cats over to another agency where some of the cats might be “put to sleep” so she tried to keep things going the best she could. Catastrophic failure was the end result.
But even when things were at their very worst, it was never easy to adopt at Whiskerville.
It ought to be very simple to adopt a cat.
If you can fog a mirror and show ID, they ought to shake your hand and congratulate you quickly, before you change your mind.
If you’re broke, they ought to let you take him free, just to get him off taxpayer support.
There is no demand for cats. In many places they outnumber the human population. In San Leon, there are eight cats for every person. Cats who are homeless are referred to as “feral” cats. Most of them started off with a pink ribbon around their necks as a gift to some little brat who whined “Momma I wont a kitty!” As soon as they were big enough to piss on everything and claw up some priceless antiques, they were taken for a ride.
It ought to be easy to adopt a dog. ID and proof of address should be enough.
I realize that this would cause a few cases of animal abuse from time to time. But isn’t that already the case? Overall, more pets would find loving homes.
The thing that pissed me off at the pound was how many pit bulls and pit bull mixes are there. This is because of all the morons who get a pit bull to authenticate their status as uneducated rednecks, then get evicted from the trailer park and “dump” their dog on the side of the road somewhere.
There are lots of jackasses out there who get pits bulls and intentionally train them from puppies to be mean and aggressive.
These dogs end up at the Humane Society or SPCA, where an occasional inbred fuckjob with a swastika tattoo will show up and ask if any pit bulls are available for adoption…
Hey, on second thought, maybe they should screen people who want to adopt.
