r/AnimalShelterStories

I started fostering this dog in the beginning of the year - he is ~45lb mostly black male (n) pit bull type dog, around 1y old.

I began fostering him for a shelter that only had outdoor kennels. They needed fosters because it was going to freeze for a week and the dogs had no shelter. This specific dog was also about to run out of time; they euth at 21 days LOS.

I've been marketing the dog myself this whole time, have had 4 no show meet and greets, and no luck so far for transport.

Behaviorally he is very sound. I call him bullet proof because nothing spooks him. People in suits/masks/hats w/e he loves them all. Great with dogs, even dogs that are mean to him. Not an ounce of guarding that I've seen so far. He was bad about jumping at first but he's improved significantly. No separation anxiety noticed. Very tolerant and gentle with kids.

His main issues are that he's destructive with soft things - beds, pillows, toys, although he can't destroy reinforced soft toys. And he doesn't chew on hard things like furniture, doors, etc

And I also don't think he'd do good with cats. I feel like he has a pretty strong prey drive, and he has hyper-fixated on cats before.

When I explained this to a colleague they said it seems I'm looking for a unicorn home, because very few people want a dog that isn't cat friendly. I thought this dog in particular was actually a fairly easy one given how social he is, especially right now when so many dogs are fearful and reactive.

Is having a high prey drive dog really all it takes for a dog to be unadoptable now? Is any large dog that isn't good with strangers, kids, AND small animals now a euth candidate? Do you think this dog would get adopted in your environment?

Curious, our adoptions are way down. We are all assuming its the economy right now!. How's all y'alls adoptions, especially county shelters like ours?

I am wondering for those of you who work at shelters/rescues that house mom cats and kittens in facility untill they're ready to get spayed and neutered...

When is the first FVRCP vaccine you give your kittens and how often do you give them the boosters?

Hey, all. Asking for advice from those of you who use ShelterManager for record keeping.

While there are many aspects that I think are great, one issue I’m uncertain how to work around is condensing the record print out for adopters. At the moment, we record the different medical regiments for the animals pretty much as the site guides you to. Treatments that span multiple days are marked as such and checked off. However, going to “Print Animal Record (for adopters)” can result in a several-page print out for something that doesn’t need to be that long for the adopter.

Is there a simple way to have the treatments summarized on the records automatically? Should I just work around it and mark the treatments as “single treatment” with the actual duration listed as a comment?

A few members of the rescue use the software but I’m the primary user so finding a more efficient way to summarize treatments on the adopter print out would be great! The adopter doesn’t need a print out listing every single dose of tresaderm, just that it was given and from X date to X date.

I'm coming up on my two year anniversary of when I started working at my animal shelter, and when I first started working here it was great...until I realized all the things we do wrong and the chances we stole from dogs because of the way we run things.

Our director might as well be nonexistent, never even at the shelter half of the week and doesn't follow through on promises. Over 6 months ago I told my boss that I feel stuck here going nowhere, that the reason I wanted to work with dogs was to get my foot in the door training dogs. We don't have any type of training done at our shelter, and the dogs suffer because of it. Multiple dogs that have declined to the point of BE, which I know training can't fix neurological things like that, but maybe if we trained the dogs so they don't escalate their aggression to the point of needing BE then we would have to have situations like that a lot less. Most of the dogs we have say no kids, no cats, no other dogs, so essentially we're turning into a sanctuary more than a shelter imo. After telling my boss I feel stuck at the shelter not advancing in dog training obviously, she said she would look into something for me to start training basic obedience, well that was over 6 months ago and she's not even here enough for me to have an irl conversation about it.

I've been wanting to leave for a while but want another job set up before I give my notice. There's a dog boarding facility that's only 15 minutes away so I wouldn't have to relocate which is nice, and they had made a Facebook post saying they were hiring. I was told there would be a full time kennel attendant position available at a later date, which would also involve training. Funnily enough one of the head trainers used to be in my current position at this same shelter, and she has many of the same complaints I have. So I have some time before that position opens, and given my experience with dogs and that head trainer vouching for me, along with one of my references being another well know lady who runs a very popular boarding buisness, she actually told me months and months ago that I should quit and go work for this boarding place now.

The guilt of leaving is the only thing making me stall. Without me at the shelter we literally can't function. I work 5 out of 7 days, 7-5 most days, and usually I'm the one person assigned to take care of all the dogs. Given we only usually have a max of 15-20 dogs at a time it doesn't take me too long, just more the principal that everyone else gets help with the dogs and I'm expected to do it all on my own. I'm also the only one who can wrangle the feral cats. My coworker likes to think she's an animal whisperer and has been bit by both dogs and cats mutiple times purely for not listening to me and/or thinking she knows better and that she can tame the animal by baby talking it, idk I wouldn't trust her to take care of a fish let alone the shelter animals. There's been many times where I'm left alone at the shelter, I've been attacked multiple times with no one to help me. The worst two experiences were when a dog latched onto my leg and started shaking, I literally couldn't do anything other than drag myself outside and hope he'd calm down enough for me to go back inside and not get bit again. The second time was a dog who's actively getting worse and worse behavioral wise, I had to full on wrestle this dog so he didn't maul my face, again all by myself. I'm worried one of these times I'm going to end up on the news for getting mauled to death, I'm not afraid of these dogs, but I am afraid of not having someone to at the very least call for help if I get seriously injured.

The pros of leaving and going to the boarding place definitely outweigh the cons, one of the main ones being that I would actually get to train dogs and those dogs already belong to people, so they aren't sitting in our kennels for a year waiting to get adopted and therefore I probably wouldn't have to deal with as much of the problems the shelter dogs have. I guess I'm not really sure what I want out of this post, just feeling conflicted and second guessing myself. I've wanted to train dogs my whole life, my German shepherd isn't perfect but compared to the reactivity and anxiety issues he had when I adopted him he's made a huge improvement and I did all the training myself. I know I'm capable, I just keep having that thought that I won't be good enough and then I'd be left working nowhere.

Its harder for the new staff to understand we cant save every dog. Even if there seems to be a chance to "help" the dog, we need to put our energy and resources into our adoptable dogs. These decisions arent made lightly but are very important ones.

One of the hardest parts of animal welfare imo is the struggle between compassion and capacity.

Despite our best efforts, sometimes we run into issues such as space, staff, finances, or other limited resources that cause us to make difficult decisions.

How would you, personally, maintain the balance between life saving and sustainability? Not what your current shelter does, but how you would make those decisions.

Not looking for 'correct' answers. Please keep discussion respectful! Reasonable people can land in very different places on this topic.

We don't have an animal control unit so it falls on the cops to investigate animal abuse. I'm located in Iowa, where animal abuse/torture was just made a felony. A few years back a lady got arrested for two counts of animal neglect resulting in death. Turns out there were actually 4 dead dogs, but she only got charged for 2.

This family is now neglecting their animals, they have dogs, snakes, lizards, I don't even know what else. Two dogs live outside 24/7 and multiple of their dogs have died from heartworms, yet the police say the dogs look healthy so they're fine.

Sucks that dogs have to die for a situation to be taken seriously, especially since she should be a felon. The reptiles definitely are doomed, if they won't care about a dog I know they won't care about anything living in a cage.

Hello, I've been wanting to volunteer at pet shelters specifically to help take dogs on walks that are cooped up all day and to provide company for dogs that are scared/stressed from the shelter environment, and to clean and maintain their living spaces. Are these types of volunteers in demand

Ideally I'd like to volunteer at a shelter that is in need of volunteers. I live in Orange County and it seems like the shelters here are properly staffed (correct me if I'm wrong). Any shelters in south LA that are in need of volunteers? Or OC?

Late last year I adopted a dog from a local shelter. Loooooooong story short, I suffered 5 major losses in less than 2 weeks, and when the dog tried to attack me out of nowhere, I couldn't cope, and I returned the dog to the shelter. It was an awful situation and I still think about it every day.

When I returned her, my dad came with me and asked them multiple times, "you're not going to euthanize her, right? 'Cause if you are, I'll take her right now and find her a home myself." They said no, absolutely not. They knew that she was a good dog, she just needed a very particular kind of home. They told me to keep an eye on their website, because she would be placed back up for adoption within the next few weeks, and once her profile disappeared again, I would know she was adopted.

I never saw her again on their site. I wasn't checking it religiously, as I was dealing with some of those losses I mentioned, but I did check it a number of times and never saw her reappear. The thing that really has me worried, though, is that she's microchipped, and when I adopted her they transferred the account over to me so I could have my info on her chip. They never asked for me to transfer the account back to them or to anyone else, and when I checked recently, I'm still listed as her owner.

I can't help but think that they euthanized her after all, and it's crushing me. She was the most gorgeous dog I've ever seen, and very calm and obedient, she just had some weird aggression issues that needed worked on. If someone had told me "keep her or she'll be killed", I would have kept her. I would have made it work until I could find another home for her myself. My mom probably could have found someone. But I believed them when they said she wouldn't be euthanized. Why wouldn't I?

I hate not knowing what happened to her, but I don't know if the shelter will actually tell me anything, and I can't help believing they must hate me after I was so insistent that I could handle this dog and I would put in the work to earn her trust.

Do you think she was euthanized? Am I missing something? Should I reach out to the shelter? Should I just live with this awful feeling as punishment for what I did?

I work at closed intake shelter, so we are appointment based. I was working in the isolation area of my work, and I was heading back to my area when I saw this man walking up from the end of our driveway, he had a carrier in hand, I immediately felt uneasy, but it was a weekday so for all i knew he had an appointment. Or there wasnt even a cat inside and he was just donating a carrier. I didnt want to start problems with someone when there was no clear reason to. As im inside i was weighing one of my cats and happened to look outside and I see the same man walking away no carrier in hand. I was immediately worried, so I started walking back to the main area and scanning for a carrier, I was planning on asking if desk received a carrier for donation. Then I see the carrier sitting at our front door, my heart drops, i pick it up and there is definitely a cat inside, i bring her in and immediately get someone to set up her kennel. I was genuinely shaking. I have been here awhile and we have had many dumped animals, but I have never been the person to discover them or see it happen before, so this was the first time for me. And I always thought i would feel a lot of hatred, but i didnt, i was scared. I was scared and I was grateful. Not that he dumped the cat, but that he at least cared enough to dump the cat properly in a place we would immediately see. We have had many cats dumped in containers with breathing holes, that arent big enough, cats dumped in trash cans, dogs thrown off cars in kennels, dog tied to a leash to a pole (one time that sticks with me is when the dog chewed the leash off and we never found them). So i was grateful they did it while we were open and at least saftely contained. But i was saddened that someone would still do that. And i was mad at myself bc I felt like I should’ve listened to my gut feeling and confronted the man. This has been heavy on me lately, i just keep reminding myself to be grateful he left the cat in a place where we could easily find the cat, and bring it in our care quickly. Since that is not always the case

I currently work at an animal shelter in a very small town surrounding other small counties. The amount of animal abuse that could be ended if we simply had someone to enforce it drives me mad. A lady who got arrested for killing two dogs currently has 4 new ones and continues to neglect them. The police won't do anything about it, and as a shelter we can't do anything because we legally have no rights.

Is there anyone I can reach out to in the community about possibly starting some kind of animal control team? I know obviously it would probably cost money we don't have, but I feel like if I made a petition or something I could definitely have enough of the public rooting for it. I thought about reaching out to the mayor, but I don't know how much say in this he'd have. I really just want people to stop neglecting and abusing their animals, or at the very least have the cops take it seriously, as animal abuse was just made a felony here in Iowa.

The shelter gets calls all the time about dead cats on the road that need picked up. Technically it's not our job, but the vet doesn't pick them up and neither do the cops, so it falls onto us. This is another example of ways loads could be taken off the shelter and provided by animal control, along with the mass amounts of animals we get calls about running loose around town.

Anyone experienced in animal control give me your two cents, at this point I'm ready to move cities with how things are run here in regards to animal welfare.

Share some things you've said or heard at the shelter that would sound completely unhinged if it were taken out of context!

C'mon I know y'all got some bangers

I don’t know if this is a good sub for this, I’m sorry if not.

Our shelter uses Rescue for cleaning, and typically buys the cheap, plastic hand pumps that break all the time and don’t fit well into barrels. Does anyone have pumps they prefer that they’d recommend? I don’t want to break the bank, but I’m seeing some metal crank pumps, and can’t find any information on if that’s appropriate with Rescue.

Literally any help would be amazing, I’m at my wits end trying to get this stuff out of these barrels.

hi all. i’m the cat coordinator for my local animal shelter and we’ve run into an issue with collars lately and i was hoping to get some ideas of what other shelters are using!

we currently use stretchy fabric collars with a tightener. the collars have a plastic piece that ID number tags go on. our shelter has used them for over a decade but they’ve always been kind of a pain in the ass. they aren’t breakaway at all, and because they’re stretchy, even if you tighten them all the way on a tiny kitten, the kitten can still slip its leg through and get the collar stuck over a shoulder. and because they’re basically just a strip of stretchy fabric, cats chew the ends and get little strings loose and stuck in their teeth (or eat them) which is also quite bad. we’re supposed to burn the ends of the fabric with a lighter after cutting off the excess fabric to prevent this, but imagine holding a lighter an inch away from a cat’s face…

i’ve never seen any other shelters use this kind of collar but it’s been used by my shelter for so long that i’m not sure we could do anything else, but i’m really starting to get annoyed by them 😅 do yall use paper tags, buy breakaway collars in bulk, no collars, or something else? i just feel like i’m at my wits end with these stretchy fabric ones.

Hey everyone,

Im an Admin Dorector for my local humane society.

Recently I've noticed some issues we have with our veterinarians... we have 2 local Vets in town (1 is a single run vet and the other a more corporate name vet practice) and another that is 10 to 15 minutes out of our Town into another town. None of these Vets are open on weekends and thus locals are forced to travel 1 to 2 hours for any emergencies.

We recently had a guy who's two pups got quilled in the face coming to us for any help we might have. The smaller vet (his personal vet he goes to) declined stating she likes to leave early on Fridays. The 2 other Vets (more corporate) have denied as well.

In the end a board member paid out of theor own pocket for him to go to the bigger cities and hopes to get a gofund me to recoup the costs so that these two dogs aren't in pain anymore.

What's going on here? Is there something that im missing? Why would Vets decline seeing and removing porcupine quills?

Is this a bigger issues with Vets? Or is this more of a rural problem?

A few weeks ago a social worker called our help line on behalf of her client. He was living in his car with his dog. She was running out of ideas and someone told her to try us.

She did not call a shelter. She did not call about surrender. She called because she had a person in front of her who would not give up his dog, and she wanted to know what else existed.

That call is what prevention work actually looks like most days. It is not a marketing moment. It is a social worker, a stranger, a dog, and one phone number standing between a family staying together and a family ending up in a shelter intake line.

The thing I keep thinking about is how close that call came to never happening. He could have ended up at a shelter front desk being told to sign a surrender form because he had no address. She could have given up after the third place said no. The dog could have ended up labeled "owner relinquishment, housing" in someone's intake spreadsheet and the real story would have disappeared into a number.

Most of the families I talk to are not out of love. They are out of options. The reasons people surrender pets are almost never about the pet. It is housing, it is a vet bill, it is a car that broke down, it is a job that ended, it is a landlord that changed the rules. The pet is what they are trying to hold onto, not what they are trying to get rid of.

I am building something in Central Alabama that tries to catch families before they hit that intake line. Not because shelters are doing something wrong. Because the system asks shelters to absorb a problem that started weeks or months earlier somewhere else, and by then there are not many good moves left.

Curious what other folks in this space see on the ground. What is the moment in your area where prevention could have worked and did not? What got in the way?