Animal Shelter Suck (long)

[barainga]

I adopted my current beagle from the local pound. They had lost the paperwork on her so they couldn't let me have her until a week had passed in case some one claimed her. So I left my number and went home. Less then 10 minutes after I got home they called me and told me that one of their workers said that she had been there for almost a month and that I could come pick her up right away.

I live fairly close to the pound so I went right away. The people working there told me that since I obviously wanted her so much they would wave the adoption costs and only had me pay for her shots/registration. The effectively reduced the fees in half.

Working at a shelter would be a hard thing to do I think. Especially for me because I cant take them all home. Poor critters, it isn't their fault that some body abused/abandoned them.

Except those deer that are stalking me.. had two of them maliciously attack my car in the span of a month. Ive never even been deer hunting. You'd think they would want to keep me on their side.

[Andara Bledin]

Also stored in the garage, are new bags of cat food. Baxter has been known to rip open bags if he can get to them

We don't have a garage, so that's not an option.

Thankfully, none of them have food issues. They have a near-constant supply of crunchies, and they get gooshy food three times a day. Even when their crunchies run out, they'll wait patiently for us to refill the feeder.

I, too, could never volunteer at a shelter; the awful things people do to their animals would crush me.

^-.-^

[Shalom]

I couldn't work in a shelter either. In the first place, I'd be sneezing my head off (allergic to both dogs and cats; I can, and have, lived with one cat, but more than two in one room sets me off) and in the second place, I'd wind up adopting all of them, or would if I wasn't allergic.

(My father had a cat when he was young. Then his grandmother came to live with them, and the cat had to go; elderly European Jewish ladies of the time were quite superstitious about cats. He gave the cat to an uncle, and was catless for the next ten years. Then he and my mother went on a date to a cat show at the Brooklyn Armory. Six thousand cats in one room. That was when he found that in the interim he'd developed an allergy. He was flat on his back for the next three days...)

We had a cat who was a former street cat. She had a litterbox, but hated using it, preferring to go outside to take care of business. Only time she'd use the box was if there was snow on the ground. She'd do that thing Heinlein described in "The Door Into Summer", going around to each door and window in the house, trying to find one that didn't have winter on the other side of it... and then she'd stand there and glare at me, as if to say "You opened the door wrong. Now close it and open it again so it's warm outside."

Then we found out she'd been peeing in the basement shower, and defecating in my mother's potted rubber tree. Thanks a lot, Tiger.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

To be fair, horses ARE pretty.

You win Celebrity Jeopardy.

[Sapphire Silk]

We had a cat who was a former street cat. She had a litterbox, but hated using it, preferring to go outside to take care of business. Only time she'd use the box was if there was snow on the ground. She'd do that thing Heinlein described in "The Door Into Summer", going around to each door and window in the house, trying to find one that didn't have winter on the other side of it... and then she'd stand there and glare at me, as if to say "You opened the door wrong. Now close it and open it again so it's warm outside."

My cat Stumps has been doing this a lot lately. He likes to go out first thing in the morning. While he uses his litter box, I suspect he prefers Mother Nature as well.

Yesterday it rained most of the morning. It was cold, so I didn't open the garage (I have a door going into the garage with a kitty door built in. On nice days I leave the garage open so he can come and go at will). He fussed until I gave in (yes, I caved) and opened the garage.

He looked through his kitty door, saw the weather, "harrumphed!", and started looking through the other windows of the house looking for that Door into Summer.

[alowlypotato]

Clueless Dude: This dog is going to take a lot of work! It's like a baby!

...I wonder what he'd thought a puppy was?

[Sarlon]

my mom volunteers at the humane society in the town she lives in...helping wake up puppies and kitties (some not so young) from surgery (they do all but seriously major surgery onsite, not just spay/neuter).

one thursday she arrived at the normal time and went to sit on the floor, and a tiny little dog woke up enough to crawl across the floor into my mother's lap and promptly fell back asleep.....mom brought her home a few weeks later because she was deemed unadoptable (they thought she was like 10 or 11 years old).

she had been abused and neglected and had been a mommy several times...mom took her from a frieghtened little thing to something less frightened. though she still has some issues.

[HappyFun Ball]

I have a cat, Fawkes who always seems to know when I'm ordering a sandwich to be delivered, he will perch on the arm of the couch and wait so patiently until the sandwich arrives, because he knows I'll share it with him.

[Seshat]

Little Vi - our dog - is still wary about food. Until she's SURE she's permitted to have a particular meal, she backs off the moment anyone is near. Even the cats.

And she's terrified of my stick - which is bad, because it's a walking stick. We're gradually working on it. She's gone from terror to wariness, and she's willing to go for her walks while I have the stick. I think associating the stick with something she loves (walks) is helping her.

But sometimes I get so angry thinking about what must have happened to her.

[laborcat]

Right now, I have Hannah. That's her on my avi. I got her from the pound/shelter down home. She thinks she's a cat. It's funny. We were watching the news tonight and there was a segment on some shelter that was going under. You could hear the dogs yelping in the background. Hannah howled, then whined and hid behind the chair, shaking. Took a while to get her out from there.

Before that, I had Lady, a Rottie that was literally on her last day at the Humane Society before... you know. Best damn dog I ever had, and I miss her

As long as I'm still breathing, my family and I will never get a pet anywhere but a shelter. They really are the best ones.

[XCashier]

Baxter will spend *hours* digging in there. Even if the box is perfectly clean, I'll hear him sifting the litter around, and scratching the inside of the box

Is yours a covered litter box? That's what we have, and my Millie does the same thing. I've even seen her scratching the ceiling of the box cover! Um, kitty, there's no litter up there!

She'd do that thing Heinlein described in "The Door Into Summer", going around to each door and window in the house, trying to find one that didn't have winter on the other side of it... and then she'd stand there and glare at me, as if to say "You opened the door wrong. Now close it and open it again so it's warm outside."

Now I have to read that story!

[Mikkel]

Now I have to read that story!

It's a fun story, especially because of Pete the cat, but also because of the glimpse of now seen from the fifties. Be warned, the love story is a little disturbing.

[protege]

Is yours a covered litter box? That's what we have, and my Millie does the same thing. I've even seen her scratching the ceiling of the box cover! Um, kitty, there's no litter up there!

Yep, covered litter boxes are all I have now. I got them when I had Snow. She loved to throw litter outside of the box, and I got tired of cleaning it up. Kitties seem to enjoy some strange behavior Lately, I've noticed that after Baxter is done eating...he'll start scratching the floor near his food dish. What's up with that?

[Eireann]

Lately, I've noticed that after Baxter is done eating...he'll start scratching the floor near his food dish. What's up with that?

He's trying to "bury" the food so that he can eat it later. One of my kitties used to do the same thing; first she had a bad habit of scarfing and barfing, because she was used to eating as much as she could, whenever she could. Eventually, this habit passed, but then she tried "burying" the food because she still couldn't believe there would be more later.

[Sapphire Silk]

Now I have to read that story!

It's one of Heinlein's short novels from the 50's. It has some odd elements, like the love story (as noted by Mikkel), but he gets the personalities of cats spot on.

Heinlein liked to write about cats. They are featured in many of his books. Another good one is the Cat Who Walked Through Walls, featuring a very odd cat named Pixel, and To Sail Beyond the Sunset, in which Pixel makes a reappearance along with the stories of several other cats (Princess Polly Ponderosa Penelope Peachfuzz is my favorite, and I had a cat just like Random Numbers).

Be warned: his later novels, esp the two I mentioned, have some seriously adult sexual themes (not pornographic however).