Oh my goodness, I couldn’t believe that one! That poor dog did not have one shred of dignity left. And the funeral they had for him… oh my. I was trying to envision them having funerals like that for every animal that died there. Where would they have time to get any work done?

I’m one of those heretics who believes that there are FAR worse things that can happen to an animal than to be humanely euthanized (I’ve seen some of the alternatives out there, unfortunately), and this was a case where they should have let the poor old guy go long before they did. Once there is no quality of life left for an animal and it is being kept alive just because the humans can’t deal with the thought of death, it has passed into an inhumane situation, imho.

Comment by H. Houlahan — February 4, 2009 @ 8:36 am

I really do think a lot of it has to do with there being so many inexperienced dog people working at Best Friends.

I see a lot of that, working in animal welfare — so many people get into it with the best of intentions. They want to save lives, but they don’t understand what they are dealing with so much of the time. They don’t know how to “fix” problem dogs in so many instances, and don’t understand that you can’t use the same techniques on all animals.

But they do know how to use telephones and how to ask for donations and how to make arrangements to move animals from point A to point B, so they do that and hope for the best. It’s very aggravating watching it happen and not being able to do much about it.

When I first started working in this shelter, I was amazed at how many things went on that were just the result of ignorance — nice people trying to do a job without knowing what they were working with. I would see the same dogs adopted out, brought back, adopted out and brought back several times, with the staff not having a clue WHY the animal was not working out in the homes.

I started telling them that when you see, for instance, a German Shorthaired Pointer come in as a stray and not be reclaimed, you are probably looking at a fence jumper, and you had better be very careful who adopts that dog, that they are able to deal with that possibility. Otherwise, they take the dog home, it jumps the fence and a) gets hit by a car, b) runs away, or c) is brought back to the shelter — sometimes all three. That doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out, but when you are dealing with people who think all dogs should be happy lying on the sofa watching TV, you are dealing with a whole different set of expectations and understandings. And that seems to be what many, if not most, of the people who get involved with working with animals on this level are — just inexperienced people who are trying to do a good thing by helping save animals’ lives.

The thing is, some of them want to learn more and do more to help on a practical level, and some just want the warm-and-fuzzy feeling that comes with saving lives, and can’t be bothered to learn more about what they are doing. So they pass the buck and let someone else do the job, while still adding those animals to their own intake figures for the year.

Sorry, I guess I’m in a more cynical mood than usual today… I’m really not disagreeing with you, H. Sometimes I’m just trying to make some sense of what seems to be a completely nonsensical situation.

Lori, I just wanted to say that while I am still not a fan of the politics of “no kill,” I do think that Best Friends does a lot of good things for animals, and I also have been impressed with much of what I’ve seen on the Dogtown program.

I just think that as tragic as this situation is, it’s all pretty much a result of those politics — they (BF) are in a position of having put themselves on such a high pedestal, they have to keep themselves up there any way they can or risk losing all the donations they have come to depend on to keep doing the good things they are able to do.

They were in a “Catch 22” situation as far as this situation was concerned; they knew there was no way they could manage those Katrina dogs, but they had to make it look like the dogs ended up “living happily ever after,” or risk the wrath of their donors. And when it all boils down to it, most of these people are not “dog people,” they are pet-lovers who are just trying to accomplish a goal of saving lives any way they can.

As for the donors — well, I think they are, in a way, just as much to blame for this kind of thing. Most of them want to believe the animals all live happily ever after, and don’t want to know otherwise.

Some people are content to have the wool pulled over their eyes; others choose to hold it there firmly with their own two hands.

At the same time as the MSN ordinance, the City Council of Lancaster passed a comprehensive dangerous dog ordinance that would address the issue of dangerous or vicious dogs regardless of breed (or owner’s gang affiliation). Advice and suggestions were taken during several meetings with concerned dog owners and the ordinance, while not perfect, is not bad. If the goal was actually to stop gang members, irresponsible owners or anyone else from harassing people with their dogs, this ordinance gave them the tools.

I get the feeling that as a personal injury attorney who handles dog bites, the Mayor is using this to fulfill a promise to a victim or victim’s family to essentially ban certain breeds of dogs by making them too difficult and too expensive to own (rumor has it that German Shepherds and Akitas are next).

Much as I enjoy the role of perpetual Cassandra, it gets even more scrumptious when people claim afterwards that I never said so. In print.

BF made it very clear that they were trolling for “trainers” who would tell them what they wanted to hear, and use the “right words,” and that there would be no actual oversight once dogs and dowry arrived. They just wanted the inconvenient pit bulls gone.

I still don’t know how this story broke. There isn’t a word about it on BF website. The only reference to Don Chambers I could find on a site search was a comment in their forums from October 2007 — the commenter was concerned that Don sold puppies bred by someone else on his website. Someone named “Ed” — a Best Friends employee — responded with some New Age spin about “relationships” when explaining that they were going to continue theirs with Mr. Chambers.

That’s it. Yet the news article quotes a BF spokesman as stating that Mr. Chambers had a “following” on their website. I guess they keep a pretty tight leash (or is that constant schedule of reinforcement?) on their forums. Winston Smith has been busy at work on the website.

I’m going to contact the reporter, and if necessary the relevant law enforcement, and find out how Mr. Chambers’ treatment of these animals was discovered.

Anyway, BF has a judgment for all their expenses, including costs of sending staff to Ohio for court. Depending on how much equity Mr. Chambers has in his real estate and other capital, BF comes away with no financial loss, an apparently “contained” PR situation, and 28 fewer pit bulls that they didn’t want to deal with in the first place.

Had I any burning desire to amass a kennel full of homeless pit bulls for profit — which I do not — I could have told an easy lie and apparently gotten as many as I asked for. Any speculation that I’m pouting because mean ol’ BF wouldn’t let me have any of this primo dogflesh is a reflection on the fantasies of the speculator.

BF never asked for references, a CV, video of me training — all things I had to produce (among other things) just for membership in one professional society. The question was never “Are you effective?”