I should know better by now, I really should, but I’m watching those damned Animal Cop shows on Animal Planet.
I’ve only been watching them for about two days, but it’s bringing back something that annoyed me when I first saw it in this HBO documentary about some dog shelter.
Temperament testing.
If you don’t know what that is, it seems to be this thing they do to dogs where they basically harass the thing until it bites a rubber hand, and when it does bite, everyone gets all sad because the dog has to die.
Because ‘you just can’t in good conscience place that dog in a home.’
Tonight, on one of the shows, they had this rescued part shepherd looking thing that was obviously very friendly and very timid all at the same time — desperate to please the person it bonded with — and they did the food bowl test on it. First, it froze, then, after they poked around at its face a few dozen times, it started growling.
Oh, so sad, has to die, has to die. Might bite a kid.
What they’re really saying is ‘we need an excuse to kill off another dog because nobody we adopt to is competent enough to handle anything we offer them.’
I’m just hoping that there are a few…sane individuals out there that realise that these dogs don’t deserve to die just because they require the owner to not DO STUPID SHIT AROUND THE DOG. Would YOU stick your hand in front of an eating animal? I wouldn’t. That’s just not smart.
The damned dog can be placed — not with a family, maybe, but with a person [or couple] that only wants one animal and has enough common sense to not poke at an eating dog.
“Oh, but it might decide it wants to own the sofa!”
Maybe. Somehow, I doubt it. Especially if the whole “dogs just need to be around people” thing is anything like true. The dog could probably be rehabilitated.
I think we should start going around, trying to take away peoples’ plates, and when they complain, we should euthanise them. That’s obviously the solution for everything.
Here’s the way I see it
Q: Why can’t dogs be released into the wild?
A: Because, after centuries of breeding, they don’t have the aggressive tendancies required to survive
Q: Why are these dogs being euthanized?
A: Because they are demonstrating aggressive tendancies that would be useful in the wild.
“The wild” isn’t even the wild anymore. We tag, keep track of, and nurture entire herds of “free roaming” animals, and even go through the trouble of fending off predators for them. One of the few things we do right as a species is wildlife conservation. While putting dogs intended as pets in a home is preferable, if they absolutely can’t be taken care of, it doesn’t take that much to get twenty or so together, tag them, and set them free somewhere near a slow-moving herd of elk. Set up preserves. Sure, the idea seems silly now; preserves are normally just for animals you do not want to fuck with. And I’m sure there’d be some flak about “preserving the fragile little ecosystem”, as though it was a soufle just waiting for someone to breath on it. But let’s be real. The problem is that people don’t think of “pets” as being animals, and as a result don’t know what to do when their pet goes out and does animal things like eating other “pets”, fucking people up and/or urinating on them, or making more “pets”. Now, people understand things like snakes are animals; if a person is camping, and they step on a water mocassin, they’re pretty fucked and they know it, so when they buy one, they make sure they’re not going to die if it bites them, avoid pissing it off intentionally, and make sure it has enough food and will be able to do whatever it wants to do. So, I dunno, maybe making a Saint Bernard or Short-Tailed Manx something to be feared by campers again might just get it through people’s heads that they need to plan a few things ahead when purchasing and agreeing to care for a dog or cat.
Of course, I’d also like to advocate the same approach for some people. And I like the mental image of a bunch of people in the woods running away from a hungry pack of poodles. Maybe you just shouldn’t listen to me.
Well.. if it makes you feel any better, I think it’s just the ASPCA or SPCA that does that sort of testing/killing. Animal shelter workers I’ve talked to say that they just warn each other and prospective adopters of aggression, unless it’s just an outwardly, constantly aggressive animal. Or one that’s illegal in that city/county, like pit bulls. Which I don’t agree with either; outlawing an entire breed because some retard kept his pit bull chained in his backyard with no human interaction is unfair. It’s like jailing all black people because a few of them sell crack or rob a convenience store. And don’t get me started on the ferret bans..