I've been reading about the Ellen Degeneres Iggy situation today. A quick overview: Ellen Degeneres (hehe, the Firefox spell check wants "degeneracies") and her partner adopted a dog from an adoption agency. In less than three weeks (as I understand it), they decided the dog, Iggy, would not fit into their household and so they gave the dog to Ellen's hairdresser's daughter, who (I believe) is eight years old.
The agency found out about this and took the dog. They have two policies that were violated: firstly, if you find your adopted pet is non-compatible, you are to contact the agency, secondly, their policy is they will not adopt to families with children under 14.
I'm not even going to get into the details on this. I'm behind the shelter AS LONG AS they were perfectly clear about their policies. If they weren't, that's a completely different situation.
What I find so interesting are the people who are arguing against the shelter. "They took that dog out of a loving home!" I read over and over again. That's not the question here. The question is that the loving home they thought they were putting it in, was, in fact, not one. They're dedicated to finding permanent homes for animals. I can see that they feel an obligation to fulfill their promise to the dog.
As I understand it, the dog was given up after fewer than three weeks. That is inexcusable behaviour from someone who claims to love and care for animals. Especially if they did not consider it their business to contact the agency they got the animal from. As far as I can see, anything less than a year is absolutely unacceptable and after the year, you'd better have a reason serious debilitating health problem. This is all the truer considering it takes almost as long to adopt a pet as it does a child these days. If you haven't managed to sense a problem in the months before adoption, you have no business giving that animal up. You should go to someone who can help, because the problem is most likely you, not the animal, and you made a promise to that animal when you brought it home.
If you look at the situation objectively, you have a person who took a living creature into their home to care for it, and after a very short period of time, decided they couldn't cope so they kicked the dog out. It doesn't matter WHO you give the living creature to, that is inexcusable behavior. That is treating a living creature like a skirt that doesn't fit. And in the case of the skirt, most people would take it back to a store for a refund rather than send it to Goodwill. Sure, Goodwill can take care of it for you, but, dude, you just got it. Wouldn't you rather take it back to the store? Wouldn't that make sense?
Imagine if this were a child, not a dog.
Exactly.
Maybe it's just because I've been reading Huckleberry Finn, but it strikes me that pets are in the same situation that slaves were. Just from the property perspective, I don't mean to say anything derogative. A slave was seen as property: they were largely dealt with like livestock, you bought them, you sold them, they were yours and if (like Huck) you stole one, you were subject to the same penalties as if it had been a horse you stole. (This is why that book is a masterpiece, Twain is looking at the Southern viewpoint through Huck's "morally degenerate from societies point of view" situation.)
Huck Finn aside, it seems to me that pets are in a similar situation. Pets are property. No one thinks anything of giving a dog away to someone else: you can sell them, put them in a box outside the Wal-Mart with a "Free" sign, etc. This is perfectly legal. There are pet owners who would argue that it's certainly not moral, but it is legal. If you did this with toddlers, there would be a public outcry.
The Boy's younger sister has an almost six month old. I observed the other day that she's managed to keep the kid longer than she kept her dog. Several years ago, she had a Chocolate Lab mix for almost four months. TB replied, yes, because no one will deny you housing if you have a baby, but they will if you have a dog.
I argued that the wear and tear on the carpet and the potential noise level and odour problem were the same (Because we have all been in a house with lingering dirty diaper smell. You know, when you went to visit that kid that your mother really didn't want you to play with, and after half an hour there you understood why?). What was the real difference?
As far as I can see, it's purely attitude. Most people will manage to toilet train their child eventually, and will do a semi-acceptable job of teaching it right from wrong, but they don't seem as pressed to do this with an animal.
Some of the people here are on an older lease than us and have cats. There are something like seven cats that roam freely. I know that at least three of them have homes, but obviously their owners are not taking responsibility for them. They're the cats that nap out in the middle of the road and hang out on top of cars. I see them climbing in open windows and crapping in the flowerpots. The true strays, on the other hand, aren't any worse than the squirrels. They're afraid of people and don't come near the cars, houses, anyone.
I'd say if you get a puppy for Christmas, and by the next Christmas you decide to get rid of him since he's still ruining the rugs and jumping on the furniture, there should be consequences involved. It's your fault that the dog behaves that way, and now you're going to pass your lack of responsibility off onto some shelter who is now going to have to try to find someone who wants a problem dog, or they'll put the animal down.
This just isn't right.
All the same, is it right for my uncle to sit up on his balcony with the BB gun for cats that wander onto his property? I mean, it's not just cats, it's raccoons, rabbits, pretty much anything that moves on his property is fair game.
If you name a cow, is it OK to eat it?
Well, obviously I'm not going to solve all the country's animal problems in this post. I think I'll read Black Beauty once I've finished Huck Finn, though.