Two Sisters to the Rescue!
So if you read the baby seester's blog (The Clam Rampant), you have probably heard the tale of Mike, the stray we found on Sunday. Temps here in Detroit on Sunday hovered right around zero (without factoring in the wind chill). I picked her up because her car was acting up and we headed into The City to (a) return a liberry book and (b) cross the border into Canada to pick up The Canuck.
So, sitting in the middle of an intersection is this cute dog. Freezing his tail off. Waiting to get hit. Well, The Clam and I looked at each other and sprang into action. We come from a family of animal rescuers and get all weepy when animals suffer. She gets out of the car and tries to lure the dog into the back seat. The dog clearly loves her, and lets her pet him and snuggles up to her, but won't get into the car. This goes on for 1/2 hour. In the freezing cold. At one point, the dog starts running away, and she gives up and gets into the car. I prepare to drive away, saying, "Well, we can't do this all day - if he won't get in the car, he won't." She starts to cry. I say, "OK, we'll go catch up with him." (I should mention that this is in a particularly icky part of The City, and The Canuck is sitting at the Windsor train station, wondering what the heck is going on.)
We end up getting helped by two local men (that's a clever euphemism), one of whom I wasn't worried about, but the other one of whom was pretty scary. We get the dog into the car, and I look at The Clam and say, "OK Genius. Now what?" We cannot take the dog across the border (if we could prove he had all his shots and he had tags and stuff, sure. But if he had all that, he wouldn't have needed us, would he?) and poor Canuck must think we've fallen off the bridge into the Detroit River. We cannot stick the dog in either of our homes (cats, you know, plus no back yards, and it would add an hour to our delay). We call The Aunt (an inveterate rescuer - both her current pets are rescues) and ask if she would like a friendly dog. She demurs. We try to call Mom, who doesn't answer the phone because she is at a play. We debate taking the dog and putting him in Mom's basement, and decide that she might not like that surprise. We decide that the only thing we can do is take him to The Humane Society. It's not a perfect solution, but it's better than him freezing to death outside (which he would have - temps that night dropped to 11 below, plus the wind chill). And hopefully they can find him a home.
Long story short, he is at the Humane Society, we are looking for a home for him, and Mom is working to get him sprung so that he can get put into a no-kill shelter until they find him a loving home.
The Clam felt really REALLY guilty about taking him to the Humane Society. So did I, truthfully, but I told her repeatedly that:
1. He would have frozen to death if we did nothing
2. Even if he gets euthanized, it's better to die warm and fed than cold and hungry (as Mother Teresa has proved over and over with people)
3. It was Super Bowl Sunday at 4 pm, and it wasn't like we had a lot of choices
4. No one in our family could take in a dog right now, even though Clam and I both wish we could
5. We did the best we could with bad conditions
6. He's very adoptable, so assuming he's in good health, his chances are very good
So she kind of calmed down. Then she got an email from one of the chicks at the no-kill shelter, who basically read her the riot act for taking him to the Humane Society. I mean, honestly, what were we supposed to do? It was Sunday afternoon, for Pete's sake! The Clam didn't tell me herself, I heard this from Mom. Mom also said that The Clam responded to her email in a very articulate and pleasant manner, which sounds about right. She's the Baby Seester, but she tends to be more mature about this stuff than I do. I just saw red. My reaction to Mom was, "OK. Animal Rescue Chick thinks we handled it incorrectly. I want her cell phone number, which I will plug into my phone, and any time, day or night, when I find a stray animal, I will call her personally, and tell her she needs to drop everything to come and get said animal."
Wonder how dedicated she would be then?
You know, The Clam felt bad enough about this without this chick rubbing salt in the wound.
Grrr.
So, sitting in the middle of an intersection is this cute dog. Freezing his tail off. Waiting to get hit. Well, The Clam and I looked at each other and sprang into action. We come from a family of animal rescuers and get all weepy when animals suffer. She gets out of the car and tries to lure the dog into the back seat. The dog clearly loves her, and lets her pet him and snuggles up to her, but won't get into the car. This goes on for 1/2 hour. In the freezing cold. At one point, the dog starts running away, and she gives up and gets into the car. I prepare to drive away, saying, "Well, we can't do this all day - if he won't get in the car, he won't." She starts to cry. I say, "OK, we'll go catch up with him." (I should mention that this is in a particularly icky part of The City, and The Canuck is sitting at the Windsor train station, wondering what the heck is going on.)
We end up getting helped by two local men (that's a clever euphemism), one of whom I wasn't worried about, but the other one of whom was pretty scary. We get the dog into the car, and I look at The Clam and say, "OK Genius. Now what?" We cannot take the dog across the border (if we could prove he had all his shots and he had tags and stuff, sure. But if he had all that, he wouldn't have needed us, would he?) and poor Canuck must think we've fallen off the bridge into the Detroit River. We cannot stick the dog in either of our homes (cats, you know, plus no back yards, and it would add an hour to our delay). We call The Aunt (an inveterate rescuer - both her current pets are rescues) and ask if she would like a friendly dog. She demurs. We try to call Mom, who doesn't answer the phone because she is at a play. We debate taking the dog and putting him in Mom's basement, and decide that she might not like that surprise. We decide that the only thing we can do is take him to The Humane Society. It's not a perfect solution, but it's better than him freezing to death outside (which he would have - temps that night dropped to 11 below, plus the wind chill). And hopefully they can find him a home.
Long story short, he is at the Humane Society, we are looking for a home for him, and Mom is working to get him sprung so that he can get put into a no-kill shelter until they find him a loving home.
The Clam felt really REALLY guilty about taking him to the Humane Society. So did I, truthfully, but I told her repeatedly that:
1. He would have frozen to death if we did nothing
2. Even if he gets euthanized, it's better to die warm and fed than cold and hungry (as Mother Teresa has proved over and over with people)
3. It was Super Bowl Sunday at 4 pm, and it wasn't like we had a lot of choices
4. No one in our family could take in a dog right now, even though Clam and I both wish we could
5. We did the best we could with bad conditions
6. He's very adoptable, so assuming he's in good health, his chances are very good
So she kind of calmed down. Then she got an email from one of the chicks at the no-kill shelter, who basically read her the riot act for taking him to the Humane Society. I mean, honestly, what were we supposed to do? It was Sunday afternoon, for Pete's sake! The Clam didn't tell me herself, I heard this from Mom. Mom also said that The Clam responded to her email in a very articulate and pleasant manner, which sounds about right. She's the Baby Seester, but she tends to be more mature about this stuff than I do. I just saw red. My reaction to Mom was, "OK. Animal Rescue Chick thinks we handled it incorrectly. I want her cell phone number, which I will plug into my phone, and any time, day or night, when I find a stray animal, I will call her personally, and tell her she needs to drop everything to come and get said animal."
Wonder how dedicated she would be then?
You know, The Clam felt bad enough about this without this chick rubbing salt in the wound.
Grrr.
posted by The Big Seester | 12:32 PM
1 Comments:
To be specific, the no-kill shelter chick said:
"Oh my dear G-d, you just gave this dog a death sentence..."
and proceeded to tell me that I needed to go to the Humane Society, go directly to the Humane Society, do not pass go, do not collect $200, get the dog (whom they already declined to re-release to me yesterday because of their four-day wait period) and bring him to their shelter.
I rather like TBS' idea. Give me her cell phone number too. I see a lot of animals who need rescuing.
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