Just learned that the dog my former tenants had adopted from BARCS was put to sleep at the shelter recently. I'm not sure how to say this without it sounding awful, but I can't say I'm surprised. From the very beginning, the dog was failed on so many levels. Set up to fail, even.
His story is, unfortunately, not at all uncommon for dogs that land in shelters as adolescents. Even less uncommon for young
pit bulls that land in shelters as adolescents.
Here's how you fail a dog in six easy steps:
1. When you adopt dogs to renters, don't do landlord checks
My former tenants were approved to adopt Rocky before I had even heard of him. They'd called me to ask, in a very general way, if I'd be OK with them maybe getting another dog. I told them I'd have to think about it and check on some things, and I asked them flat out what kind of dog they were thinking of getting. They told me a pit bull, that they already picked him out, that the shelter approved their application, but that they wanted their current dog to meet him first, etc. I sent them a very long email about pit bulls, how they aren't a breed for everyone, talked to them about being prepared for handling dog aggression if the dog was intolerant of other animals as it matured, and so forth. I followed up with a phone call. They told me it was a lot to think about, and I told them I had to check to see if the landlord's insurance policy that picked up my homeowner's policy when my other company dropped me (they didn't cover rental properties) was cool with pit bulls. Turns out it wasn't, so I called them and told them no dice: No pit bulls. They told me it was too late: They already had the dog and that they were told he'd probably be put to sleep if they returned him. I'm a sucker, of course, so even though I was pissed, I scrambled to find new insurance, in the interest of keeping the dog in a home. I told the tenants they could keep him for now, but that I would have to fly up to meet the dog in a couple of weeks, to make sure I was comfortable with the situation. I wasn't happy, but I wasn't going to take it out on the dog.
2. Send dog to a new, inexperienced home intact
When I got to the house, this 7-10 month old male pit bull had been sent home intact. The pet addendum on my lease, by the way, explicitly forbids intact dogs and cats from living in the home because I just don't want any animal living in my house to be responsible for contributing to more unwanted animals ending up in shelters. My tenants said the shelter told them they had to take him before he was neutered because the shelter was full up and needed the kennel space. I was livid, talked to them about roaming dogs and hormones and so forth, and I insisted that he be neutered as soon as possible. I got him on the neuter list at BARCS with the help of a friend who worked there. He did get neutered within a couple of weeks, and I can only hope he didn't get loose in that time and make more puppies. But who knows – as you'll read later in this post, he was escaping the yard and running at large, so it's not outside the realm of possibility.
3. Send young, energetic dog home with a busy family with two young kids
I met Rocky, and he was a very nice, friendly dog. But he was young, had no manners at all and was very energetic and frustrated. He was mouthy and jumped on people and had no boundaries. But he was sent to live in a small rowhome with a very young couple with two very young children – an infant and a 6-year-old – and no time or money for training. As a a result, the dog spent a lot of time crated, in the basement or in the yard. Eventually, he dug a hole under the fence and learned to escape, and ran at large in the neighborhood. The neighbors told me they let Rocky's owners know he was getting out and running free, so they plugged the hole under the fence with a bucket, which I doubt solved the problem very effectively.
4. Don't prepare people adopting a young pit bull for dog aggression or proper management of a multi-dog household
My tenants were told at the shelter that Rocky was friendly with other dogs, and he got along well with their female dog during an initial meet and greet at the shelter. But once he got home, he proved to be too much for their female dog to handle. After meeting him, I'd say he probably was dog friendly, if handled properly and given appropriate outlets for his energy and offered some training and guidance. But he was pushy and rambunctious and rough with the resident female, who was very put off by him, and the tenants weren't really equipped to deal with it. So the two dogs had to spend most of their time crated and separated or they'd play too rough and have scuffles.
5. Don't seek out resources to manage your dog's issues or train him
Despite assuring me and Rob that they would take this dog for training, which we asked them to do on multiple occasions, they didn't follow through. A couple of months after my tenants moved out of the house, they returned the dog to BARCS with cuts on his face. Return reason: "Needs training." No kidding. That's what an adoptive home is supposed to provide for a dog.
6. Return dog to shelter, where he is euthanized
Poor Rocky was briefly put up for adoption at the shelter again, but before he found a new home, he was euthanized. A friend at the shelter looked him up for me to find out why. He was apparently attacked in a hallway by another dog while being walked, and both dogs were euthanized after the fight.
That, my friends, is the short, unhappy life of just one dog out of thousands – probably hundreds of thousands – who end up in the shelter every day. This was a nice dog, highly adoptable and good pet material, who's dead before his second birthday due to no fault of his own.
I know it happens all the time, but when it hits so close to home, it's painful – even though Rocky wasn't my dog, I feel partially responsible for the fact that he's now dead. What if I'd just put my foot down and told my tenants to return him right away? What if I were able to network for him with rescues up in Baltimore, once I'd heard he'd been returned, and got him out of the shelter before he ended up dead? But the reality is, I didn't do either of those things, and a dog that I know was a good dog was put to sleep because every step of the way he was let down. I can at least feel relieved that Rocky wasn't a fearful or aggressive dog, so when he got loose he never made headlines for biting kids or fighting with other dogs. At least there's that.
I've heard recently that BARCS is now doing landlord checks, which is great and makes me feel better about this situation. I also know that BARCS now has a Best Friends-affiliated Pit Crew that works with pit bulls before they go to new homes ... that didn't exist when Rocky was first adopted out. So maybe they'll be able to make further improvements to the adoption programs to make sure good dogs don't fall through the cracks.
I hope that any other shelter out there who might stumble across this thinks about it a bit, though, and examines their own policies to make sure they're doing all they can to make sure they're placing dogs in safe, appropriate homes. Because, while increasing adoption rates is a nice and worthy goal, I'm just not sure how useful it is if you're just displacing the problem and euthanizing the dog (or perhaps that dog's offspring) at the shelter at a later date.
I also hope that anyone out there toying with the idea of taking in a shelter dog think long and hard about whether they can commit fully to the responsibility of owning that dog, giving it what it needs to succeed and the implications should you decide to dump that dog at a shelter again. Dogs that get out of the shelter once are very lucky, and once they get brought back, their chance of getting out again decreases significantly. If you haven't given that dog the training and socialization it needs in the time it lived with you, that dog is probably as good as dead. And that's not the shelter's fault. It's yours.
Anyway, RIP Rocky Road. You were a good dog. I nabbed these photos from an internet bulletin board where they were posted to network Rocky and hopefully get him a new home after he was returned from the shelter. Sadly, they show the cuts on his face and stress he obviously was feeling when he was dumped back at the shelter. Poor kid. Rest well.
