So you want to adopt a dog? Sounds simole enough, now doesn't it? Well you would think that, I mean everywhere you go these days you'll find ads for pet shelters. I won't use any names here (don't want to "ruffle any feathers"), but you know the places. They urge you to adopt a pet because of the overcrowding, or lack of good homes,and so on. But l'll share MY experience.
First of all, if you have read any of my articles (thanks if you have), you'll know I live in South Florida. We also live on 2 1/4 acres in the middle of nowhere, away from the city. (Thank God). Being zoned agricultural, we are allowed to have various animals, which we have. As of this writing we have 3 pigs, (pets because I just don't have the heart to shoot'em), 9 dogs, 6 chickens, 2 cats, 2 ferrets, 2 guinea pigs, various fish, and 2 children.
What a zoo! As you can imagine we are a little overloaded, so we are not really looking for any additions to the family, but we take care of the ones we have. The following should be a lesson learned if you've never been to one of the (many) animal "shelters."
We were given two beautiful, healthy dogs by a friend of mine who was moving to a place that did not allow them. One is a full blooded German Shepherd from one of the (many) Rin-Tin-Tin bloodline, the other is a pure bred, red haired Chow. Somehow they managed to get together before we could either get them fixed, or keep them separated. The Chow had 3 male puppies!
We really didn't need any more animals, and considered finding homes for them, but being the breed of dog that they are, we wanted someone familiar with Chows. They have a little bit of a reputation for being on the unpredictable side.
We ran into this guy who has lived around here for quite a few years, and told us he was looking for a dog, and he would give him a good home. So far so good. My wife gave him one of the puppies, and was VERY clear in telling him that if for any reason he couldn't keep the dog, he could bring him back - and we would continue to take care of him. We even visited the dog a few times to kinda check up on him.
About a month went by, and I found out through a neighbor of the guy we gave the dog to, that the dog was picked up by "the pound." I immediately thought to myself "I hope he didn't bite somebody." If he did of course, he would probably be put to sleep. (To bad we can't do that to some people).
The neighbor told me that the dog didn't bite anyone, but the people that had him called to have the dog picked up, and that the dog had been there a couple of weeks. Well, I called the animal shelter. This is where the liars enter the story.
I described the dog to the animal shelter, and they informed me that they did in fact have the dog. So, I told them that we were the original owners, and we would like to have him back. This of course meant we would have to pay a fee and "adopt" him. I figured this would be great because the dog would have all of his shots, and he would be fixed, saving me a trip to the vet. So to the pound we went.
Having every intention of getting the dog back, I loaded up one of our big animal cages, and my wife got togther all of the puppy's pictures, along with photos of the German Shepherd and the Chow. The whole reason for this was because the first person I spoke to at the animal shelter said I would have to prove the dog was ours.
When we got to the shelter, we showed them the pictures and told our story, but that wasn't good enough. We would need to fill out an adoption application first. So my wife asked "what's on the application?" The woman we were dealing with at the shelter said "for innstance where 's the dog going to be staying?" As soon as my wife said "outside," that blew it!
We explained to the woman at the animal shelter (from now on I call her woman #1), that we have two acres for the dogs to run on, and it's fenced in. In fact the dogs love to run and we wouldn't want to keep them confined in a house, ( especially all nine of them at once!). Woman #1 then told us that as long as they know you're keeping the animal outside (even with doghouses and shelter), we were not going to be able to adopt the dog. We then asked "what if we change our mind and keep the dog inside?" Woman#1 told us it wouldn't matter.
