VIEWPOINT | The promise of patience and training with dogs
Column submitted by Katie Day, director of Almost Home Canine Rescue in Sioux Falls
Good dogs don’t just happen.
All puppies require training, socializing, and need their human to show them the way. No dog is perfect. When you get a dog, you're making them a promise to figure out together how they can be their best self. Imagine if rescues like us gave up on dogs because of minor issues.
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25% of the dogs currently at our shelter in Sioux Falls have issues, some minor and some major, and we are always working through them. Patience from their foster homes and our amazing trainers will help to ultimately get these dogs to the place they need to be, so they can be adopted into a home that fits their personality.
Even a small non-profit, completely volunteer run and funded mostly by private donations, can make the time and find the money to train a dog appropriately and help set them up for success. Our foster volunteers put hours into each of these dogs they have no plans to keep. We all need time to learn and grow, dogs included, and we all need to make sure that we are put in environments that allow us the opportunities to do that.
It’s when we are put in environments that are unhealthy or have unrealistic expectations that bad things can happen. That’s why training and education is so important. If you have a pet you can no longer care for, or decide you no longer want, there are many options. If it’s because the animals has behaviors you feel you can’t fix, our facility has amazing trainers we can connect you with in our area, and maybe you would be able to help them and not have to put the dog through the trauma of being re-homed.
If you need to find a new place for them, there are many reputable rescues and shelters in the region. All you have to do is reach out. No animal should be put down unless every option has been exhausted. Yes, as a rescue we have had to make that incredibly difficult decision more times than we ever would have wanted to. But behavioral euthanasia is sometimes the only option and the last resort.
As a rescue we deal with other people’s messes. The dogs that have issues are the way they are because their original owners didn’t put the time and effort into them. But we pour our heart and souls into each and every animal in our care, and are heartbroken to hear stories of animals being killed for no good reason - especially when it is inhumane.
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I believe she wrote that essentially the dog was not worth her time to take it to an animal rescue facility because a rancher is too busy. However, I suspect she didn't want to be embarrassed at someone else could and would train the dog properly. A vet would like have offered to re-home the pup in some way, as well.
I wonder if she ever successfully trained a dog. If not, it was irresponsible for her to take it in the first place.
The bottom line is she failed. Failed to learn how to train a dog, to pick a dog that she could train and she failed to admit her limits. The most expedient way to get rid of her personal shame was to erase the dog by killing it. Then, as long as that felt good to her, she did the same with a goat that she also didn't deal with properly.
That's for her. I wonder what her husband thought of these killings then and what they have thought since.
All told, it seems she knew she had failed and couldn't admit it so the easy way out of admitting her limitations was to kill the animals and move on. Then, she decided to embellish the memory with justifications and use the events as "proof" of not her failures but her abilities to decide and execute, pun intended. However, few are buying that reasoning which, I suspect, is a great shock to her.
My guess is she is resolute that "some" people just "don't understand," and that's something that's true because most of us know that it takes a big person to admit limitations and mistakes and she refuses.