My animal career started
in the 1980's, as a teenager working my way up to becoming an assistant manager
of a well known north shore long island animal adoption center. I thought wow
what a great job. I can remember thinking about all the animals that come here
for adoption and damn it, I am going to find a great home for each one of
them. It was my mission along with many others to get homes for everyone. Later on down the road I realized
it's all a numbers game, HOWEVER it was not a numbers game to me. The senior
managers were always ranting more adoptions!! more!! more!! More!!
I would
never let a dog go to a home that was not in my eyes perfect and believe me I
took the heat many times because as I said it really is a numbers game. Then
there was the $25 perk to get the "Difficult Dogs" adopted and again I would
NEVER allow the $25 incentive stand in the way of finding a perfect home for the
dogs.
Like it was yesterday, I remember a one eyed shepherd mix named,
"CHAZ". Talk about a hard adoption, she hated everyone except the people that
worked there. After months at the facility the staff trainer said CHAZ was ready
to be adopted she has no further issues. I was on the cover of the NY POST with CHAZ and sure enough we found her the perfect home, a single
women from Washington DC.. Chaz adored her and it was her time. Several weeks
later I remember going to work and guess who was back? CHAZ. It seemed she had bitten the adopter in the face. Looks like CHAZ is back for a while and she
was. After a couple months I came into the kennel and CHAZ was gone, the
managers told me she was adopted. I wanted to call the person and make sure she
was doing well, however the adoption office could not seem to locate her
adoption forms. Till this day I wonder did CHAZ go to the kennel in the
sky?
Now working in the adoption center that was like being in the
department of motor vehicles. In those days the kennels advertising campaign was
come and adopt FREE puppies and kittens, you cannot imagine the element of
people that came to adopt. We had at least 2 security guys in the adoption
center at all times and even then I was still pushed, kicked and thrown into a
window because I stopped an adoption from going through. The customers did not
know we had a list from the city showing us all the addresses of city housing
that does not allow pets. We also would read the adoption history and so many
time the answer to a question," What happened to your last pet?", frequent
answer was, "We let it go"....... It simply killed me. Many people would come with
the advertisement "get free gas money with each adoption. The screaming that
went on when they got turned down because they didn't have money to buy gas to
get home. I knew so many of those poor puppies were going to god awful homes and
they would be in a shelter by the time they were 6 months old. I NEVER let a bad
adoption through, even though I was not great for the numbers game I could
sleep at night. I just wish the adoption center really cared about the animals as
much as people believed they did.
I was so disgusted as time went on
with the lavish company parties, company cars, large salaries for the
management. I though WOW, what happened to the well being of animals. I was
offered a management position, I turned it down knowing full well this was not a
place for me in the future.
I can tell you all these years later I do
have the utmost regard for one of the founders of the animal adoption center.
She really cared, instead of going shopping at Bergdorfs we took out the rescue
van and pulled dogs out of kill shelters on long island. They would tell us
rescue 15 and we would take 25, never letting the management know exactly how
many we rescued. I think because of this task I was so tough in the adoption
center because I know how ruff the animals had it. They stared at me begging to
live and how I cried knowing we could not save everyone.
25 years later
the one thing I remember is none of the dogs at the shelters were maltipoos, havanese, morkies or any of the other tiny dogs of which I have sold throughout
the years. I could never bring myself to sell large size dogs, I always think of
the large breed dogs in the shelters. Till this day I screen my potential puppy
customers in the store, there is not enough money for me to send home a puppy to
a bad pet owner.
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