Conference misery::feline_v1

1868.0. "NPR report on Chicago Animal Care and Control Center" by TOKLAS::FELDMAN (PDS, our next success) Thu Oct 13 1988 19:43

    Did anyone else hear the NPR report last weekend on the Chicago Animal
    Care and Control Center?  I've held off noting it, because the report
    was so moving and so sad.
    
    This center is not a no-kill center.  Apparently Chicago has serious
    problems with wild and stray animals, and they simply cannot cope any
    other way.  They seem to be able to place about 10% of the animals they
    take in.  The rest, well, you know.  We're talking hundreds of animals
    a week.  This center, which is relatively new, is one of the largest of
    its kind, and is considered a model center. 
    
    The report was very sensitive to the feelings and care that the
    workers there give to the animals.  I won't go into the details
    (the details made me cry), but they did give two examples of the
    way workers showed their love to animals that were soon to be put
    down.  Even so, some local humanitarian societies complain that
    the animals should have more human contact.  One of the doctors
    or managers there countered that the employees would quickly go
    crazy if they allowed themselves to get any more attached to the
    animals that were being put down.  As much as the whole concept
    distresses me, I'm inclined to agree with him.
    
    I will relate a somewhat more humorous anecdote from the report, as
    best as my memory will allow.  It seems that they get a fair number of
    reports of wild dog packs.  A typical call might go like this:
    
    	Caller: I wish to report a pack of wild dogs.
    
    	Shelter: Could you describe the dogs, please?
    
    	Caller:  Well, there's an Irish Setter, a Collie, a Lab, and
    	so on.
    
    	Shelter: That's no pack.  That's a bunch of yuppie dogs, whose
    	yuppie owners let them out during the day.  They're just hanging
    	out (like a bunch of yuppie teenagers), and they'll head on
    	home to their yuppie houses at dinner time.
    
    Actually, mild-mannered household dogs will become more agressive
    when they form a pack, but they're still not as bad as a true pack
    of wild dogs.  Phone calls like this are distracting, since they
    barely have the resources to handle the dangerous packs.
    
      Gary

    Yes, I also heard the report.  I'm glad to hear that I wasn't the
    only one brought to tears.  It was the small buff colored kitten
    story that really got to me.  (he was put to sleep in the kindest
    way possible)  I give the people  who work at these shelters a lot
    of credit.  I don't think that I could handle it.  It was one of
    the most moving reports I'd ever heard.  Maybe some of the people
    who don't think that it's important to have their pets fixed heard
    it and will become more responsible.
    
    					Mary
    

    I,m glad I didn't hear or see this report and I thank .0 for not
    going into it to much.  It doesn't mean I don't care it's that I
    care to much and I feel terrible when I hear these things or see
    them.  Like I said in an earlier note I wish I could hit megabucks
    and do more for these shelters than I'm limited to.  Some people
    get upset because we don't donate to people charitys, but I say
    animals don't make their own problems people make them for them
    and someones got to help.  
    
    P.S.  I do give weekly to the United Way so I do give to people
    charities.