Filed under: notes
If you saw the footage of Ellen crying about her interactions with a dog rescue organization, you probably wondered what was really going on. I certainly did. Why so upset? Ellen, the dog bullies, and me is an essay by Heather Havrilesky about her own relationship with dog rescue organizations in Los Angeles:
But when I happened to catch Ellen weeping into her hands on Tuesday, I knew exactly how she felt. My personal adventures with the dog rescue organizations of greater Los Angeles have led me to believe that such shelters are often run by the kinds of people who don’t know how to play nicely with others. Fueled by truly awful firsthand accounts of animal abuse and abandonment and horrified countless times by owners who move or change their minds and drop their doggies off to die alone at the pound, these charitable souls gradually develop into self-righteous mouth breathers and priggish control freaks.
I fear that one of the challenges of working for a long period of time with an organization that sees the really negative side of human nature is that it can have a detrimental effect on your own interactions. You tend to see evil where there is only hesitation or apprehension or just plain goodness. That’s part of what’s going on. Another part is that many folks would like to see celebrities follow the rules some of the time. (Of course, part of what makes them celebrities is that they can break the rules). Perhaps this is a separate post.
I agree that celebrities need to follow the rules. However, no small dogs for families with kids under 14? Yikes. I can understand, say, 8 or so. But by 14, these kids should be responsible enough, and I’m guessing any torturous tendencies would have reared their ugly heads by then. That age cutoff seems really random and bizarre to me.
Comment by GhostGirl 10.19.07 @ 8:43 pmYeah, that’s just about my take on it too…. I was just looking at a local rescue dog application, and it was more detailed than most loan applications. I realize they see a lot of horrible things in rescue organizations, but for the love of dogs, let’s do the best thing for the dog, not for the rules.
Comment by Ms. Theologian 10.19.07 @ 8:55 pmAs someone who volunteers for a cat shelter and fosters kittens (which are currently running around yowling and really driving me crazy) I can understand how jaded folks can be after working at a shelter for unwanted animals. It is like hearing the horror of horrors on a weekly (or if you volunteer a lot, daily) basis. One terrible story after another about how people put their own whims before the life of an animal that very clearly has feelings. Like when we got a call to come pick up two kittens - the family called us - they kittens were sick, they casually mention that they had to flush one down the toilet because it was too sick, but the other two might live if we get them. Or all the people that email me WEEKLY saying terrible things about how the adoption fee is too high and we are so selfish to ask such a high fee, when, of course, the fee doesn’t even start to cover the cost of caring for that cat. Oh, wait… I am ranting. Sorry, but truly it is easy to get jaded. People who seem nice and reasonable, and then just abandon their cat of ten years because they are moving to Florida. As if you can’t somehow take a cat to FL. It is shocking and hard not to be so disheartened about people.
Comment by Elizabeth 10.22.07 @ 8:17 amMy friend who runs a dog rescue has similarly awful stories. You’d think there was no empathy left on earth to hear these stories.
Comment by Ms. Theologian 10.22.07 @ 8:29 amLeave a comment
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