How Could You?

If you have to give up your animal, please don't take them to a kill shelter.

Sometimes, just like it's best for certain people to give up their child in order for that child to have a better life, it's best for a person to give up a pet. Sometimes they are forced into it by circumstance, such as losing their home. Other times they realize that they are not the right human companion for that animal.

This is what happened with me and my dogs.

I got the dogs, two dachshunds, for my son's twelfth birthday because people kept telling me that it "wasn't right" that a kid shouldn't have a dog.

I had never had a dog. My father knew that he didn't have the patience to deal with a dog's needs. He was wise to realize this about himself. He liked dogs, he just didn't want to have to deal with them.

We had cats. These were small dogs, so I thought they couldn't be too much different to care for than cats.

Man oh man!

I wish I had done my research. If you are getting a pet of a type you haven't had before, please do your research. You may learn that this kind of pet is not the right one for you after all.

The dogs were high strung and needed to be walked several times a day. They did not use a litter box. I was finally able to get them to use a piddle pad. My schedule is chaotic, my life is chaotic, my mind is chaotic. I have both mental and physical challenges which made having dogs a bad decision.

Over the recent years, my financial situation has also severely deteriorated.

My son has moved to his own place now and I've been trying to help him on his way to getting the training he needs to be able to support himself.

I am sometimes not home for a couple of days at a time.

With my cats, this is okay. There is always food, water, and a litterbox in varying stages of cleanliness. When I'm home, they sleep with me. When I'm not home, they sleep and play with each other.

But the dogs need a routine.

I realized that I was never going to be what these dogs needed.

I searched for someone who could help and found Doxie Connection in Wheatland, Wyoming.

The dogs will be going to live with a nice woman who loves dogs. They will stay together.

Unfortunately I'm not sure how long the little male dog has. He has a large tumor that I didn't know about until it presented with a serous (liquid) area on his belly. I thought it was a cyst. But when the vet drained the cyst, a massive tumor was discovered.

I will contribute as much as I can to his vet bills and he will live as long as he is enjoying life and not in great pain.

I will always wonder if I had been able to keep up with proper vet appointments or had turned the dogs over to rescue earlier if the tumor would have been discovered sooner. I will have to live with this for the rest of my life.

I did not turn them over sooner because when I was going to do so someone told me that I was a bad person, that when you take on an animal you damn well keep that animal for life, that if I turned my dogs over to rescue than other dogs would die because my animals were taking the place of another animal.

Here's the thing: the dogs did not have a good life with me. I could not give them what they needed. So I found someone who could.

I did not just take them to a shelter and dump them. I do care about their well being. I would never do that.

I did not advertise them out on Craigslist. Please, do not EVER advertise your animal out on Craigslist, aka Weirdo Central. There are a lot of sick fucks out there.

If you must give up your animal, find a responsible shelter such as Boulder County Humane Society (or the equivalent in your area) which has a very high adoption rate and will keep an adoptable animal until someone takes them. Or find a reputable rescue. Not all rescues are created equal. Do your research.

I was not a good pet parent for my dogs. I was not in tune with a dog's needs. I did not do my research before I got them. But I learned, and then I did the right thing.

Animals deserve better than being dumped at a kill shelter.

If you can't keep them any longer, please do the right thing. There are people who can help you.

I wish you well.