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>It ain't just about demand; it's about demand among those with reasonably-provable ability to actually care for a dog. That's the problem. I don't have the sa

>It ain't just about demand; it's about demand among those with reasonably-provable ability to actually care for a dog. That's the problem. I don't have the same standard for what is "reasonably-provable ability to actually care for a dog" that dog rescue volunteers tend to, and I don't think they are better qualified to determine that. In fact I think that because of confirmation bias and their attachment to the dogs, they are the worst people to make that decision objectively. >That's not guaranteed, or even statistically likely. If that were as true as you seem to believe, then these animals wouldn't have ended up in a shelter at all; they would continue to exist in abusive/neglectful homes, because obviously that's better than being in a kennel, right? Your conclusion doesn't follow. It can both be the case that taking the average dog to a kennel for boarding is more stressful than moving it to a new home on average, and that some percentage of dogs will end up abandoned. Many rescue organizations even buy dogs directly from breeders. >The interview process is meant to ensure (with a reasonable amount of certainty) that the dog's not going to end up right back in the shelter (or - worse - not end up in the shelter due to a false sense of trust in an abusive or neglectful new owner). Making that "easier" for the applicant increases that risk. What is that risk? I guarantee you rescue organization volunteers aren't using risk models to adjust the difficulty of their interview processes. They can just randomly decide that need to work from home, have a fence with at least half an acre of grass, have lived in the same place for 5 years, and have a perfect credit score--despite not knowing whether those things are necessary or even well correlated with dog well being outcomes. >Even with that risk aside, the dog's going from being in a kennel situation (with a lot of other dogs and different people present) to being comparatively alone. Dogs in kennels spend a lot of time alone in cages. Moving to a new home in most cases, the dog will get more attention, not less. >It's a reasonably-intelligent animal that's prone to experience PTSD from neglect/abuse. Its well-being is more complex than just ticking off boxes, even for a dog that seems well-adjusted at first glance. It's an animal that has evolved to read human emotions. This ability makes us much more likely to anthropomorphize dogs. There are complications, but most of the time it's well being really is just--did I tick off the boxes, does the dog seem fine, and does it have any disruptive behavior problems. This is coming from someone who cared for many healthy and not so healthy dogs through the end of their lives--including an 18 year old dog who was mostly blind, deaf and incontinent for many years (and someone who was responsible for caring for numerous litters of puppies when my parents ran a small poodle breeding operation when i was a kid). >Sometimes they can be a bit overzealous, yes, but it's not like they'll permanently bar you from ever adopting if there are fixable issues with you adopting an animal at that particular moment in time. Many of the problems that will bar you from adopting are things that aren't easy to fix. Like, you need to work from home, you have kids, or your yard isn't big enough. >also consider worst-case, That's the problem, rescue workers are suffering from a serious case of confirmation bias. They only see the results of worst case scenarios, they don't know what the average case is.

yellowapple 8y ago
> I don't have the same standard for what is "reasonably-provable ability to actually care for a dog" that dog rescue volunteers tend to That is indeed the problem. The complaint here seems to be that your standards are lower than theirs. That doesn't always mean their standards are too high; it could very well mean your standards are too low. > I don't think they are better qualified to determine that These people are (hopefully) trained specifically to determine that. It's possible you might happen to have even more training or experience in that regard, but most people don't. > their attachment to the dogs If attachment was the primary factor behind them rejecting your applications, they'd adopt outright (which does happen) instead of wasting your time. I suppose it's possible that they might have to have a certain number of rejections from the general public before volunteers/staff are eligible, and similarly possible that there are volunteers who don't qualify to adopt (though I'd question whether they're qualified to volunteer). Most volunteers and paid personnel with whom I've interacted seem to be painfully aware that they can't take in every animal in need, and thus have to take comfort in animals going to good homes. Keyword there is good homes, though. > Many rescue organizations even buy dogs directly from breeders. That'd be surprising, since it makes no economic sense. It's possible (probable, even) that breeders might be discarding dogs they can't sell (this is how my mom got one of her two beagles; she couldn't get pregnant, so the breeder was trying to get rid of her), but buying healthy salable pups is unlikely (and in fact would now be illegal in California, per the article that catalyzed this whole discussion). Not to mention shelters tend to be overcrowded as is; outright buying more dogs is only going to make that worse. I mean, I'm sure it's theoretically possible, but that seems like the sort of extraordinary assertion that would require extraordinary evidence. > I guarantee you rescue organization volunteers aren't using risk models to adjust the difficulty of their interview processes. I can't speak to all shelters, but at least from what I've seen there tends to be some kind of rubric for evaluating whether or not someone is suitable to adopt a particular dog, probably baked into the actual application (and/or the application gets fed directly into that rubric). There's probably room for bias, but it ain't like it's the wild wild west, either. > Dogs in kennels spend a lot of time alone in cages. Moving to a new home in most cases, the dog will get more attention, not less. They also get a fair amount of time not alone. At the very least you have volunteers walking the dogs daily (or more!). That's usually done with multiple dogs at once for efficiency's sake. > they don't know what the average case is. I'd imagine there are relatively few animal shelter personnel (paid or otherwise) who haven't themselves already raised animals in any capacity. > They only see the results of worst case scenarios And their primary job is to prevent those worst case scenarios from happening again. If the people who always see worst-case scenarios (and who are either trained or in close contact with those who are trained to identify worst-case scenarios) think that you raise enough red flags to look like a worst-case scenario, then is it possible that maybe - just maybe - they ain't wrong to be hesitant in letting you take home a dog? That's not to say you're a bad person or anything, or that you're incapable of properly raising an animal (it doesn't sound like either of those things are true); rather, there seems to be something beyond "being a normal human being" that is raising a red flag. I don't know enough about your specific situation to know what that is. It does sound like maybe you've had a bad experience at a particularly-strict shelter and are extrapolating to shelters in general (and to be fair, I'm probably doing the same with my own experience with shelters). Or perhaps you just happened upon a time when particularly-strict volunteers were on shift. A different time or place might help; not all shelters are going to be so strict about things (especially kill shelters; given the choice between a suboptimal adoption situation and killing a dog, they'll probably choose the former).

yellowapple 8y ago

> I don't have the same standard for what is "reasonably-provable ability to actually care for a dog" that dog rescue volunteers tend to That is indeed the problem. The complaint here seems to be that your standards are lower than theirs. That doesn't always mean their standards are too high; it could very well mean your standards are too low. > I don't think they are better qualified to determine that These people are (hopefully) trained specifically to determine that. It's possible you might happen to have even more training or experience in that regard, but most people don't. > their attachment to the dogs If attachment was the primary factor behind them rejecting your applications, they'd adopt outright (which does happen) instead of wasting your time. I suppose it's possible that they might have to have a certain number of rejections from the general public before volunteers/staff are eligible, and similarly possible that there are volunteers who don't qualify to adopt (though I'd question whether they're qualified to volunteer). Most volunteers and paid personnel with whom I've interacted seem to be painfully aware that they can't take in every animal in need, and thus have to take comfort in animals going to good homes. Keyword there is good homes, though. > Many rescue organizations even buy dogs directly from breeders. That'd be surprising, since it makes no economic sense. It's possible (probable, even) that breeders might be discarding dogs they can't sell (this is how my mom got one of her two beagles; she couldn't get pregnant, so the breeder was trying to get rid of her), but buying healthy salable pups is unlikely (and in fact would now be illegal in California, per the article that catalyzed this whole discussion). Not to mention shelters tend to be overcrowded as is; outright buying more dogs is only going to make that worse. I mean, I'm sure it's theoretically possible, but that seems like the sort of extraordinary assertion that would require extraordinary evidence. > I guarantee you rescue organization volunteers aren't using risk models to adjust the difficulty of their interview processes. I can't speak to all shelters, but at least from what I've seen there tends to be some kind of rubric for evaluating whether or not someone is suitable to adopt a particular dog, probably baked into the actual application (and/or the application gets fed directly into that rubric). There's probably room for bias, but it ain't like it's the wild wild west, either. > Dogs in kennels spend a lot of time alone in cages. Moving to a new home in most cases, the dog will get more attention, not less. They also get a fair amount of time not alone. At the very least you have volunteers walking the dogs daily (or more!). That's usually done with multiple dogs at once for efficiency's sake. > they don't know what the average case is. I'd imagine there are relatively few animal shelter personnel (paid or otherwise) who haven't themselves already raised animals in any capacity. > They only see the results of worst case scenarios And their primary job is to prevent those worst case scenarios from happening again. If the people who always see worst-case scenarios (and who are either trained or in close contact with those who are trained to identify worst-case scenarios) think that you raise enough red flags to look like a worst-case scenario, then is it possible that maybe - just maybe - they ain't wrong to be hesitant in letting you take home a dog? That's not to say you're a bad person or anything, or that you're incapable of properly raising an animal (it doesn't sound like either of those things are true); rather, there seems to be something beyond "being a normal human being" that is raising a red flag. I don't know enough about your specific situation to know what that is. It does sound like maybe you've had a bad experience at a particularly-strict shelter and are extrapolating to shelters in general (and to be fair, I'm probably doing the same with my own experience with shelters). Or perhaps you just happened upon a time when particularly-strict volunteers were on shift. A different time or place might help; not all shelters are going to be so strict about things (especially kill shelters; given the choice between a suboptimal adoption situation and killing a dog, they'll probably choose the former).