It is true that one can obtain a shelter dog and care for it for a reasonable amount of money and the dog is better off. Minimum things should be a fenced in yard, the ability to come in out of the weather and spay/neuter and vaccines. Flea control. What is maddening is when someone approaches a Rescue and asks for a discount. I am attached to at least 3-4 Rescue's (as a foster) and I know firsthand how broke they always are. For every dog/cat they obtain and do not spend a lot of money on to get well and ready for rehoming, there is another around the corner that is a financial burden and breaks the bank. Most Rescue owners work at least one full time job and pour half their own money into saving animals. A shelter pet saved by a Rescue is fully vetted, spay/neuter, vaccines, dewormed, heartworm tested, flea treated, groomed, Feline Leukemia tested, etc etc. Most do have vets that give them discounts but by the time they offer that pet for $200, at least $150 has been poured into it and that is not even including food and shelter. To ask that Rescue to give a discount is just gross.
Locally it costs about $350 to spay a female dog. I don’t know how much a neutering is, as all my males were already neutered. The vast majority of dogs in my nearest shelter are not fixed, and have never had any sort of vet care. Out in the country, people just get a dog and give it food.
They come in with heart worm flea and tick infestations, with birth defects left untreated, with injuries resulting from being hit by a car or attacked by some other animal. Relatively few are found in a healthy state - so few, that if a dog is found without fleas, it is not put up for adoption as they’re certain it belongs to someone and they attempt to find its owner.
It’s safe to say that none of these local dogs costs the shelter less than several hundred dollars to get them healthy enough to adopt out.
And dogs who have already had these set backs are more likely to have future health issues.
The problem is, these shelters already rely heavily on donations just to keep the lights on. And there are still plenty of kill shelters to euthanize the over flow.
Fortunately there are also plenty of people who adopt.
The shelters can find homes for most of these dogs, so it’s not as if it’s a choice between a poor family and death.
But sending a dog they’ve investing hundreds of dollars in to a place where their health will be too expensive to maintain means that, one flat tire later, that dog is coming back and will again cost a lot of money. Recidivism is a heavy burden for them to bear.
If a person who is too broke to pay an adoption fee is adamant about getting a pet, they could probably find one elsewhere, either a stray or some owner who has no choice but to give up their pet. Rescue one from the street, so to speak. But they need to understand the burden rescues are under.
My other POV regarding the family in town... my advice to her had nothing to do with the above comment. All I could think was, if the poop hits the fan, and you have to give up that dog, how would that affect your child, who has already had such a hard way to go? The thought of that breaks my heart.
