And you call yourself animal right activist??

And you call yourself animal right activist??
2012.05.31.

The truth is that I started to write this article many times, but I couldn’t finis hit until now. I was always nervous but I calmed down, thought it trough again and again. I undertook this so I have to write it. The question is legitimate: why should I write this? You can read the situation below:

After a long day we were extremely tired. After we did our volunteering work all day when we were closing the gate of the shelter a car has arrived at our place. I heard that my colleague told the man that we have no more place to host his dog. It is because the puppy has no vaccination and we don’t have a free quarantine now. So the man says with an unsympathetic voice that he is going to leave the dog here on the street. Unfortunately we are well prepared for this situation; it wasn’t the first and last case. We said o.k. it’s not a problem but we are denouncing him.

We saw him and we wrote down the numbers from his license plate. Something really has happened because the behavior of the “nice man” has changed fast. He was bagging not to denounce him. He just wanted to help for a cute dog. He thought he is a do-gooder if he takes the puppy here from the road and he is going to give us 5000 Ft as well. We understand him, and we know that if we don’t estimate the little etc, but this amount of money is not enough for the vaccination period. We told him that the best alternative for the dog is the shelter in Illatos street. The puppy would surely die on the street and here also without the quarantine. He said that he won’t take the puppy there because it is surely to be put to sleep.

Let me tell you a few things about this “after 14 days the pets are put to sleep” thing. The law says that in case if you find a dog you have to search its own host for 14 days. These dogs can’t be adopted or put to sleep. So this is the myth of 14 days. But it doesn’t mean that after 14 days every dog or cat is put to sleep. The shelter doesn’t put to sleep every new animal. It’s a flaying-house. Its duty is to grab the dogs from the streets in its scope of authority, but the walls are not made by rubber. They couldn’t afford to leave someone on the streets so in some case they have the animals put to sleep. They try to filter pets. So puppies or young mixed dogs won’t be killed. Just old and ill dogs are put to sleep. I don’t want to advertise Illatos street because it’s not the best place for a dog. I just like to dispel the myth that every pet is being killed there and it’s better to be on the streets for a puppy. No, it’s not true. But for an unvaccinated dog it’s surely better there than on the streets alone.

So back to our original topic: our hero was calling our number for several minutes which can’t be reached after 3 p.m. But he tired it again and again. He was sure to speak with our leaders. We had to leave but we told to the others to take care of him. Fortunately he didn’t leave the dog there.
We are waiting for your reactions that we are just talking about animal protection, we were rude or careless. My favorite reaction is that it would be our mission, that’s why we are getting our salary and so on. No, it’s not! It’s not our mission to host every lost dog because it’s impossible. We don’t put pets to sleep because we have no more place, we rather try to help everyone until it is possible.

When I started to work here I thought I can save everybody. But after a few months, we have to understand that walls are not made of rubber. There are some cases when we have to say no. I know it’s really hard, but we have to let pets go away. We can’t save everybody and please throw some rock to me if you can do it! Not those who feel like this, but those who really makes it! It’s hard to believe it as an outsider. We understand that he wants to help, but it’s impossible to host everybody.

Just an example: Imagine, a new unvaccinated puppy comes to our place and we don’t know anything about him. We have no space for the quarantine, so we let him be with others and he is infected and dies in a few days. The other option: we put him to the quarantine next to the other puppies. One of them is infected so someone is going to die. We can’t risk it!

Or a visitor thinks dogs have space here so one more dogs is also good here. O.k. Let’s say there is the farm. The pet is vaccinated, doesn’t catch chickens, doesn’t want to escape and it is a male (It is 1 out of 1000). We have it, and after a few days we found him somewhere sick, because he had a quarrel with other dogs. He was the newest so that was the problem in the flock. So we have to be conscience because the former hosts did their best, so it’s now our turn. We try to do our best with everyone inside our doors. They are ill, hurt, disabled and they are more than a 1000.