Sunday, April 5, 2009

It's all in a name, right?...

A few days ago I received an email in my box from one of the local rescue ezines I belong to… The subject line was something like, “These hoarders should be shot”… Having been in on a few puppymill busts and hoarder seizures, I was a bit shocked to read the subject line and after opening it and viewing the pictures attached, I felt compelled to not only write to the person who’d sent it, but the others who had forwarded it on…

Yes, the person had a lot of dogs and potbelly pigs, but reading through the lines of what I saw, I suspected they realized it was becoming overwhelming and had reached out to someone in the rescue community for help…

I noticed the dogs were all fleshy – none looked like they had been underfed… And although there were some skin disorders among them (Demodex?), the dogs didn’t look like they had been receiving inhumane care or attention… Why so many?... Don’t know, but if a person has eight dogs and is classified as a ‘hoarder’ there is something wrong with the current dictionary…

Sure, maybe some dogs should have been spayed or neutered and more puppies would not have been born, but there are MANY people who are involved in dog breeding with intact dogs that would then need to be labeled as ‘hoarders’ too… MANY have more than seven – as do many reputable breeders as well…

Are we too quick in today’s society to label someone with a disparaging title when they live their lives in a manner we don’t agree upon?... Or is the humane community really its own worst enemy at times?...

The person who sought out help had allowed the rescuer inside her home to take pictures… I noticed that although the photos would never make next month’s “Home and Garden” feature spread, the home was clean and tidy… It was not cluttered up to the window sills with junk, animal feces and debris… I suspect the owner did not have the appearance of being at their wits end and/or psychologically disturbed either…

I myself would have felt VERY betrayed if after I had reached out for help, I had heard about an email circling around the Internet with pictures of my home and the label of ‘hoarder’ with the term ‘should be shot’ in the subject line… What an unkind and inhumane act by someone who should be in the business of spreading humanity and kindness towards others…

I thought about this yesterday when I was outside, working the winter coats of my puppers… Several have already lost their thicker winter coats, but some need a bit of help and I consistently sit outside with my assortment of brushes and (smile) fingernails, massaging their coats and removing the excess hair that is falling out as spring approaches… I continued to think about this as one by one, the puppers went into the sink for their weekly baths (most of them sleep with me and I’m hypersensitive to doggie smells!)…

Under this set of definitions, I too would be an animal hoarder… While my floors are exceptionally clean, I wouldn’t tell you that you could ‘eat off them with a fork’ as my momma would say… Every one of my puppers has some health issue and/or are seniors and/or labeled as ‘unadoptable’ by the general public for one reason or another…

Still continuing with my thoughts, I then ventured over to the label of ‘collector’ we commonly throw at people who have a lot of pets and animals… Is this term so derogatory when talking about a celebrity whose passion is collecting cars?... No, probably not, despite the massive amount of room sent to house those cars, they seldom get driven and the huge amount of dollars spent to acquire them and restore the vehicles back to their original shape…

And yet, am I not doing the same thing?... I find these guys in poor health or at an age when their owners have discarded them like yesterday’s newspapers… The majority go on to their furever homes, but the ones left behind will have a home with us until the quality of life is so small, it no longer outweighs the aches, pains and issues… I will make accommodations and compromises no different than the car restorer who will create a part in their shop because it is no longer manufactured, but the car they just bought needs it to run properly…

I will provide a home with discipline, limits, boundaries, good vet care, necessary medications and TLC to the VERY best of my abilities… Not much different from the 20+ garage a celebrity provides for his car collection as his passion is to be a vintage car collector… When one of my puppers reaches up to my knee for some attention, I stop what I’m doing and make sure they get it… I will schedule my life so that they have home cooked food with a diet that is balanced and alleviates (if not eliminates) the health issues they have…

And just like the vintage car collector, I will not give up on my puppers without a fight!... I will rehabilitate them, unteach the bad habits and replace them with good ones… Usually just about the time they become GREAT dogs, I generally find them a great furever home and then with destiny, another sad canine case comes into my life… This is not much different than the vintage car collector who restores a junked car that’s been sitting behind a building outside in the weather for years, and then once it is up and running, clean and shiny, trades it or sells it to yet find another old junked car somewhere else…

And yet, the car collector is considered an investor with smarts… While we rescuers who give what can’t be bought – our love, care and time – are labeled with disparaging labels, looked at by society as a bit odd and are seldom put in the same category as the celebrity car collectors…

We as a society need to stop putting labels on people, places and things… If we don’t, we need to stop calling ourselves ‘civilized’ because we aren’t… A label or title can stop someone from exploring another person and can cause the labeled person to be shunned by society, limit their abilities and capabilities to do what they do best and overall is probably one of the most negative actions someone can do to another human being… If you feel I’m wrong, then tell me why “Slumdog” won the Academy Award this year… A term was placed upon someone because it was believed they would ‘never amount to anything’ just like many of these puppers I find in local shelters…

Finally, as I climb down off of my soapbox this morning, consider what aspect you give something simply by the term you use to express it… What is humane euthanasia to one person is considered killing of a healthy, adoptable dog by another… It all depends upon your perspective of the situation… If we as a society can cause a butterfly effect by simply changing our speed at installing disparaging labels onto others, we might actually become a better society and peoples eventually…

Thank you for listening!... Feel free to pass this onto others in the hopes it will give them something to think about ~~ and even change a bit in the manner they label others without thinking!

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