…in loving honor of my own dogs…
The following applies to both puppies and kittens:

To many people, a puppy is the perfect symbol of the true spirit of Christmas. A puppy represents wonderment, innocence, exuberant energy, unconditional love, hope for the future. These are the sorts of gifts that many of us wish we were able to give one another. And that is a good thing. In an increasingly violent, horrifying, mind-numbing and impersonal world, Christmas time reminds many that there are more important values, that there is hope and love, that joy comes from giving of oneself more than it does from taking. To many people, these values bring to mind the loyal, loving, uncorrupted, hauntingly simple innocence of a puppy.

Indeed, many advertisers and artists have noticed this connection. Images of cozy family Christmas mornings often include scenes of floppy-eared puppies peering innocently out of a colorful gift box, their eyes wide with wonderment and awe. As the scene continues, the puppy stumbles preciously over mounds of gift wrappings, to the great amusement of delighted children who rush to hug the youngster and receive big wet puppy-slurps in return. Mom and Dad smile knowingly in the background as the true meaning of life is celebrated before their eyes. What could possibly be wrong with this picture?

Nothing. As art, as fiction, or as advertisement, it captures a lot of the symbolic spirit of the Christmas celebration perfectly. The appeal of this scene is like that of Norman Rockwell’s paintings. As advertisement, it works. It sells products, even those totally unrelated to dogs or to Christmas. As fiction it warms people’s hearts. What’s wrong, though, is what happens when real people try to re-enact this warm loving scene in their own homes with a real, living puppy playing the role of a prop in this mythic family life-drama.

I am not against dog ownership. I have two dogs myself, and I think the world would be a lot better place if more people had meaningful relationships with dogs. My concern here is with the future of those living beings, those adorable puppies with child-like eyes who show up as gifts on Christmas morning. While images like the one I described may look irresistibly appealing in pictures, art, advertising or fiction, the future for those real-life puppies who start out under the Christmas tree, in all probability, will turn out to be fairly grim. Groups as diverse as, and often at odds with one another as, the Humane Society of the United States, canine behavior experts, the American Kennel Club, PETA, Animal Rights Activists, breed rescue groups, veterinarians, obedience training instructors, and most reputable breeders of sound, healthy dogs, are in strong agreement that live puppies should not be given as Christmas gifts. Here are some of the reasons:

THE ATMOSPHERE OF CHRISTMAS MORNING FRIGHTENS THE PUPPY.

People who study canine development and behavior have found that puppies, like children, go through developmental stages. The first fear/avoidance period in a puppy’s development occurs roughly between 7-12 weeks of age. However this is also when the puppy is developmentally best capable of leaving its litter and beginning to form bonds of attachment with its new family. Most breeders agree that this is the right time to send a young puppy home with its adoptive family. However, it is also extremely important not to over-stress or unduly frighten the puppy during this vulnerable time. Fears learned during this first fear/avoidance period can be very, very difficult to overcome later, even with the very best training or behavior modification techniques. In other words, traumatic experiences at this point can have a permanent impact on your puppy’s personality as an adult dog.

Your puppy’s experiences of leaving its mother and litter-mates, and its arrival in its new home and introduction to its new family, can permanently affect its ability to bond with and trust humans. The puppy needs to be introduced to its new home and family during a relaxed and quiet, gentle time, with a minimum of loud noises, flashing lights, and screeching children, ringing phones, visiting company, and other types of general hub-bub. Christmas morning is absolutely the worst time, in terms of the puppy’s developmental needs, for introducing this newly-weaned youngster to its new family.

THE TIMING TEACHES CHILDREN THE WRONG VALUES.

Many families who value pet ownership do so at least partly because of what children can learn from the family pets in terms of care and responsibility, love and loyalty, and respect for other living beings. But think of what happens to the rest of the toys and gifts that start out under the Christmas tree. By Valentine’s Day, most of them have been shelved or broken or traded or forgotten. The excitement inevitably wears off, and the once compelling toy becomes something to use, use up, and then discard in favor of something newer.

A living puppy should not be thought of in the same category as a Christmas toy. Children need to learn that a living puppy is being adopted into the family – as a living family member who will contribute much, but who will also have needs of its own, which the rest of the family is making a commitment to try to meet. A puppy who makes its first appearance as a gift item under the Christmas tree is more likely to be thought of by children as an object, as a thing-like toy rather than as a family member. This will not teach one of the most valuable lessons there is to learn from a puppy, which is respect for living beings and concern for others in the form of attention to their needs.

A GOOD BREEDER WILL NOT SEND A PUPPY HOME ON CHRISTMAS MORNING.

Responsible breeders – those who guarantee the health and temperament of their puppies, and who are abreast of current knowledge about canine health, genetics, socialization and development – already know these things and will not send a puppy home with its new owner on Christmas morning. If you were to be able to obtain a puppy from someone who actually let you have it on Christmas Eve so that it could appear under the tree on Christmas morning, that should tell you something. It should warn you that you would be getting your puppy from someone who does not know enough about canine behavior and development to be in the business of breeding or selling puppies.

You would be much better off acquiring your newest family addition from a breeder who knows enough about dogs, and who cares enough about the particular puppies that he breeds and places, to insist that you take the puppy home under conditions which would be best for the puppy. If your breeder does not insist on this, you are purchasing a puppy from a breeder who does not know or care enough about his “product,” to be in that business, and you should acquire your pup from someone else instead.

THE PUPPY GROWS UP AND HAS NEEDS.

Many people have a somewhat romantic view of what dog- ownership is like. This romanticism can become exaggerated by the warmth and loving kindness associated with the Christmas season. People who have not had dogs before, or who have not had dogs since they were themselves children, or who have recently had a dog but one who was a canine senior citizen trained and socialized to the family’s ways long ago, often are completely unaware of how much work it is to raise a puppy from infancy into a good adult canine companion. They may have mental images of happy times romping with the dog on the beach, or curling up in front of the fireplace, of playing Frisbee in the park or of hunting with a loyal companion. All these are things they might well eventually enjoy with their canine companions. But they may have temporarily forgotten, or perhaps not ever really have known, how incredibly much work it takes to raise and socialize a dog from puppyhood to that point of mature canine companionship.

Unlike cats, who generally do not need extensive training and socialization, dogs require a huge commitment from at least one person who is prepared to teach the dog what behaviors are expected of him, under a wide variety of circumstances. Adults may believe that they remember a Faithful Fido from their youth who seemed never to need training; Faithful Fido always seemed to “just know” what was expected of him. But those adults were children at the time, and they did not necessarily see all the work that their parents and others put into training and socializing Fido.

Professionals who deal with dogs regularly, call this common fantasy the “Lassie Syndrome.” That is, everyone hopes for that imaginary dog who has E.S.P. and who automatically knows how to behave in human company without needing any training. In other words, they want a dog like “Lassie.” But “Lassie” was a fictional character. “Lassie” actually was owned and trained by Rudd Weatherwax, one of the most hardworking and successful professional trainers of dogs in the history of US television and film. Rudd Weatherwax spent his entire lifetime training “Lassie” to do those things which looked spontaneous in the fictional story lines. No real, non-fictional dog is actually like that.

Real dogs not only must be housetrained – most owners are aware of that need; they also must be taught not to chew the furniture, taught not to jump on their owners, taught not to play-bite, taught not to bowl over the toddler, taught not to dig holes in the yard, taught to come when they are called, taught not to eat the homework or the woodwork, taught not to swipe food off the table, taught not to growl at strangers or bark at the mail carrier, taught to walk on a leash without dragging their owner down the block, taught to allow their toenails to be cut and their coats to be groomed without biting the groomer, taught not to shred feather pillows and down comforters, taught not to steal the baby’s toys, taught not to growl at their owner’s mother-in-law, taught to sit, stay, and to lay down when and where the owner tells them to, and to wait there until the owner says they may get up (absolutely essential commands for the dog’s own safety), taught not to escape out the front door or out of the yard or out of the car when the owner looks away for just a second … all of these things and many more are not “natural” canine behaviors; they must be taught by owners who are willing to spend the time and the effort doing so.

The reason I mention this is because lack of owner knowledge about the amount of work required to socialize, raise, and train a puppy, is one of the main factors contributing to a huge national problem: the problem of adolescent and young adult dogs being “given up” by owners within the first year or so of having acquired the animal. Untrained, unsocialized puppies might be “cute” and “natural” but they are tolerable only for a few weeks, if even that. Then they start to be nuisances. Then they start to be major problems. Sooner or later they become downright dangerous to themselves or to their families and neighbors.

It is often between the ages of 7-14 months that the dog (sadly, reluctantly) is brought to the pound or to the vet for euthanasia by a frustrated owner as an “uncontrollable” dog, or as a dog with “behavior problems.” Or perhaps it is taken to a shelter in the faint hope that it will be adopted by someone else. (Chances are almost certain that it won’t; nobody else wants an untrained, unsocialized dog’s behavior problems either.) By that age the untrained dog is a full-grown and unruly adolescent. It might have bitten a family member, or threatened a neighbor’s child, necessitating the involvement of a town animal control officer. Or the dog may have run away and been hit by a car. Or it may be adopted into a series of homes, one after another, none of which can adequately control it, until it finally winds up on death row at the pound.

These tragic dogs, those wonderful canines known to generations as “Man’s Best Friend,” never had a chance. According to statistics kept by the Humane Society of the United States, the majority of puppies and kittens born in the United States never reach their second birthdays, even though their natural lifespans should be many times that length. They die from being hit by cars, euthanized by owners, starving or being fatally injured in fights with other animals – including wild animals, some rabid in many areas – after having run away from their owners, or being taken to shelters, pounds or vets, where they are “put to sleep,” usually before the age of two. In other words, many, many canine deaths are squarely the responsibility of owners who did not understand what it would involve properly to train and socialize their puppy, or who did understand, but did not do the necessary work.

IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

“Christmas puppies” often are impulse purchases, in a spirit of love and giving and generosity that goes with the season, but without the hard self-assessment that goes into asking oneself if one has the time and the energy and the inclination to give the necessary commitment to raising and socializing and educating that puppy. Better to get that new puppy at a less emotionally charged time of the year, when the decision to add a dog to the family is a less impulsive and more carefully considered one, uninfluenced by seasonal generosity of spirit, which might just fade a bit after the tree comes down and the lights are put away.

If you are absolutely set upon getting your family a puppy for
Christmas, consider this alternative instead: Purchase a leash, a collar, a good book on raising a puppy, a gift certificate for a veterinary checkup, a gift certificate for puppy socialization classes from one of the local obedience instructors, a book or video tape on the topic of how to select the right dog for your family (there are several, including even a computer program that purports to help you do this), or a gift subscription to one of the dog-oriented magazines.

Wrap these up and put them under the tree. As family members unwrap the various pieces of the “puzzle”, their delight and anticipation will grow. They will gradually understand what this present is! Then, after the Christmas tree is taken down and the frenzy of the holiday season is behind, the family can once again enjoy together the anticipation and excitement of discussing and selecting a breed, selecting a breeder, selecting an individual pup, and so on. This will increase the family’s mutual commitment to, and investment in, the well-being of the newest family member. It will be a project the family has done together, which is a wonderful way for any adoption to commence. This will not decrease the enjoyment of your new puppy; I guarantee it. It will increase it by many fold. And it will be a better start both for the puppy, and for the long-term relationship between dog and owner(s). A dog with a good introduction to its adoptive family is much more likely to become a long term companion rather than just another tragic statistic.

Animal shelters have a great selection of both puppies as well as adult dogs, including about 25-30% purebred animals. Some of the reasons pets have been abandoned at the shelter include financial difficulties by the previous owner, a prior owner who didn’t have realistic expectations of the time and effort required to sustain a lifelong relationship with their pet and others. It’s sad, but almost half of the dogs in shelters end up being euthanized rather than adopted because not enough people are opening up their homes for these abandoned animals.

Animal shelters vary in terms of their rules for adoption. They will ask you questions about prior pet history, what type of living arrangements you have (apartment, house with yard, etc.), how long the periods are that you’re gone from home, and so forth. They may even ask you for references or establish a waiting period before you can take the dog home with you.

Your pet, if not already spayed or neutered, will have to have that done before you can take it home with you. Additionally, your new pet will require a complete examination and all required vaccinations before it can be released.

Adoption fees run anywhere from $40 to $125 plus the cost of spaying, neutering, shots, and microchip insertion, if requested. Shelter adoptions are much less expensive than buying a dog from a pet store or breeder. You should exercise some caution if you respond to an advertisement giving away free puppies.

The pet adoption experience varies at different types of shelters, so take the time to search ASPCA and Humane Society of the U.S (HSUS) websites for listings of shelters and humane societies near you. Shelters are generally limited-stay facilities, sometimes government-funded and may have fostering programs. Humane societies are private, non-profit organizations that generally include education, veterinary care, obedience training and other related programs in their mission. If you’re interested in a specific type or breed of dog or cat, consider looking for a rescue group. These groups specialize and often keep animals in foster homes.

Because they want animal adoptions to be permanent and not wind up with animals being abandoned for a second time, shelters often provide adoption counseling. They may even offer other assistance such as obedience training, behavior counseling, and medical services.

If you plan on bringing a dog home from the shelter, prepare your house ahead of time. Sort of like childproofing, you may need to dog-proof your house until your new pet gets settled in. Additionally, you’ll want to bring a collar, leash, and pet carrier with you in order to safely transport your new dog home.

Adopting a dog from an animal shelter can be a rewarding experience.

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How can you help?

A good place to start is finding out what the local shelter’s policies are concerning volunteers such as; age limits, what the volunteers are allowed to do, hours they need help, signed parental permissions for minors. You can also find out what the material needs of the facility such as: old newspapers, blankets and towels, food and water, dishes, cleaning supplies, toys, over the counter medicines. Many shelters love and welcome fund raising aid, whether it’s manning existing functions and events or helping to create new ones. It is possible that it will take more than one phone call or visit to be able to talk to the person in charge of coordinating volunteers.

While you are looking into volunteer policies, be sure to ask about the shelter’s policies regarding the animals, and make sure their policies are ok with you and your personality. You may want to find out if they have differing practices and rules according to breed. If you have questions as to whether or not their practices and policies are something you can live with, find out more by asking. Either someone will be happy that you are concerned with the wellbeing of the animals and feel an obligation to your own moral compass or you’ll find out it isn’t a good fit for you before you’ve put yourself into an untenable situation.

Also, if the facility is one that euthanizes after a set time limit, be honest with yourself and ask yourself if you are ready to deal with having to come in and find a personal favorite animal is gone — but not adopted, simply because its time was up. Not everyone can handle that, but it is a great gift to give these abandoned animals some last hours of affection is great to give these animals.

Take time and decide if you’re ready to clean up after dogs and cats, puppies and kittens, to sweep kennels, hose down runs, shovel piles out of the yard, scoop litter boxes, disinfect cages and kennels, wash food and water dishes, shake out bedding, all the grunt work, That’s what volunteers are for. Maybe you get to do the walking of dogs and playing with cats. Walking the dogs is another helpful task volunteers perform in many shelters, but know your limits. If you aren’t comfortable with a large, rambunctious dog, don’t get in over your head. Not only can you get hurt, but it’s a situation where it’s possible for the dog to end up being called unadoptable and wind up being put down early.
Keeping an animal groomed and bathed can lead to helping them to find a new home. If you have grooming skills, professional or just learned to groom your own pets; you can make a real difference! If grooming is something you’re interested in doing as a career, it’s a great way to get good practice.

Clean and groomed animals need for people to see them before they can be adopted.

Some shelters have adoption fairs, but if yours doesn’t, maybe you can help get one organized for them, getting different facilities in the community interested in helping such as; any local dog organizations, breed clubs, sporting associations like agility or weight pull groups or businesses owned by pet lovers. Local newspapers are another source for getting the animals out for public to see. They will usually run a few pictures and brief descriptions, on a weekly or possibly a daily basis. If you’ve got a good camera and an eye for getting appealing shots of animals, take the photos, print them out, and go visit the newspaper and see if they will accept them.

And you can always support your local shelter by adopting from them. That’s a win/win situation.

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Please take a few moments to visit our Tails to Tell. There you can read the personal stories of some of our animal residents that could use your help. All proceeds raised through donations go to help the animals. There are no employees, no administration fees and no professional fundraisers to pay. Without the support of generous people like you, we would not be able to continue helping the animals.

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All proceeds raised through donations go to help the animals. There are no employees, no administration fees and no professional fundraisers to pay.

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Sophie Belle is an adorable, extremely chatty, little girl who came to the sanctuary in 1988 when she was approximately one year old. She has the distinction of being here longer than any of our other long term residents. She is also our miracle child, having survived a horrendous attack by three German Shepherds!

Sophie had been abandoned by her former owners and had been living in some woods with a couple of other stray cats. Suddenly, they were set upon by three German Shepherd dogs who had gotten loose from their owner. The other two cats were able to climb the trees to safety. Unfortunately, Sophie had been de-clawed and was therefore absolutely defenseless in this terrible situation. The three dogs were literally playing a game of tug with her and they had almost torn her in half by the time a good Samaritan came to her rescue. This heroic lady managed to get Sophie away from the dogs despite the fact that she, too, was badly bitten in the process.

Poor Sophie was in terrible condition. She had the most dreadful wounds. She also had a collapsed lung. She was losing air through the huge hole in her back and her heart had been pushed up into the chest cavity. She was already in shock and well on the way to dying when she arrived at the veterinarian’s office. They immediately took her into surgery to try to repair the damage. The chances of her pulling through were slim to none and the veterinarian did not hold out much hope that she would survive. She was stitched completely from one side to the other.

However, everyone underestimated the stubbornness of both Sophie and ourselves. We refused to let her die! We felt that we owed her a chance at life after all that she had been through. Her original owners may have abandoned her to her fate but we would not! Although it took weeks of intensive care and a lot of love and prayers, to everyone’s amazement, our Sophie pulled through! The turning point came the day she started to “talk” – and she hasn’t stopped nagging us since then! We don’t complain! We feel that she’s earned the right to nag all she wants! She truly is our miracle child and we are grateful for every day that we have her.

Saralee is one of our long term residents here at the sanctuary. It’s hard to believe that this pretty little cat is the same ragamuffin we picked up late one rainy night in March 1994.

We had first seen her outside a gas station going through the dumpster. She was skin and bone and very, very pregnant. We put out some food which we always carry with us for these occasions. She ate voraciously but kept a wary eye on us. Suddenly, out of the shadows, we noticed several more cats slinking up. Soon there were seven! Much to our dismay, three more of them were also pregnant.

We spoke with the owner of the property and offered to trap the cats, have them fixed, vet checked and then return them to the only home they had ever known. He emphatically stated that they were “just wild strays” and he didn’t want them around. It was obvious that this was definitely not a safe environment for them. It was also obvious that the situation would quickly get out of control after the females gave birth, greatly increasing the size of the colony. Therefore, we set about trapping and removing them. Over the course of the next week, we managed to trap all seven of them.

Within a short period of time the females gave birth giving us a grand total of seven adults and sixteen kittens. With good treatment and medical care, they soon became healthy and beautiful and we were able to place most of the kittens in good homes. Unfortunately, the adults were a different story. They were all feral and it took us a long time to win their confidence. Even after all this time, SaraLee is still somewhat leery of us and only very occasionally allows us to pet her. Most times she just can’t bring herself to overcome the initial discomfort of being touched. Avoiding humans is an acquired skill which enables these ferals to survive out in the wild and they have a hard time letting go of it. Rarely does SaraLee let down her guard and let us in, so whenever she does, we treasure those moments as small victories! However, to us, the most important thing is that this sweet girl is able to live out the rest of her days with her companions in a place where she is safe, she is happy and she is loved!

Rascal is a gorgeous long haired black and white boy who came to live at the sanctuary in September 1996. We call him Rascal because of the touch of mischief in his beautiful, bright eyes. However, that name would most certainly not have applied to him when he first arrived here!

We had heard about him from a lady who had been feeding some feral cats behind a restaurant. Driving off one day, she glanced to the side and and much to her surprise, spotted a cat curled up inside a drainage pipe right next to a busy road. For the next few months she would place food inside the pipe for him. Although he would eat once she had left, he would not approach while she was still there.

We had been in contact with this good Samaritan because we had fixed and vaccinated the feral colony that she was feeding. She happened to mention Rascal in conversation and we drove over to take a look. What we found was a very bedraggled cat with an extremely knotted coat curled up in a ball inside the pipe. He barely moved and when he glanced up at us, the thing that struck us most was the absolute lifelessness in his eyes. We knew that we had to get to him fast. At first his caretaker was very resistant to our moving him. We find this to be a frequent problem. The caretakers think that the cats they are feeding are just fine and that things should be left be as they are. However, once we start working with them and show them how much the quality of the cats’ lives improve once they are fixed and vaccinated, we can usually bring them around to our way of thinking.

The caretaker eventually agreed that it would be better for Rascal if we took him, so we set up a humane trap. We were able to catch him in less than five minutes. An immediate trip to the vet was in order so we whisked him over there. He was fixed, vaccinated, tested for feline leukemia and aids, (negative), and wormed. He was riddled with parasites which was why his general health was so bad. Untreated parasites can be very debilitating and are one of the main killers of abandoned cats. He also needed dental work on some broken teeth. We approximated his age to be about six years. Life had obviously not treated this poor boy well!

Once a cat has been vet checked, we make a decision as to whether it should be returned to its previous environment. This decision is partly based upon the cat’s overall health, a good food supply and a safe location. In Rascal’s case, it was obvious that two out of the three conditions would fail the test – health and safe location. It was therefore decided that it was better for him to remain in our care.

Rascal is such a sweet and gentle soul. It took him a little while to trust us but once he lets his guard down, he is a true delight. Unfortunately, he is terrified of strangers and will run and hide. However, we have noticed that with patience, he can be coaxed out and just revels in the attention. We get the greatest joy from looking at this happy, healthy boy and thinking about the enormous change in him from when we first found him. When he climbs onto your knee, gazes up at you with adoring bright eyes and gently touches your face with his paw, your heart just melts!