And in Some States, Merely a Misdemeanor

I wonder how long it will be before I get used to seeing suffering. This week was particularly unbearable. Sage was so emaciated, I was shocked he could even stand up. And Angel's tumor had become so large, the skin around it was broken, exposing a football-sized mass of blood, bone, guts, and bacteria. At Give a Dog a Bone, we frequently see the victims of neglect and cruelty, but rarely do we see the perpetrators. Maybe that's for the best. If Michael Vick is guilty of the crimes he's been accused of, he deserves worse than anything I could inflict. Had his property been in San Francisco, his surviving dogs would now be in custody, in our care. So instead of hoping for justice that can never be served (no matter what Vick's sentence, it won't erase the torture these dogs endured), I'll throw the tennis ball for Trixie, one of the many pit bulls at ACC now. Living in a tiny kennel, with 20 minutes in the park on a good day, it's hard to believe she is one of the lucky ones.

Picture of the Week

More of What We Do

A lot of the GADAB dogs have to be interacted with through a kennel door - they've either not been cleared by the staff behaviorist for direct human interaction or they've failed a temperament test. In either case, we take maximum advantage of the situation to work as closely with the dog as we can. A lot depends on them. If they're shut down or scared all we can do at first is use short visits to gain their trust. If they're more affiliative we can engage them in all sorts of behaviors and even train them to sit, stay, fetch, and high-five. Junior, seen here, is an example of the latter. We've trained him to retrieve a ball and release it on command. The back-scratcher on the floor in the foreground is used to scratch his ears as a form of reward.

What We Do Here

Teaching ours dogs new behaviors is one of the many things we do at GADAB. Training custody dogs, especially puppies, gives them much-needed mental stimulation and focus, something that can be very fleeting in the din of a noisy, crowded kennel. For dogs cleared to go outside to the shelter park we often introduce them to agility behaviors such as the obstacle run you see little Beefcake running through here.

Way to Go Red!!!! You're adopted

Every time I spotted our little pal, renamed Red, I'd bend down as he came up towards me for a mutual love fest, and I'd wonder to myself, "now why is this is this sweet little guy still here"?

Well, just the other day, it was all made sense to me as I met his new family on their way out the shelter door with Red proudly showing off his new pack. Not only was it abundantly clear that his new daddies and his new canine buddy were not only thrilled to have finally found Red (they've been looking for ages for a good fit), but they subsequently called and could not say enough about how happy everyone was - all sleeping together, dogs busily wrestling and bustling around the house, walks are frequent, all hands on deck with affection, and - does this sound a bit like true love? Well, as one of our trainers said," Maybe Red knew they'd be coming along and has just been waiting for them". Good pick, little buddy - have a great life, I can feel it.

We're Jumping For Joy

Give a Dog a Bone would like to extend a thankful paw to the good folks at the Severns Family Foundation for their generous grant to GADAB. We appreciate their ongoing support and interest in what we do. Their contribution will help us not only continue to improve the quality of life for the long-term shelter dogs at the San Francisco municipal shelter but also allow GADAB to better share its practices with other animal agencies nationwide.

The Best and the Worst of People

This was supposed to be a feel-good entry. I was still on sort of a high from last Friday afternoon's shelter tour. It made me so proud to show off our hard work and to demonstrate what a difference our program is making. To illustrate that point, I was going to write about today's session in the park with Trouble (above). In her months with us, she'd gone from ill-mannered and a bit bratty to a dog that can now control her impulses, even enjoying a quiet moment of affection once in a while. I was planning a clever title for the entry. Something about Trouble actually being her middle name.

But as is my routine, when I got home from the shelter, I sat down at my laptop and jumped online. I checked my usual handful of sites, and against my better judgement, clicked on a headline I knew better than to pursue. I could barely get through the story, I felt so sick. Sick to the point of thinking I was going to vomit. I began having those non-sensical thoughts one has when one hears something terrible, like trying to figure out a way to take every meal I'd ever overeaten and somehow transmit it to that starving dog. It didn't matter that it wasn't possible, that it doesn't even make sense.

Amazingly, the dog did not die -- the story has a happy ending. But I'm not satisfied. I want the man responsible for this to pay. Because we live in a society in which cruel and unusual punishment is not acceptable (even when appropriate), my wish that he be made to starve to half his normal weight will not come to be. So instead I will point readers here and support organizations that make more of an impact than one anonymous blogger.

It's been hours since I first came upon the article; it's taken that long for me to get my head around it. It occurs to me that I haven't eaten since I left for the shelter at ten o'clock this morning. Not even a full day, but I'm suddenly uncomfortably, painfully hungry.