Poverty

[Kim Wolf]

I wanted to share this guest post that Lori Weise (Downtown Dog Rescue) wrote for my blog. It illustrates so clearly what I believe are the biggest issues facing dogs in our communities, including but not limited to pit bulls: beyondbreed.com/the-revolving-door-a-poverty-problem-not-a-pet-problem/

[RealPitBull]

Sounds like a great program they got going over there, "interventionist", I love it! I do think poverty as a driving force for surrendering companion animals is going to be at the forefront in many areas, and not a real reason in others. Depends on the community being served.

I'd say the most common excuse people use for surrendering dogs, that RPB hears, is that the landlord told them to get rid of the dog. This could have been avoided had the person done some prep work before even getting a dog. The other common reason is usually some sob story about not having enough time. Close to that is behavioral.

It's no doubt that in South Central, poverty is cited as a big problem and burden on those with animals.

I think what's not being done by the animal rescue community is properly educating people to begin with before even GETTING a dog. I'm not going to throw a guesstimate out there on how many people who have animals that I think actually SHOULD have them (hint: it's not a generous number). But people need to learn that bringing a dog home to begin with is NOT something to be taken lightly, period. Dogs are seen as disposable, something that if "things get too rough" you can just get rid of it. Easing the demand for dogs in the first place is something RPB tries to do. No, we are NOT in the business of encouraging people to adopt dogs. If someone is truly prepared and has done their research and is ready to dedicate themselves for the life of the dog, THEN we encourage the adoption route. Is this counter-intuitive to what a rescue does, which is try to place dogs in a never ending loop of pull-place, pull-place, ad infinitum - but looking at the big picture, the real reason we exist is to a) try to lessen the number of dogs out there, and b) keep dogs in homes once they find those homes.

I kinda went off on a tangent, sorry, just kind of thinking out loud.

[suziriot]

^ THIS.

[michele5611]

I agree with everything Mary said!

I do agree that the program sounds great and has a lot of value to it.

At the sake of sounding like a broken record though as Mary said day in and day out RBP gets emails from owner surrenders and it usually has nothing to do with finances. It is a utter lack of regard for their “pet.” Dogs are disposable to them plain and simple. I know this is far more daunting a challenge to tackle and not sure how or if it is even possible to teach people that pets are not disposable.

Kim I was wondering if you ever deal with the types of owner surrenders we are constantly fielding?

[Kim Wolf]

While I don't run a rescue, every day I get emails from people looking for help/trying to surrender their dogs. And that doesn't include the emails I get at my real job, where I work with shelters around the country. I also used to work in a shelter and saw firsthand the daily surrenders, both at animal control and at the PSPCA. So yes, I'm very familiar.

[Kim Wolf]

While the 400 dogs they worked with in the past 2 months are just a subset of the total dog population, it's very helpful to look at their data on why people were surrendering their dogs -- and what they needed in order to keep them. Behavior reasons were included as a common concern, which is why DDR offers free community dog training. If you haven't visited them in LA, I highly encourage you to check them out if you're in town. Their classes are amazing. And they're all free and they're all accessible -- you just show up. I have some videos I took somewhere, I'll have to dig them up.

I agree there are plenty of people who get dogs and them dispose of them, and they probably should not have taken them on in the first place. But those aren't the people they're focusing on here. They're focusing on all the people who CAN be reached through targeted interventions. I think we all agree that there are, sadly, no shortage of dogs coming into the system. So DRR's approach has been to focus on the low or lower hanging fruit.

[RealPitBull]

I haven't visited them, but I had a friend who worked closely with them for years, so I'm familiar.

[michele5611]

Jun 19, 2013 14:09:12 GMT -5 Kim Wolf said:

While I don't run a rescue, every day I get emails from people looking for help/trying to surrender their dogs. And that doesn't include the emails I get at my real job, where I work with shelters around the country. I also used to work in a shelter and saw firsthand the daily surrenders, both at animal control and at the PSPCA. So yes, I'm very familiar.

Serious question here how do you deal with them? We find that no matter what services or suggestions we offer them they are not interested. So just wondering what you tell them or if you are able to reach them. Thanks!

[michele5611]

Jun 19, 2013 14:15:27 GMT -5 Kim Wolf said:

While the 400 dogs they worked with in the past 2 months are just a subset of the total dog population, it's very helpful to look at their data on why people were surrendering their dogs -- and what they needed in order to keep them. Behavior reasons were included as a common concern, which is why DDR offers free community dog training. If you haven't visited them in LA, I highly encourage you to check them out if you're in town. Their classes are amazing. And they're all free and they're all accessible -- you just show up. I have some videos I took somewhere, I'll have to dig them up.

I agree there are plenty of people who get dogs and them dispose of them, and they probably should not have taken them on in the first place. But those aren't the people they're focusing on here. They're focusing on all the people who CAN be reached through targeted interventions. I think we all agree that there are, sadly, no shortage of dogs coming into the system. So DRR's approach has been to focus on the low or lower hanging fruit.

Agree it would be very helpful and insightful to look at the data as to why people are surrendering their dogs! Do you know the percentage of people who have expressed behavior concerns with theirs pets and who then went on to attend the free training classes?

Would love to see the videos too!

[RealPitBull]

Figuring out ways to get people to KEEP their dogs is really important to me, would love to talk more about this stuff.

Just throwing this out there....

1) A lot of inquiries we get already involve people who have moved and are saying they cannot keep their dog, or are GOING to move (have a new place lined up) and are going to get rid of their dogs because land lord says no dogs.

2) Behavior stuff.... paid or free (we did low cost training through RPB because people seem to take it more serious plus it helped offset expenses) - people are difficult to lead into compliance. This was a constant problem too I faced when I was training professionally through my training company. Those people that will work really hard to fix their dogs behavioral problems to begin with are going to be hard pressed to give their dogs up. Backed into a corner, SOME people feel they "have" to give up their dog (it is dangerous, etc) but once they are given options, it's all they can do to fix the issue. Other people really cannot be bothered. Of course, preemptive training classes are the best bet!!! I wish every community had low cost or free training classes for people to take advantage of. Early training and good management when a dog is first obtained can go MILES to help a dog "stick" in a home.

I just had someone email me yesterday very upset that their dog had attacked another leashed dog. After explaining how this shouldn't be a shocker, and a couple things they could do to immediately prevent this from happening again, I referred to a trainer friend of mine as well as a book. This person JUMPED at the chance to utilize the help I suggested. He said flat out he didn't want to give up his dog but didn't know what to do. It was nice to be able to offer help and have it received.

Resources for people who legit want to keep their dogs but feel "stuck" and are actively looking for help - YES! A lot of people do just want to dump their dogs. Honestly, I'm not very sympathetic to people who dump dogs at shelters.

[Kim Wolf]

It depends how they come to me -- because I have different resources at my disposal depending on whether it's through work or through personal stuff. But I have to say that once someone is at the point of emailing a stranger (like me) to surrender a dog, the chances of me being abel to successfully intervene are low. Usually their minds are already made up, their stress level is already too high, or the situation has already progressed too far to go back.

The most success I've had in this type of work was when I lived in Philly and did hands-on work in the community via Community Pets Days (and the work that led up to them/followed them). I was able to work face-to-face with people, get to know them, get to know their community/resources, and build trust. I found that people were FAR more likely to utilize resources and not surrender their dogs if the trust factor was there and if I was there, in person, in their community. I've had much less success trying to do this over email or through a website. It's a little better over the phone, but not much. Nothing replaces being a physical presence.

Some situations just don't work out, and that's the reality of it. Some dogs are too much for people to handle, some people just aren't capable of caring for dogs, and so forth. But most of the time, there were so many options that the person didn't even know existed, and so much information that had never been shared with them.

I remember one woman who took in her neighbor's pit bull and it immediately went after the cat (pretty common scenario, as we know!). She brought the dog to our event to surrender him because he was "too aggressive." She got the dog from a neighbor who couldn't keep him anymore, which mean no adoption/breeder counseling was offered. She had no idea how to properly intro dogs and cats. A friend had told her that you have to let them work it out, and eventually they'll learn how to act around each other. Well, that didn't work out. So in this case, we shared information with this woman about how to intro and manage dogs and cats, we gave her realistic expectations, and one of our cat-savy volunteers gave her her phone number and email so she could follow up. In this particular case it ended up working out. Not every case did, but enough were successful that it was well worth the time spent. I have to emphasize that this was all because we met her in person, through a community pet day event. If this woman had just found me online, I highly doubt the outcome would have been the same.

A lot of cases came down to things beyond our control, mostly landlords who did not accept pets -- especially pit bulls. And sadly, unless the person has money/flexibility, those cases rarely worked out. In Philly, at least, I can say that most of these cases were due to unexpected life curveballs, not something the person could have reasonably planned for. Most of the time it was housing and/or financial: lost job, had to move for a job, had to move to take care of other family members, someone bought the building and new landlord wouldn't take dogs, and/or financial struggles. Life happens. Again, some people were just careless and didn't plan ahead. But they were the exception, not the norm. I see the same thing happening here in Gainesville (where I currently live), and I hear similar stories from the people I work with around the country. Another one is babies. But in my personal opinion, if someone feels uncomfortable having their dog around a baby, that's not someone I personally made a priority of working with; I'd rather spend time on the other cases where babies are not involved. With only so much time in the day, I don't feel as comfortable working on those cases, and I would rather err on the side of safety, as sad as that is for the dog. It's just not my skill set.

Not sure I really answered your questions or just rambled My main point was that the most successful interventions came from face-to-face contact and trust/relationships built over time, as opposed to answering frantic emails or phone calls. Because my time was limited (I was doing everything as a volunteer, on top of my regular job), I could only work with so many people. But after fielding enough frantic emails and having such a low success rate, I decided I could help more people by taking a different approach. I wish I had kept data, but I'm positive that the yield was much higher through method, even though I interacted with fewer people (i.e., emails). I'm not saying this is what everyone should do -- this is just based on my personal skill sets and interests.

[RealPitBull]

I definitely think hands-on, face to face, community outreach stuff is the way to go. Like you said above, Kim - most of the times by the time people email you, they have made up their minds already. Working with the public during edu. events always feels the most fruitful to me.

[Kim Wolf]

Jun 19, 2013 14:31:01 GMT -5 michele5611 said:

Jun 19, 2013 14:15:27 GMT -5 Kim Wolf said:

While the 400 dogs they worked with in the past 2 months are just a subset of the total dog population, it's very helpful to look at their data on why people were surrendering their dogs -- and what they needed in order to keep them. Behavior reasons were included as a common concern, which is why DDR offers free community dog training. If you haven't visited them in LA, I highly encourage you to check them out if you're in town. Their classes are amazing. And they're all free and they're all accessible -- you just show up. I have some videos I took somewhere, I'll have to dig them up.

I agree there are plenty of people who get dogs and them dispose of them, and they probably should not have taken them on in the first place. But those aren't the people they're focusing on here. They're focusing on all the people who CAN be reached through targeted interventions. I think we all agree that there are, sadly, no shortage of dogs coming into the system. So DRR's approach has been to focus on the low or lower hanging fruit.

Agree it would be very helpful and insightful to look at the data as to why people are surrendering their dogs! Do you know the percentage of people who have expressed behavior concerns with theirs pets and who then went on to attend the free training classes?

Would love to see the videos too!

It's not exactly what you're looking for, but Lori's chart shows that out of the 400 pets, 43 were able to stay with their owners after receiving behavior support: www.downtowndogrescue.org/weve-reached-our-year-end-goal-in-only-2-months/

Is Lori on this forum? I'm sure she could answer much better than I can, and I hate to speak on her behalf.

Here is their website: www.downtowndogrescue.org

Here's their YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/DDRVideo21?feature=watch

I'll look for the videos I took of their group training class.

[Kim Wolf]

Just realized the classes aren't on that youtube link. Here are some of the classes:





These aren't the ones I was looking for though.

[RealPitBull]

Kinda what we did with Pit Bull School here. Minus the prong collars and off leash dogs The classes worked out really well, even in a public park, and even with mostly dog reactive dogs. It CAN be done, and can work out REALLY well for all involved! Such a valuable service for people and their pups.

[michele5611]

Thanks for the info Kim!

It is really interesting to see like Mary said "poverty as a driving force for surrendering companion animals is going to be at the forefront in many areas, and not a real reason in others. Depends on the community being served."

[Kim Wolf]

Here's a follow-up blog post that Brent wrote -- more good food for thought: btoellner.typepad.com/kcdogblog/2013/06/very-good-sentences-and-thoughts-on-poverty-and-animals.html