I used to think so too. It was before I started my professional adventure with dogs. At that time, I worked as a translator in a French company. In the middle of the day, there was an hour break for lunch, so I was actually at work for 9 hours. With access, it was 10. Too much to leave a pet home alone.
It was strange for me without a dog. Somehow it was so uncomfortable to enter an empty apartment where no one was waiting for me, wagging his tail. When I lived with my parents, the dog always lived with us. But I had to accept the facts. I’ve been at work too long to have one.
Then one day, my mother called me asking for help. Some people moved into a house from her sister’s block of flats. Their old dog, a 10-year-old German shepherd, apparently didn’t fit into the new interior design because they left it in front of the entrance like an old sofa and drove without him. Whoever was alive was looking for a home for an old, large dog. Unsurprisingly, no one was interested.
My mother, who could never pass by a dog’s misfortune indifferently, has always been a contact box: whoever was looking for a home for an abandoned pet called her. It was known that she would remember another unfortunate creature and look for a home for him. So I was used to (I don’t like that term, but I can’t find a better one) this type of search. I also always asked my friends, but hardly anyone showed any interest.
With Balon, because that was the name of the sheepdog, it was different. For some reason, it bounced back to me constantly. I couldn’t sleep at night, I called all my friends, I talked to people I hadn’t heard from for years, I harassed my friends to ask “this friend of yours I once met at your place. Margaret, I think. Ask, maybe she would like to have a dog. Could you ask her, please?” etc.
Balon ended up in a shelter – he apparently bothered someone from the neighbours just because he was still waiting for his owner. Poor creature didn’t know the people abandoned him.
The news came that “on Marmurowa” there is a distemper. If an old dog gets infected, he won’t survive. I got in the car and drove to get him. They brought me a dog that could barely stay on his feet. He was literally staggering. “Dysplasia,” I heard. I panicked: I lived on the fourth floor of a block of flats with no elevator. What now? I took the dog to the vet. It turned out that Baron (because that’s how I renamed him from Balon) is as deaf as a trunk. Probably because of long-term, untreated bilateral otitis, he has advanced dysplasia.
Fortunately, after a decent meal, the dog stopped staggering. After that, he could not run but walked steadily, and after a few days, he even began to jog.
The problem with me being at work 10 hours per day solved itself.
I did not doubt Baron was a hundred times better with me than in the shelter. Sure, it would be great if someone could take him out for a walk during the day. At that time, however, in 2007, no one in Poland had yet heard of pet sitters.
In the shelter, Baron sat in a cage with other dogs. For an old, big, deaf and sick dog, it was a life sentence. Let’s be honest: he had no chance of adoption. When I took him, he was bitten and hungry because younger and fitter dogs apparently wouldn’t let him into a bowl of what was supposed to be food. The dogs were probably given some bread soaked in something – at least, that’s the pulp I combed out of Baron’s fur after bringing him home.
In the shelter, dogs go out for a walk once a week, sometimes less often – depending on the number of employees and volunteers. (A luxury in a few foundations is one walk a day.)*
With me, Baron was not hungry; he was under constant veterinary care, was going out for three walks a day (about 2.5 hours in total), had a roof over his head, did not freeze and was loved.
Sure, you may say these were not ideal conditions, but I do not doubt that he was a thousand times better than in the shelter.
If you don’t want to have a dog because you work too much and wouldn’t have time for him, then think about what life in a shelter looks like. Get rid of remorse and adopt. You will save a dog’s life. Remember that for most animals, a shelter is a life sentence…
*I am writing here about the reality of the shelters in Poland.
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