Sunday, April 5, 2009

The Dangerous Rainbow


We have color system on the doors at the Shelter—Green, Yellow, Blue, Red, and Purple. It is a dangerous rainbow.

The Green Room is the best room for the dogs—it’s the Adoption Room, and thus it provides the primary ticket out of the Shelter. The Yellow Room has cats (for adoption) and animals still being kept under the stray-hold. The Blue Room houses more of the same, but officially is meant be for the puppies—although this is not a hard-and-fast. The Red Room is for bite cases and other critical issues—the door is locked and you can’t go in without an Animal Control officer. I haven’t been in the Red Room yet. The Purple Room is for incoming animals and worse, it’s where the animals slated for euthanizing are put—at least for now. Our Shelter is expanding, and the door colors have changed several times.

The Shelter staff will be euthanizing animals this week. No one is happy about this. The month of February was an experiment in No-Kill, and the euthanasia rates were held in check through March. But the parade of animals into the shelter is up-ticking with the litters of puppies and kittens, so the killing will resume.

I did a walk-through of the Purple Room this afternoon. It was depressing and horrifying—three skinny mamma dogs with baggy teats and mange, a grey, scarred, crop-eared pit bull, an older lab with cherry eye, several terrified LBDs (Little Brown Dogs) of indeterminate breeding who lie curled up and unresponsive. Some kennel cards have the word “SAVE” scrawled across the intake information in yellow highlighter. Other cards have messages of hope—“Show to Dr. M.” or “Rescue Called.”

But most of the cards have no notes. Most of these dogs have no names. For these animals, death is near. We know. They know too. The rainbow is dangerous.

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Photo credit: Flickr; Creative Commons; Thank you-heureux- Vienna, Austria

4 comments:

  1. So sad, but a reality. There are just so many ... and there are so few people to adopt.

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  2. Great idea. Keep that reality check coming. It's one thing to talk about the over-population, why do I still see puppies at the vets, much moreso than older dogs?

    People do think they can just rent a puppy, until it becomes the annoying, or aggressive of fearful dog THEY create. Then, get another one.

    Arrrgh. And next door neighbour here at work, with Sega dog, had to show me his friend's latest puppy..Lab/Aussie Shep. cross.
    HeadDesk. Looks like a NovaScotia Duck Toller, of course cute. Got her from a friend up in Buckhorn..
    It's the daughter's dog.. he's babysitting. Good luck to her. dad said, oh she's afraid of everything. Never had a dog before...
    It's pouring puppies, while the backlog of dogs unwanted, grows.
    Thanks for the hard work you do.

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  3. We are so sad. Those poor pups. Mom wishes she had a farm to take them all. Mom is leaking now..

    Big Sloppy Kisses
    Gus, Louie and Callie

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  4. Bless you for being strong enough to work in that environment and do some good.

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