Your pet will never stop loving you.

[Catherine]

Every year people abandon pets. They leave them on the side of the road, in the garbage even in a home they have moved out of.
The various SPCA groups and Humane Societies beg people to not abandon pets.
Still we find pets hoping and waiting for someone to return.

http://news.google.ca/news/url?sr=1&ct2=...t=2&at=dt0

Buddy was one of the unlucky ones.
In many ways they are all unlucky. It is hard to heal the hurt of abandonment. Two of my guinea pig girls were left behind by people who moved out. When their landlord checked the apartment he found them with no food and little water.
They have been with me most of a year and they are still traumatized. They are anxious about food. It has taken a lot of reassurance to convince them that they are safe and will never be without again.

How much worse must it be for a dog that is left outside lost and confused.

When will people stop being so cruel.

[Tobi]

This is a hard post to have to put up Catherine. But thank you for doing it, because this post might just reach some peoples' hearts.

An animal is loyal and loving. They will even love you after they have 'died'! They never forget their loved ones and only need some kindness in return. They are so ready and willing to make a heart-felt bond which goes deep into a person's Soul.
I often am dismayed and ask why anyone -ever -would treat a loving Soul like that.....then I am reminded that even Jesus was hung on a cross....

People only need to open up to Love. Surely it's not that difficult? Love makes every struggle or hardship worthwhile. Life without it is a barren place.

[Catherine]

I know, this is a really sad post. Every year people walk away from unconditional, undying love, the kind only a dog can give.

The decent ones at least provide for the pet.
I don't even know what to say about the ones that leave a pet on the side of the road.  They don't deserve that love.
The thing about dogs is that they don't ask if we deserve to be loved. They just love us.

Growing up two of our neighbours got puppies and then didn't want them when they grew up. The one family didn't even make excuses, they took it to a vet  and had it killed. It broke their son's heart.

The second family let the dog out so the pound could pick him up and then they left him there until they killed him. Andy must have sat there day after day hoping they would come, until his time ran out. I am sure he was faithful to the end. I hope he never doubted that he was a good dog who deserved better people than that.

[LPC]

We found Forgy from a refuge (or you could say, he found us...). However, for months afterwards he would go crazy if we left him alone in the car for a few minutes - even just to put recycling items into a communal bin, where he could still see us through the window. He had been abandoned and was eventually found and taken (very thin) to the refuge. He is very happy in his forever home with us - but the old fears of abandonment do not disappear that quickly.....

[Tobi]

(02-16-2017, 03:09 PM)Catherine Wrote: I know, this is a really sad post. Every year people walk away from unconditional, undying love, the kind only a dog can give.

The decent ones at least provide for the pet.
I don't even know what to say about the ones that leave a pet on the side of the road.  They don't deserve that love.
The thing about dogs is that they don't ask if we deserve to be loved. They just love us.

Growing up two of our neighbours got puppies and then didn't want them when they grew up. The one family didn't even make excuses, they took it to a vet  and had it killed. It broke their son's heart.

The second family let the dog out so the pound could pick him up and then they left him there until they killed him. Andy must have sat there day after day hoping they would come, until his time ran out. I am sure he was faithful to the end. I hope he never doubted that he was a good dog who deserved better people than that.

That is an awful thing...two families you knew did that with their dogs. I can't imagine why they didn't know how much they were loved and depended on by those dogs. It must have hurt you a lot as a child to witness people doing that. At least where I grew up no-one did that. But drowning kittens and puppies at birth, in a bucket of water was commonplace. No-one ever had their dogs and cats spayed in those days.

[Tobi]

(02-16-2017, 08:58 PM)LPC Wrote: We found Forgy from a refuge (or you could say, he found us...). However, for months afterwards he would go crazy if we left him alone in the car for a few minutes - even just to put recycling items into a communal bin, where he could still see us through the window. He had been abandoned and was eventually found and taken (very thin) to the refuge. He is very happy in his forever home with us - but the old fears of abandonment do not disappear that quickly.....

Dear Forgy! He may always have that with him, even though he has learned by now that he is safe with you and Tamara.
Misty never forgot certain things from her "street life" either. I guess those old things do get embedded in their reponses. She was always very food-obsessed (food must have been her no.1 priority in her life before she came to me) I don't think her instincts ever got completely used to not having to scrounge for her food, or eat anything she could find at any time. Although she did relax more when she found out 2 meals a day were always there.
She also never wanted to let me out of her sight. In her old life with the drug addicts, I think she had got used to people wandering off and being untraceable for a while (thus no shelter or food.) As a result, she stuck to me like glue. It was quite funny at times, how she never wanted to lose sight of me even for a moment. She had to watch through the door when I had a bath. However she refused to enter the bathroom!

[LPC]

(02-17-2017, 03:56 AM)Tobi Wrote: She had to watch through the door when I had a bath. However she refused to enter the bathroom!

 
I can't keep Forgy out of the bathroom. He loves having a shower in the bath. Equally, when I want a bath, it is easier to let him in the bathroom, as otherwise he would bark and howl to be with me.

(Note for any Americans reading this: in Europe a "bathroom" is for having a bath...)

[Tobi]

Misty gave me the impression she thought I was quite nuts, for first....stripping naked. She looked at me in a "I really do not believe this" way when she saw me without clothes!
And then, willingly submerging myself in...WATER!! And to do it repeatedly...I don't think she could quite cope with my mind set at all.
She was so scared of water. But I first learned she didn't like me closing the door when she first came to live with me. She would push the door open, and sit silently just outside the threshold, looking worried.

[Catherine]

Clearly dogs suffer traumas for a long time after abandonment. I can picture you with Forgy as a kind of shadow. The fact that he will join you in the bathroom(the other room is a water closet?) and in fact insists upon it shows real separation anxiety. There is no other exit from a bathroom. All he has to do is guard the door and you can't leave him. He must have really suffered when he was abandoned and just can't bear to have it happen again.

I can understand Misty's food anxiety. Anyone who has suffered from "food insecurity" never takes food for granted.
Three of my four guinea pigs are stressed about food. You know my piggies never miss a meal. They always have bowls of pellets right there and fresh hay given daily. They still get anxious when I feed them veggies as if they fear I might change my mind and take the food away.

People who abandon pets do such a cruel thing. They leave the pet damaged for life. Even dropping a pet at a shelter can be a scary thing for them, especially an older pet.

However the solution my neighbours found for their unwanted pets was not okay either. Neither dog deserved that. They were just happy little dogs trying to be good pets and they were not given a chance to live out their lives. No effort was made to rehome them. They were property(to these people) and they disposed of them.

It bothered me. I was quite young, but it seemed like the wrong thing to do. I just knew that wasn't right.
Of course when my mother got tired of the budgie she bought me, she let it go(in Manitoba a budgie would have no chance of survival). People back then did some horrible things to their pets and their children. She also told me my turtle escaped(I never bought that story) and that could have had ecological consequences. Could my turtle have made the half mile trek to the river?
I have always wondered.

[LPC]

I am very sorry to read about your pets as a child, Catherine. The poor budgie, the poor turtle....I just did a search for "weather in Manitoba".

In Europe, the "little room" is usually called "the toilet". WC is a more formal word, usually used by estate agents. In France, one says "les toilettes". In Germany, "die Toilette". In Russia, "Tualet"....etc. I have no idea why the Americans developed the word "bathroom" to mean something else. See http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question36577.html

This thread reminds me of the terrible case we discussed some while ago, with the video of a dog frantically wagging his tail when his former (non)-caretakers turned up at a dog refuge....and they said they didn't him him, but another dog. How cynical, how unfeeling is that?