Same Dog, Different Owner
From a campaign for the animal welfare non-profit CARA, with the tag-line, “Same Dog, Different Owner”:
http://www.adeevee.com/2014/02/cara-welfare-same-dog-different-owner-print/
via:http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/02/12/cool-ad-watch-106/
= new reply since forum marked as read
or "is stupid" or "is stubborn."
Dogs are pack animals and they are very tuned in to energy and smells. Their vision is generally so-so and hearing is absolutely last. The dog you got was "listening" to body language and learned that a raised hand sometimes means "I am about to hit you."
The burden is on us to communicate effectively with dogs. They may learn 100 words or so but even there, due to their hearing and not being verbal-oriented creatures, they can mistake one word for another pretty easily. Dogs' senses come in the exact opposite order of ours. Humans hear sounds in the womb and our nose is poor. Dogs are born with only their nose to lead them to the mother. Their ears aren't in the equation until 14 days later or so. And many dogs can't hear much at all and they do just fine (with the right owner). When people are speaking complex sentences and, ugh, threats like "if you do X I will do Y to you" they are lost.
I am in love with the work of Bonnie Bergin who rejected alpha dog theory and advanced alternate theories of dog training and behavior. To over simplify a lifetime of work: Establish a good emotional connection with the dog and use methods of communication that the dog understands. Bergin's methods have been used to train thousands of service dogs which alpha dog theory says is impossible. Bergin uses lots of hand signals and I found her work when I had a deaf dog. I now use her methods and hand signals with my hearing dogs because it works so well.
According to alpha dog theory you have to physically intimidate the animal yet paraplegics and others with mobility challenges regularly use service dogs without ever physically intimidating them. Intimidation is just that. It may look like training but the results are usually poor and inconsistent. ADT takes an animal which by nature wants to please us and scares it into some mix of submission and anxiety.
There is a better way, as you obviously know. 
http://www.berginu.edu/discover/DrBergin.html
Good on you! (And that old pup! 
)
on the doggy on the right? Why, yes.
Huge K&R and kudos to everyone involved in rescuing, fostering and adopting animals previously in desperate straits. Your efforts are heroic and very, very appreciated.
Many years ago I found that even with the growth of shelters and spay/neuter clinics the killing in shelters and pet bites weren't changing much. Went looking for what makes an impact and found that there is a way, where the community is given control and a little bit in resources, then went about doing it in a town.
The upshot of it was that I learned what an impact a little bit in resources put into that first owner's life can make. People make the same remarks about dog and cat owners as they do about any group getting any sort of government assistance, and forget those lives are impacted by the corps just as much as anyone.
Sometimes the name "bad" or "irresponsible" is deserved, just as some parents and caretakers deserve to not be taking care of kids and go to jail. But that's a relative few, and many, many times more than that can provide better lives for their family, pets, or whomever with a little bit of cooperation.
Thank you for the pic. Lucky dog
the pdf near the bottom of this page
http://www.montanaspayneutertaskforce.org/statistically-speaking/
with previous years stats.
Read around the site - lots of info.
Years ago there was a terrible dog overpopulation problem in an area of the Blackfeet Nation where the people had nearly nothing in resources. Instead of killing them, they borrowed a garage, got a vet to come in with a helper to do their part and provide the medical guidance, and the people, a LOT of 5-7th grade kids as well as adults did everything else. After killing the really sick animals, and these events where owners get some resources and power so they can solve their own problem, they did. Over a bit of time strays just disappeared. Dog bites dropped off. New dogs were spayed or neutered somehow, even after the event, something that had really never happened before. Later they decided they needed, and started their own animal control. These events have been repeated it scores of times across dozens of years and in different areas, with other expanding it out to the state, and other efforts elsewhere. The further it gets from the original, sometimes, the more it turns into do-gooder puppy huggers doing something FOR people instead of LIKE them, (something you have to guard against). There is some efficiency in that, but it kills the spirit and respect, and might actually not do the job as well. There was a spirit in those early ones that is the key to this, and a LARGE part of that is getting the right age kids in a position where they are hands on. (hint: they are magic).
Get the older ones to scrub instruments in between surgeries and help with animal handling. It's very good for them.
With the kids involved in large numbers, a few adults, and a vet and tech who are used to this model, each pair of vet/tech can spay or neuter roughly 40 dogs a day - a lot of it is technique and movement. Very hard to get such a number and variety to practice on in private practice AND get someone else to pick up the bills, so it serves as a great training ground too. Good surgeries, minimal impact on the animals, in and out so hardly any blood, results that stand up to any veterinary clinic - because these are done by licensed vets who practice every day. We even set up extra tables and invite visiting vets who come by to pull up a table and do some.
I spoke to the Vet association at the invitation of their president, and in my conversations with others nearly all of them supported it strongly. (We had an "Event" here, and had a vet who had already made her displeasure known marched in during the event with a video camera to gather evidence. She was a really smart person, nice lady, and by the end of that was offering us the use of her autoclave, getting tips from one of our surgeons, and I think talking about equipment purchases from another state). They make more money on well dogs anyway, and this produces a substantial increase in the well dog pool in the area, so it can help the rest of their business as well.
The COMMUNITY that is generated in one of these is incredible, and crucial. W/o that it just becomes a low-budget spay/neuter clinic. That's fine, but I don't know that we need another 30 or 40 years of basically the same result nationwide, despite how much blood, sweat, tears (lots of tears) and spirit is plowed into what we are doing to tell us we need to do something else.
One of the biggest problem in spay/neuter is not getting enough, it's getting the right ones. Nearly everyone who comes in is low-hanging fruit - the hard ones are still at home, and they need other methods to entice them out. You will break your city trying to mandate it, because these people live their lives laughing at people in uniform trying to make them do things. You have to respect them and welcome them. It's a much different philosophy. But it's very cool when the 5th grader brings the crotchety old neighbor guy in with his dogs, something he swore he would never do. You get the dog-fighter kid who thinks his dog is the toughest one "on the res". You get a LOT of really great people who you will never ever meet on the other side of a counter or badge.
The greatest resistance, even hate mail,
came from shelters and a spay/neuter clinic. Was just a distraction though, so went on.
After I thought I had sufficient info I started a non profit and wrote a grant to get some money, talked with vets, found a really good person to rely on who knew about these events. Then I started attending community events around and talking to people. At this health fair in a small native nation area near here I met their principal, smart woman, got it instantly, and cared about the mission. She helped get everyone else together and they made this happen. In the school gym. It was great. We did roughly 140 animals, mostly dogs (30 or so cats maybe, in 2 days.
I went back to interview them about the impact, and months later they were still talking about this. Animal control there historically means they either drive the dog somewhere or shoot it in the woods (not unusual in a lot of rural and even suburban areas even today). For the next year they didn't shoot any, which had not happened in years. Dog bites dropped off, and many of the stray dogs didn't do that any longer. They were, to a person, wanting to do this again, but so far it hasn't happened.
With a bit more in resources one could do this in a city, but you have to do some prep work in create a support network, getting people together, etc. And they HAVE to believe the philosophy, and that is very hard in this world. But you could starting small with a proof of concept. That will be harder to do than one thinks, but it is do-able. Maybe could be sustained over time. Don't know. Usually it just turns into cheap spay/neuter and then we are back where we started, but it hasn't in some areas, so the results vary.
It is a philosophy distinct from where you hand all this over to "experts". It's very, very hard for people who have been raised in a society where they hand all this over to others to even conceptualize what you are talking about, so don't give up hope.
That help? Feel free to write back.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will definitely check out your links and see if I can come up with a plan. Did you find it was easier for zoning or regulations because you were not in a city? I hear what you are saying about resistance from current rescues/shelters as some are very hard to work with and want to do things their own way and not work in tandem. Plus people here are very suspicious if you approach them as a neighbor. They think you are nuts or you want something from them. What a great way to meet each other.
I do cats and we have a great clinic here called Fix Nation. The biggest thing is, as you said, getting the people to get on board. I just LOVE you story of teaching kids and getting them involved. Kids love giving, sharing and participating. It's so wonderful seeing them get involved in their community that way. I fear so many kids are so pressured with activities and sports, they don't get a chance to learn and gain confidence in other meaningful ways like this. And it teaches them the right way to take care of their animals. My cat colony began when a neighbor, a couple of young people who had never been away from home before and thought having a kitty would be fun. I offered to get their cat fixed and pay for it, but they refused. She had three litters and the kittens dumped outside. When they moved, they left her and she had two more litters. I began trapping and fixing them but it took over a year to get them all and get the population of almost fifty cats under control. All from one irresponsible owner.
What you are doing is absolutely amazing and I can't thank you enough for your answer and for all that you do. You are definitely a major inspiration! And my hero!!
Seriously, for your work. You know, with the animals.
So kind!
This thread is so full of awesome it just shows how much people are doing in their own way. Giving as much as they can. Just wonderful!
1) Respect for everyone involved is paramount. As you want to be treated, equal, however you want to conceptualize it. You know what it looks like, I bet.
2) I pay they vets their cost for a replacement vet for their office that day. The task force asks for volunteers and gives them an honorarium. Mostly semantics, I think. Maybe taxes. But along with my observation that this only works when there is mutual respect between all parties and for their fur kids, is my insistence that you NEVER, EVER ask a vet to do anything for free. That's ridiculous. They have from a half million up plus many years of their lives out of pocket to put that clinic on the corner, and they deserve their compensation.
We also provide THEIR protocol of drugs for the patients, good German instruments, decent and portable facilities for the surgery, mats for their feet, some of the cutest kids, along with school counselors, a fire department chief, or maybe a graphic designer assisting during the surgery, with an experienced tech or assistant doing the pre-op. (Usually there is another one or two floating. Depends on the day.) And someone to follow up with all the patients that night or the next day. It's about respect
to go with the one you already have for animals.
He didn't even get to keep all of his ear.
could have looked like one of the ones on the left 
. Rail thin, patchy hair.
Now she looks like this:
And spoiled .
Recovering from being out in the snow for all of 4 minutes... 
This is him now:
Or how about Nico?
to those involved in animal rescue!
Dammit, I'm sitting in a public place.
