Rejected by Rescue

Pouchy · 09-03-2007, 12:15 PM

This must be a first :

I have been told by someone at a rescue down South that they are not willing to allow me to adopt a couple of their animals. The reason is because of something I said on this website a few months ago, which in the event was found to be groundless. They didn't pay me the courtesy of a home visit to see whether my other furries were being kept well or not. However if I had been suitable they would have been quite willing to transport the animals from the South of England to Derbyshire and apparently to Scotland in the past , while not giving a fig about the strain on the animals undertaking the journey. Also I have two adopted gerbils from a rescue in Nottinghamshire who are doing fine, am looking after a diabetic hamster using the 'fenugreek diet' and have a healthy Syrian hamster. None of these animals lack for anything and I have all the time to look after them as I do not work.
Funny how some of the rescues all say they transport all over the country. Is that fair on the animals? Surely there should be some stipulation on distance, say, within a 50 mile radius of the rescue. An animal undergoing that sort of stress is more likely to get sick. My gerbils had to travel about that distance to be with me.
As the animals are in same sex pairs anyway there would be no likelihood of them breeding anyway. So what was the problem?
Yes, I know they don't want the animals to go for snake fodder etc or to be used for breeding purposes but at least someone could have come here to find out what the conditions for the animals were going to be like. Then say NO by all means. I have no problem with that at all. Seems fair if they see the other animals not well looked after that they refuse but based on website comments is just not good enough. Its the rescue where if you live too far away its all done over the phone, I think but am not certain which seems to be a dodgy way of doing things too. After all how can you be sure from a phone call how an animal will be treated as the person could be lying and going to feed the adopted pet to their reptiles.

Obviously will keep looking around but have gone off this rescue business a little due to this experience. Hope springs eternal I guess. Am trying other options too. If anyone knows where I could get two rats , 12 weeks or less would be fine then please let me know. They will be going to a good home.

Thanks and the pseodorant is now over.

Jane · 09-03-2007, 12:25 PM

Awww that sucks

My campbells are from a rescue and I had no homecheck..all they asked was about the cage, but they didn't even ask the size of it. (needless to say we visited them and they were only 30 minutes away but still)

Holly · 09-03-2007, 02:09 PM

Sorry to hear that, Pouchy

I've seen your posts on here and it always seems to me that you want to do the best by your animals, perhaps they aren't that good a rescue if they can reject someone without checking them out fully?

Christine Yule · 09-03-2007, 06:40 PM

I vaguely remember you making a comment about a hamster being snake food. Maybe that is the comment that someone took offense to? I hoped you were joking and have since realized through your other posts that you seem to have the best interests of your animals at heart.

When I am writing posts I try to keep in mind that people who read them don't know me as a person and can only draw conclusions about me from the words I write. I love to laugh and joke and be silly but my words could be misunderstood, especially sarcasm or exaggerations.

There are lots of sickos out there who abuse animals and I am sure that the Rescue place is only trying to make the right decision. I suppose it would take a huge amount of time and money to check out every single rescue home. Consider this a lesson in life you have learned.

souffle · 09-04-2007, 12:34 AM

What a pity for the animals who would be getting a lovely home. Perhaps they feel confident they will be able to home them closer bye meaning it will be less expensive for the rescue all round. I hope you are successful in getting your rats. I am sure you will enjoy them.

Pouchy · 09-04-2007, 05:11 AM

If that was the case Souffle why did they not say so in their email to me ? No mention of distance just that my comments on here meant that according to them I was not a suitable person as far as they were concerned to adopt two of their animals.
In the words of BSM Sergeant Major Williams from IAHHM - Oh dear, how sad. Never mind!

By the way, I can't stand euphemisms vis a vis PTS (put to sleep). If the animal is going to be put to sleep you expect them to wake up wouldn't you?
My favourite is euthanased. What's wrong with saying you are going to kill them. After all, at rock bottom, that is what all these silly phrases actually mean.
And it really makes us feel better that we can get someone to do it for us so we don't have to. So much better for the vet to stick the needle in and fill them full of anaesthetic than for us to fill a bucket and drown them which is probably just as quick and as painless without incurring a huge vet bill into the bargain. if someone else does it our consciences are clear, are they?
Don't get me wrong, I take no pleasure at all from the death of any animal but if they are suffering it is best to put them out of their misery as soon as possible. Give them a good a life as you can for the short time they are with us or don't bother having the animals at all. If you can't devote time to the animal then don't even consider it.
Another fairytale post from yours truly - GRIM.

souffle · 09-04-2007, 06:30 AM

Everyone is different Pouchy and has there own ways of coping with things. I think if it makes them feel better if they are unable to say put to death or killed by saying 'put to sleep' and they know the animal has died anyway, then so be it for it is them who are suffering the loss. Euthanasia is by definition 'the act of putting to death , painlessly, especially in order to release from incurable suffering' so I have no issues with the use of this word as it a proper word with a proper meaning.
Many people would not find the strength to put an animal to death by drowning or any other means and then it falls upon a vet. Not one of us here knows what it feels like to die so no-one can say how quick and painless drowning or anesthetic might be comparatively. At least an overdose of anesthetic has been shown, by looking at the brainwaves in animals, to be painless. I personally have a great fear of drowning so could not do that. I guess we have all taken the lives of some creature at some time even if it was just a spider or a fly and we will never know how it felt.
At the end of the day it is the person who makes a decision who must shoulder the responsibility and I feel that anything that makes them feel better, whether it be in expressing it through talking, writing in any form or perhaps a religious belief can only be a good thing which I personally am happy to respect.

I very much agree with you Pouchy that no-one should take on a pet unless they can give it the attention and life it deserves. Sadly not enough people think this way.

**Spuds Mum** · 09-04-2007, 11:04 AM

I think that anything that helps someone to cope with the loss of a much loved pet is okay by me, even if it is not something I personally would use.
We all have different upbringing, belief systems and outlooks on life and these will of course affect our way of communicating our feelings.
I do hear what you are saying Pouchy and not actually facing that issue at this time, can agree with some of your points. However I know that, having had pets that I have 'put to sleep' in the past this phrase does describe to me the act. Having in the past seen my beloved dog, Amber, in pain and suffering, whining and crying, to take her to the vets and to see her slowly relax and close her eyes and drift away, the only way I could describe this was putting her to sleep. ~Yes the sleep may be one from which she doesn't wake up, but sleep it indeed felt like to me at the time.

I think we all tend to have little phrases that 'niggle'. I for one have real difficulty with references to 'rainbow bridge', but this is merely because I am a sentimental old thing and the poem really gets to me. I just think that we all cope and deal with things differently, even refer to things differently, but that that makes us all individuals, and to be honest, makes the world much more interesting!

Pouchy · 09-04-2007, 11:17 AM

To be honest, Rainbow Bridge flummoxed me when I read it the first time. My favourite of these is 'going to the great wheel in the sky, (but without metal bars i hope)'.
For a large animal like a dog going to the vet is probably best and as you say, if Amber was suffering so badly, it was the only right thing you could have done, however hard it was to do to a much loved pet.
When I was a kid, when any of my rodents died of old age their bodies were left in the hedge to be eaten so even in death they were of use and were recycled in the bodies of whatever ate them.
Rereading my above post I must come across as a hard old bleep but that is very far from the case.

souffle · 09-04-2007, 11:33 AM

Leaving your pets under the hedge is not really any different from burying them Pouchy as they are simply reincorperated more quickly into the cycle of life I guess. People with certain beliefs do find the Rainbow Bridge comforting in that they hope they may meet their beloved pets again and they will be waiting for them so it helps them cope with the loss. I think its beauty is that it does give that comfort and hope to people and ,after all, their pets do live on in their memories anyway. The great circle of life does go on and I like the thought that nothing really ever dies as each atom one day becomes part of something else. As to 'spirit' that is for everyone to decide for themselves. We know you are not a 'hard old thing'. you dumpling, you are just as Spud's mum said, ' a unique individual' and wouldn't life be boring if we were not all unique.