This is “le Doog.” For months we fostered him through
@nashanimalcare while he recovered from an intense surgery on his leg after having been struck by a car.
Doog LOVED food. He loved to sit with his head in your lap. His car manners were second to none. And more than anything, he loved being a people person. He never growled. Never bit. Despite his love of food (he was practically a vacuum cleaner), you could take his kibble right out of his mouth without fear.
Doog was a good dog. Doog was loved.
Not long after recovering from his leg surgery, he swallowed a toy whole. The foster coordinators at MACC never responded when we reached out. So we took him to the ER on our own dime. Because Doog was loved. Because Doog was a good dog… and being taken care of is what he deserved.
We tipped them off that he was not a cat person (you know… like a lot of Dogs). They made no effort to find him a cat-free foster. They never reached out to us about this at all. As careful as anyone can be, accidents still happen. Last Saturday, Doog got a hold of one of our cats (who escaped with nothing more than some bruising).
We reached out and were told the best thing to do would be to return him to
@nashanimalcare . That he would be okay. That he would just be marked “ no cats.”
Within a day he was euthanized. We were not contacted. No one asked what he was like. How he acted with people. They just rushed him to the end of his life and gave him a group cremation. Didn’t bother to let us keep his collar that WE bought him. Didn’t even bother to let us know that he was going to be put down.
We could have kenneled him until a cat free home was available. We could have worked with rescues to find him a place to sit tight. But at bare minimum, we could have been there to hold his hand at the end. We could have paid for a private cremation. Because Doog was a good dog. And being taken care of was what he deserved.
Shelters have to make hard decisions. But the way this was handled feels as if it was done so arbitrarily and callously.
While Doog may not have been “our” dog, it feels a whole lot like you killed our dog. The word betrayed does not begin to cover how we feel.
