It's a Dog Eat Dog World, and I'm Wearing Milkbone Underwear.

“Some days you’re the dog; some days you’re the hydrant.” –Unknown

You ever have one of those days? (or one hundred twenty-six in a row?) Yeah, me too.

Volunteering at the Worcester Animal Rescue League (WARL) is going to save my sanity, I think. I hope. Today being Patriots Day means Frank had a three day weekend. Don’t get me wrong, I love spending time with him, but given our present circumstances it can be a little tough to do sometimes. So late Saturday morning I took off to spend some time at WARL. When I’m there, the rest of the world just falls away and I lose myself in doing what I can to help make the dogs’ lives just a little bit better. (I can work with the cats too, but my heart lies with the dogs, so I spend most of my time with them)

Saturday is always their biggest adoption day, so if they need help in the kennels any day of the week, it’s definitely then. There were people in and out of the kennels all day, asking about particular dogs, wanting to take dogs out for walks to try to get to know them a bit, and then there were the people who argued with me. Yep. Argued. Wait ‘til you hear this.

There is a sweet, small, female AmStaff mix named Tuesday up for adoption. She cracks me up - in her kennel she bounces up and down like a Jack Russell Terrier that’s had a few too many Red Bulls. Gosh, if I could bottle and sell half her energy, I’d be a VERY rich woman. But I digress. There's a bio sheet that hangs on each dog’s kennel with a description of their basic personality, known history, along with recommendations (if there are any) about what kind of home would or would not be best for them. (e.g. maybe one needs a home without other dogs or cats, is nervous around lots of people, etc.) Well there was a couple who had seen Tuesday on WARL’s website, fell in love with her pictures, and decided “that’s the dog for us!”

Now I’m not even going to get on my soapbox and start preaching about what a ridiculously idiotic idea it is to make an important decision about which dog you’re going to add to your household (hopefully for the rest of the dog’s life) based on photographs instead of basing the decision on the dog’s personality, whether said dog would fit your lifestyle, and whether or not you and the dog even like each other. (ARGH!) Well anyway, Tuesday was recommended for a home without small children due to her frenetic energy level. Small children are just way too at risk for injury with a dog that is off the wall excited simply being around people.

So this couple was asking about Tuesday. I can’t always remember every detail about every dog, so I quickly scanned her bio sheet. “Due to her high energy level, it is recommended that Tuesday goes to a home without small children.” Each of them had a toddler in their arms and then the woman’s mother walked over with another one! So I had to tell them that I was sorry, but I couldn’t take Tuesday out for them. When I explained why, they argued with me telling me that grandma’s sixty-five pound pitbull is always jumping on the kids and knocking them down, but they just get right back up again and start chasing the dog. (I wanted to whack these folks upside the head with a brick at this point – this is one of the main reasons pitbulls have such a bad reputation! IRRESPONSIBLE OWNERS!!) Sorry, I keep digressing.

Anyway, they stood there insisting quite adamantly that they were in love with Tuesday (based on her looks, mind you) and even though I told them that the dogs are all evaluated by experienced trainers and behaviorists, they simply HAD to have her and that was that. So I had to resort to getting the Dog Adoption Coordinator, who took her turn telling them that they simply could not, in good conscience, go against the trainers advice and adopt her out to a family with small children. (three of them, to boot!) They eventually left looking thoroughly disgruntled with the lot of us, but the important thing is that they left without Tuesday.

I just don’t understand some people. Although this family was definitely the pushiest, I have had to have similar conversations with other people. There was the one I had two weeks ago with the guy who was interested in taking a young Chihuahua mix out for a walk to see if they liked each other (with the intent being he’d adopt her if they did), except that it said RIGHT ON HER KENNEL DOOR that she couldn’t be adopted into a household with a male because she’s terrified of men. Come on now! Seriously? Don’t people read anymore? Yeesh.

So there’s lots of interesting stuff happening down there to provide me with loads of temporary distractions. (Speaking of interesting, I got to play ball with a six month old pittie pup for half an hour that afternoon. Total funfest!)

Frank saw someone a couple of weeks ago wearing a t-shirt with a paw print on it and next to the paw print it said, “Who rescued who?”

I think the dogs at WARL are going to rescue me.