Dear Animal Guardians of America,
My neighbor tells me that someone at your organization was supposed to drop by with a dog for adoption… but that this foster caregiver didn’t even stop to get out of their car, stating that the house (and the neighborhood) wasn’t nice enough. Really? REALLY? That seems like a crazy story to me. Shame on that foster caregiver! We felt thrilled to buy our house, especially for its architectural significance; we’re just down the street from our neighbor.
It seems that the foster caregiver, in this case, is adversely affecting that pet’s future due to their elitist attitude and near-sightedness about what is an acceptable house and neighborhood. Last time I checked, dogs didn’t have a mental framework that included neighborhood preference, nor did they have a bias toward a particular socioeconomic or demographic group. So the “best interest,” in this case, must be called in to question. Whose best interest? There’s good people in our neighborhood. And we have a pocket of well-preserved and remodeled, fantastic mid-century homes.
Best of luck to you – hopefully you won’t use that foster parent in the future.. OR hopefully their next adoption is far, far away from the perceived blight of Dallas, TX.
Ben Smithson
p.s. in other news, we adopted a super sweet cat named Ben (we have promptly renamed him Buddy) from the SPCA on Sunday. He loves our house already…. lots and lots of windows for neighborhood watching. The SPCA didn’t require us to fill out a “how nice is your house?” questionnaire.
i have always been in awe of the home visit requirements that many smaller adoption/rescue groups have for adopting a pet. i refuse to have 3+ friends fill out “how good of a person is she” forms and go through (sometimes multiple) home visits to adopt an animal when there are tons of cats and dogs in the shelters waiting to go to a good home (both of my dogs came from local shelters as well!).
i’m not surprised that they didn’t stop.. not because of the neighborhood, but because their standards seem so impossibly high that i assume they don’t really want to adopt out the animal to anyone. i feel like i would fail if i ever tried to get an animal from a group like this.
Wow, somebody posted this on the AGA FB page and asked if it’s true. I want to comment on it but do not want to “like” the AGA.
So in case anyone from there comes here–yes, it’s true. Here’s part of the note (private) I wrote on my FB page:
“I’ve had a really hard time trying to get back to normal since Chelsea got sick and passed away. I felt really guilty about this but I started looking at dogs on petfinder.com. But the thought of adopting another dog(s) made me kind of happy. So I found a great dog I wanted to adopt from the Animal Guardians of America (Plano). I called the foster, Kristine, on Tuesday and set up a time for her to come out and conduct a house inspection and for us to meet the dog. She was supposed to be here between 1:30 and 2:00 on Friday. She called at 2:10 to say she would be late. At 4:20 she called to say that she drove by the house and did not think the house or the neighborhood were safe for the dog. WTF!! I have never been so insulted in my life. OK, for starters, this neighborhood is not dangerous. Yeah, some people don’t keep up their houses but it is not unsafe. We are two houses down from a very popular park and there are always kids playing outside. And the other—our house is nice. It’s a Cliff May home, lady! Floor to ceiling windows that are perfect for pets. And clean! She said our fence looked old. Umm…the front fence is less than 6 months old and we just had it and a new landscape put in by a licensed landscape architect (organic). And either way, that’s just the front fence. We have a nice standard wood fence in the back that’s completely separate. That she didn’t bother to look at because she didn’t even have the decency to get out of her car. Then she said if the dog got out it would be a dangerous neighborhood for her to be loose. I countered that any neighborhood would be dangerous for a loose dog and that I always keep my dogs indoors except for letting them out to go to the bathroom and when we play. Then she said the dog could get stolen. OK, how’s that for racism/classism. Yeah, our neighborhood is not full of McMansions (thank God).
We are great pet owners—own a house—that is clean and nice with a good fence!
-Have always kept all pets up to date on vaccinations and flea/tick/heartworm preventative. All spayed/neutered.
-I work from home so I’m always around!
-Our pets are our family—we aren’t having children. We spend over $7 a day on cat food alone for our two cats—just because we want them to have quality food.
-Both of us are employed.
-Family lives nearby.
-Neither of us travel for work.
-On and on…
I included a picture (taken before the landscaping) to show that our house is actually nice. I can’t take a picture of the outside b/c I’m on my lunch break right now and don’t have time left. But you can’t really see the house from the road anyway so it’s not like she even saw it.
Needless to say I’m livid about this and incredibly disappointed because I thought we would be getting a dog on Friday. That was the one bright spot and now it’s gone. All because of that *****. I sent an email on Friday to the AGA and left a v/m but never heard back. I was hoping that it was just a case of a crazy foster—not the attitude of the entire organization but I guess I was wrong. Kristine said she’s done this before, which infuriates me. I’m going to try to tell this story to any local/neighborhood paper/organization that’s interested so if you know of any in particular/contact info—let me know!”
Here’s the picture I included in the note: http://bit.ly/e23a87
BTW, I’m a paralegal and my fiance is a librarian so we’re not exactly slumming it.
Ben,
Glad you got yourself a Buddy. He looks just like our guy, Princess Jack the Buttheaded, but sounds much sweeter.
Thanks Aline! That’s a funny name for a cat!
Vanessa finally received response from the Animal Guardians of America. And she shared the feedback that she received. And now I’m even more pissed at how foolishly this organization handled this situation.
So what’s the take-away here? I think that this is a missed opportunity for a successful dog adoption. And the snobbery and oversight of the adoption, in judging my neighbors’ house, has offended me in the process. And for the agency to place blame on the household that they turned down? Ridiculous. Bad, bad, bad public relations. Note to Animal Guardians: David Meerman Scott has a fantastic book called The New Rules of Marketing and PR. You guys should make this your playbook.
Here’s a video that narrates the voicemail response that Vanessa received from Animal Guardians of America.
August 1, 2013 – this so-called rescue was raided:
http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/22993038/more-than-200-dogs-seized-from-rescue-group?clienttype=generic&smartdevicecgbypass
This is sad. And I’m not surprised.
I adopted my dog 12 years ago from them and even volunteered for a year. It briefly disbanded then as the lady running it was reported for animal hoarding at her home in Plano. She had about 20 dogs and 20 cats in her home, the place smelled awful. I appreciate the heart of wanting to rescue every animal (I do to) but you have to be smart about it and know where to draw the line. Needless to say my girl Brandy will be 15 next month God willing and she will soon be on the other side. I will get another dog but I wouldn’t tolerate the shenanigans mentioned here.
Chris, thanks for your comment.
I feel sorry for the lady who ran this. I worked for her a few summers ago and she tried to care for all these dogs by herself even in the blistering heat. She could outwork my 27 year old body, because she loved all those dogs. I never heard her turn away a dog and would take dogs that should be put down. This lady spent every waking hour with those animals on her mind. Her mistake was having too big of a heart. Yeah, the conditions were horrid, but that was the best she could offer them.
Does that excuse the snobbery? Not at all, but I bet Annette would of gladly walked into the shoddiest of shacks to give someone a dog. Unfortunately, all her volunteers didn’t posses her character. I hate that this organization went down like this. Annette only had the best of intentions, if only she had the money to hire help and build the facilities.
Thanks for your comment, Keith. I feel sad when a shelter shuts down.
There’s a particular Dallas area group whose adoption requirements are so stringent it’s as if you’d have to be able to prove you never sneezed in public. Meantime this particular group refused my request that they warn site visitors that unspayed means mammary cancer risk, which is often fatal.