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How to avoid morning-after pangs of adoption remorse
By Cindy Wojdyla Cain, Staff Writer (photo by Scott Strazzante/Staff Photographer)
"He chewed on everything and tore up my back yard," said Whitgrove, of Joliet. So she brought the dog to the Tender Loving Care TLC) Animal Shelter in Homer Township so he could be adopted by some other family. The next morning, Whitgrove and her 22-year-old son agreed that they missed Ringo and had made a mistake. They called the animal shelter and asked for Ringo to be held until they could pick him up the next day when the shelter opened.
The call was miscommunicated and Ringo was adopted to a new family less than an hour after Whitgrove's son had called. Whitgrove said the shelter wouldn't hold the dog. The shelter's owners say the message was never relayed.
Holding pattern
This kind of emotional tug of war at animal shelters is common. People turn in animals when they become a nuisance or cause allergies. Once the creature is gone, the emptiness in the house is devastating. And the former pet owners can't understand why the shelters won't lift a finger to help them.
What the original pet owners don't see are the frustrated shelter staffers who want only to place animals in new homes as quickly as possible.
"People call back three, four or six months later wanting their animals back," said Dennis Carter, who owns TLC Animal Shelter along with his wife, Janine. Carter said he feels anger at first. Then he feels sorry for the people because he hears how sad they are. But the animal's new family doesn't want to give the pet back.
"We're in the middle," he said. "We're getting crushed from both sides." Because of problems in the past, TLC only allows animals to be on hold for one hour. And an adoption can only be undone if an animal is being abused. Too many animals have been on hold so long they miss an opportunity to get a new home, Dennis Carter said. People say they have to go home and get their spouse to come look at an animal. But what they're really doing is touring all the other animal shelters in the area, Janine Carter said. If they find a pet they like better somewhere else, they never return.
Sharon Sherrell, director of the Joliet Township Animal Control, also has people asking her to hold animals. But Sherrell is reluctant to allow it because animals that aren't adopted are euthanized.
"If we wait too long, its time will be up," she said. "We tell people we don't hold anything." Once a pet is adopted, neither the Carters nor Sherrell will try to get an animal back to the original owner. "You can't go back and forth," Carter said. "It's not good for the animal. It's not good for the families."
Tracking down pets
Sometimes, animals are brought to the shelter by a third party and the original owner demands to be told where the pet was placed. Recently, a woman gave two labs away free in the paper, Sherrell said. But the new owner discovered her child was allergic so she brought them to animal control. Sherrell had the dogs picked up by a lab rescue service which will find them new homes. When the original owner tracked the labs to animal control, she demanded to be told where the animals were.
"She said if I didn't tell her where they are, she's going to sue us," Sherrell said. But Sherrell wouldn't budge. "I told her, 'Once you gave them away, that's it.'"
Carter, too, has similar stories. One man sent a private detective to the shelter seeking a dog his soon to be ex-wife had given up for adoption. The man lucked out when the new owner decided to return the dog to TLC and the two were reunited. But in Ringo's case, there will be no happy reunion with the Whitgroves. The dog's new owners are happy with him and it is unlikely he will be returned to TLC.
Think twice
To avoid the feeling of loss the Whitgroves are now experiencing, the Carters and Sherrell urge people to think twice before taking an animal to a shelter or animal control. Sherrell urges people to try obedience training and to keep working with misbehaving mutts.
"We always tell people they can put the dog in a crate," Sherrell said. "But they don't want to. They say, 'Oh, that's so cruel.'"
Janine Carter urges people to board an animal to make sure they really don't want it or to confirm that the pet is causing the allergies. Sometimes it turns out to be some other environmental factor. "We wish people would really think about (putting a pet up for adoption)," Dennis Carter said. "It's not like your old shoes. This is a living, breathing thing and you don't get rid of it and change your mind. Because it may not be there. You don't always get that second chance."
Whitgrove now regrets her decision to relinquish Ringo. "I don't know why we took him," she said. "It's like giving up one of your grandkids. You don't realize how attached you become. I can't believe I'm never going to see him again."