Mindless Musings

There were two pet-related articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer that caught my eye this week, for different reasons. This post is about my meanderings about these items. One nice, one not so much.

The first, SPCA owns up to a mistake in euthanizing rescued cat, tells the sad story about a cat that was accidentally euthanized by the Delaware County SPCA, and the staff then tried to cover it up. Last year, the Inquirer ran a number of stories detailing the serious problems with that shelter, including a Board of Directors with a bunker mentality. The shelter has made substantial improvements since then, with new Board members, hiring a part-time vet, etc.

The new director, Bill Vernon, discovered the cover up and contacted the pet's owners to tell them the truth. He should be commended for acknowledging the problem and taking responsibility for it. A pervasive Culture of Non-responsibility reigns today (promoted by those people currently occupying the White House), so it is refreshing to see someone step forward and accept responsibility. Especially in a situation like this, where you know that you've caused great pain by the mistake that occurred. It had to be very difficult for Vernon to contact the owners and confess the truth. But, he did the right thing anyway. Kudos to you.

The other article tells the unfortunate story of a 73 year old Chester County woman who is losing her home of 50 years to make way for a turnpike ramp. A new turnpike ramp will run her off the road says that the woman lived in an 1801 farmhouse, so I assume that the historic home will be demolished as well. A kennel run by Main Line Animal Rescue will also be displaced, which was providing income to the woman. The state is paying for the property (although they are still arguing over the value), but I wonder if the price includes her lost income. It should, since she no doubt won't be able to move to another location that could support the kennel.

However, the real point of interest for me was the fact that the kennel was run by Main Line Animal Rescue. We moved into our current home about 2 years ago. The house has a big fenced-in back yard, so we promised our daughter the long requested dog after the move. We wanted to get a rescue dog. Our cat is from Morris Animal Rescue, but they didn't have any small dogs when we started looking. We ended up using Petfinder.com to adopt our dog, Ginger. They have a great site, which allows you to search for the pet of your choice by location. You can specify type of animal (e.g., dog), size and area that you live. A description of the pet, with pictures are provided and then you contact the shelter or rescue group directly. That's how we got Ginger (pictured above), who is great. She's not the Pomeranian that we thought that we were getting, but she's a good dog.

However, we found several pups listed with Main Line Animal Rescue and tried to contact them on several occasions, with no success. They never responded to our emails or phone calls, inquiring about puppies listed on their site. Ever. Our then 14 year old daughter was crushed. She wanted a puppy (and you know how patient kids are at that age). We would see a cute pup, send an email, follow up with a call and no response. Nothing. Not even, the pet is no longer available. Nothing. Rude is the nicest word I can use to describe my views of this group. So I had a guilty twinge of Schadenfreude when I read about the difficulties that this would cause the owners of Main Line Animal Rescue. Not the woman who owns the kennel or the animals. Just the people who run the Rescue.

Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement ~ James Cash Penney