I've been following, with a low level of frustration, a bad owner story for a while now. My sister's boss found a dog about six months ago, a very sweet purebred, sitting on their front step one morning. They took the dog in because they thought it was cute, and kept it. The problems:
1) They made no effort to find it's owners or where it came from--no ad, no flyers, no trip to the animal shelter, etc. So if the dog just slipped out of a loving home, there's a grieving owner somewhere who'll never know if their dog's dead or alive.
2) They delayed taking the dog to the vet for about a month, even though they knew nothing about it's health. It seemed fine, but it was a stray. In that month, they had the dog around their original dog, their newborn grandchild :yikes: and took it to work (they own their own business) where it mingled freely with their employees (my sister didn't appreciate this, knowing it's health was unknown.)
3) The dog, who presumably made it to the vet at some point, was initially very sweet and friendly. It comes to work with the boss most days and although a little high-strung, it was initially well-behaved. But, as it grew more comfortable with the place, it became territorial. It's not aggressive toward the boss or the employees, but it's taken to urinating on the legs of everyone's desk chairs. And it's taken to barking wildly and jumping around at customers.
I find this story frustrating in its very innocuousness. The people are so casually indifferent to common sense and decent behavior. They're not abusing the dog, they're not monsters organizing dog fights or beating their kids. They just saw a cute free dog, so they took it. It wasn't convenient to take it straight to the vet, so they didn't. Training the dog would involve actual effort, so they don't. I can see the problems ahead so clearly--the dog's going to end up biting someone, and it'll be a bother so they'll get rid of it.
Sorry for the epic, it just drives me nuts. I can see doing the wrong thing by accident or through ignorance, or not being able to do/afford the right thing, but these people don't even try.
1) They made no effort to find it's owners or where it came from--no ad, no flyers, no trip to the animal shelter, etc. So if the dog just slipped out of a loving home, there's a grieving owner somewhere who'll never know if their dog's dead or alive.
2) They delayed taking the dog to the vet for about a month, even though they knew nothing about it's health. It seemed fine, but it was a stray. In that month, they had the dog around their original dog, their newborn grandchild :yikes: and took it to work (they own their own business) where it mingled freely with their employees (my sister didn't appreciate this, knowing it's health was unknown.)
3) The dog, who presumably made it to the vet at some point, was initially very sweet and friendly. It comes to work with the boss most days and although a little high-strung, it was initially well-behaved. But, as it grew more comfortable with the place, it became territorial. It's not aggressive toward the boss or the employees, but it's taken to urinating on the legs of everyone's desk chairs. And it's taken to barking wildly and jumping around at customers.
I find this story frustrating in its very innocuousness. The people are so casually indifferent to common sense and decent behavior. They're not abusing the dog, they're not monsters organizing dog fights or beating their kids. They just saw a cute free dog, so they took it. It wasn't convenient to take it straight to the vet, so they didn't. Training the dog would involve actual effort, so they don't. I can see the problems ahead so clearly--the dog's going to end up biting someone, and it'll be a bother so they'll get rid of it.
Sorry for the epic, it just drives me nuts. I can see doing the wrong thing by accident or through ignorance, or not being able to do/afford the right thing, but these people don't even try.
