Ethical issues confront purebred rescue groups
Maintaining high
ethical standards seen critical to responsible rescue work
By Vicki DeGruy
Introduction
In an endeavor
as noble as rescue work, one might think questions of ethics wouldn't come up
very often. Actually, they're common and can sometimes be difficult to deal
with. They're also wide in scope and numerous enough that they can't all be
addressed in one column. We'll be coming back to this subject again in future
articles.
As in anything
else, there are people involved in rescue and in shelter operations who are
not only unethical but potentially criminal, such as pet brokers masquerading
as "rescue services" in order to defraud people out of their animals. There
are also "humane organizations" that are anything but and defraud people out
of donations. Those activities won't be part of this discussion. What we're
going to talk about are the ethical considerations and dilemmas faced by bona
fide rescue volunteers and animal shelters.
It should go without
saying that maintaining high ethical standards is critical to responsible rescue
work. They are essential to creating and maintaining trust between rescue, shelters,
law enforcement officials and the public. They are essential to serving the
best interests of the rescued animals.
Since many purebred
dog rescue services are operated by groups of fanciers and hobby breeders, many
shelters worry that the dogs released to them will be placed unaltered or worse,
deliberately bred. This concern is most prevalent in shelters that still believe
breeders in general are the root of all evil. I'm happy to say that this attitude
has declined in the last five years as more shelters are learning the differences
between serious, responsible breeders and those less so. However, breeders who
rescue need to be aware that their actions are always under scrutiny.
While most rescued
purebreds, at least in the more common breeds, are of unknown history and aren't
of breeding quality, now and then an exceptional animal will turn up and sometimes
even with valid registration papers. I know this has happened to me more than
once and if you've been rescuing for any length of time, it's probably happened
to you, too. I think it's only human to wish in your heart that the dog could
be utilized to benefit the breed and your line but doing so would damage your
rescue program's credibility beyond repair.
It should be assumed
that behaving ethically includes obeying the law but a surprising number of
rescuers don't know what laws may apply to them. A common example involves lost
or stray animals. Most pets entering shelters and rescues were found roaming
at large and without identification. In most, if not all, of the country, laws
govern the procedure for locating the owner and allowing him/her to retrieve
his property. These procedures vary widely but generally, the animal's finder
must report or surrender it to the appropriate law enforcement agency of the
area. After an attempt to find the owner, if the animal remains unclaimed, it
becomes the property of the corresponding city, county or township and is either
put up for adoption or disposed of.
A remarkable number
of rescue services, though, are blithely ignorant of their lawful responsibilities
concerning found animals, whether found by themselves or brought to them by
others; in some cases, they deliberately choose to ignore these laws. Many rescues
fail to notify the authorities or advertise animals as "found" and some go so
far as to immediately have elective medical procedures such as spay/neuter performed
on them. While a percentage of strays are turned loose or dumped by their owners,
some rescuers mistakenly believe that all found animals, especially if they
turn up in poor physical condition, came from neglectful situations and therefore
should not be returned even if the rightful owner appears.
Another situation
that involves both ethics and the law concerns neglected or abused animals.
The inability of the legal system to adequately address people who mistreat
or don't provide adequate care for their pets is a source of deep frustration
for all animal lovers, not just animal rights activists. Most laws that govern
animal care are vague and mandate only minimum standards, making them hard for
humane officials to enforce except in extreme cases. Consequently, the temptation
to take it upon oneself to secretly remove an animal from a bad situation is
very strong - and very illegal. Whatever your heart may tell you, it is theft
and can't be condoned.
The area in which
I find the most common and most serious questions of ethical standards involves
the misrepresentation of animals. I think everyone will agree that placing secondhand
pets is no easy task. There are few enough homes for the youngest and cutest,
much less for the older and not so perfect. Some rescues and shelters - both
are equally guilty - try to enhance an animal's adoption appeal by adjusting
its age, fibbing about or creatively enhancing its breed heritage or glossing
over undesirable aspects of its history or behavior. In some cases, they deliberately
leave out important information or lie outright.
High volume shelters
seldom have the time or personnel to adequately evaluate the animals in their
care. Ages on stray animals are a guesstimate at best, and because intimate
knowledge of all breeds is lacking, it's easy to make mistakes on breed identification
or the appropriateness of a particular breed for a certain household. While
this doesn't excuse them, I have far more patience with misrepresentation out
of ignorance than I do the intentional misleading of an adopter.
It's one thing
to state a dog's negatives in a positive way, i.e. "recommended for children
over 12" rather than "not good with small kids," but it's quite another to fail
to make the negative known to the adopter or pretend it doesn't exist.
In my experience,
this sort of misrepresentation occurs out of good intentions and a fear for
what may happen to the animal if it's not adopted. Some rescuers, having pulled
a dog from a shelter only to discover later that it's not a good adoption candidate,
are loathe to euthanize it but do not have facilities to care for it forever.
Rather than turn off a good adopter by being honest, they choose instead to
leave out important details or embellish others to make the dog more attractive
and then hope for the best. While this may get the dog adopted, it might not
stay adopted long, leaving the new owner wishing he'd bought a new puppy after
all.
Ironically, the
three most blatant cases of misrepresentation I can think of involved dangerous
dogs and "no kill" shelters where one would think desperation to place a dog
wouldn't be an issue. The aggressive nature of the dogs had not only been drastically
played down, one of the shelters chose not to make it known that the dog had
seriously injured someone while in their care. This is not only unethical but
inexcusable.
Just as some breed
clubs have codes of ethics that members are expected to follow, so do some rescue
organizations. Rescue coalitions, such as the All-Breed Rescue Alliance which
is made up of rescue representatives of many breeds in New Jersey, Delaware,
and Pennsylvania, often have established standards of conduct that members must
agree to uphold before they are given the endorsement of the coalition or allowed
a listing in its directory. These standards help to assure shelters and the
public of the reliability of the rescue groups.
In future columns,
you can expect more on ethical issues along with dealing with burn-out, the
care and feeding of a rescue-friendly veterinarian, liability, euthanasia, good
public relations and more!
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