dog shelter Archives - Compassionate Women

Life Lessons of a Dog Foster

June 26, 2017 by Jillian Leave a Comment

I’m pretty sure I’ve lost count of all the dogs I’ve fostered over the past 8-ish years. Not to say that I don’t remember each and every one of them, and have pictures of each and every one of them. But there’s been so many sweet dogs in my life, and fostering becomes a delicate balance of wanting to both remember and forget.

For me, fostering dogs means giving my entire heart to care for each animal as though I’m keeping them forever, and then having my heart ripped to shreds when they are adopted because it feels like I’m losing my child. But that’s what being a foster parent is. Any kind of foster parent. It’s taught me about letting go and not being afraid to have to go through the whole wonderful/painful process all over again for another dog in need.

With each dog there are snuggles to be had, potty accidents to be cleaned up, injuries to be tended, and countless kisses. Like, so many kisses 😘 Good times, great times, rough times – they’re all worth it. Below are just a few of my special foster babies and the life lessons they have taught me.

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The Shelter Dogs of Beaumont, Texas

January 4, 2016 by Jillian Leave a Comment

You can tell just by looking at this dog that she’s had a rough life – you can see her ribs, the patchy spots of missing fur, she needs a bath, and if you look closely, you can see that she recently had puppies. Yet when I met this dog at the Beaumont Animal Shelter, she was calm and sweet and had such hopeful eyes. I’m not sure what happened to her. In an ideal world, she found a loving home that spoils her and loves her more than anything. But after spending the past couple of months in Beaumont, Texas and volunteering at the shelter, I’m obliged to think happy endings for these dogs are far and few between.

Coming here from Austin, Texas after working at the largest no-kill shelter in the U.S., it’s been pretty traumatic volunteering at a small shelter that still imposes what I consider outdated standards and protocol. I know they have good intentions and want to help the animals that come through their shelter, but they are also struggling in a region that isn’t as open minded and modern in their thinking of how pets and animals should be treated. I first visited Beaumont’s city shelter on my birthday back in May of this year. Here are a few of the dogs I saw —

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Pit Bulls Need Compassionate Women

December 1, 2014 by Jillian Leave a Comment

Pit Bulls are the best. As someone who has worked with hundreds of dogs through the years, including a massive amount of pitties, I can genuinely say they are amazing and wonderful creatures. Not only do they have the cutest blocky heads, huge grins, and extremely wiggly butts, but they are full of love, personality, and depth. Obviously, pit bulls don’t have the best reputation in society right now. In the United States and Canada, the media portrays them as vicious, child hungry dogs that will attack for no reason and use their lock jaw to squeeze the life out of anything that gets in it’s path. Is this true? No. Not even a little bit. What does this have to do with compassionate women making the world a better place, you ask? Read on and I will tell you!

Before I begin, I have to dispel the rumors that I mentioned above. Pit bulls aren’t naturally vicious creatures, not even with children. In fact, pit bulls make great family dogs. They score better in temperament tests than Labrador Retrievers! Any dog is capable of biting a child if provoked, the problem is that the signs of provocation can be extremely subtle, but they are always there. It it also a rumor that pit bulls can lock their jaws. It’s false. No dog is capable of “locking” their jaw. This was something made up to give pit bulls an even worse persona. Just like any dog, pit bulls are shaped by the people that take care of them. So if a pit bull is never socialized, never trained, or not treated well, then he’s probably going to have behavioral problems. This goes for any breed of dog. And if the dog does bite someone, especially if it looks like a pit bull, then the dog is punished instead of having the owner* take responsibility.

*On a side note, I do not normally like using the term “owner,” because I do not believe animals are inanimate objects or property that can be owned. I like to use the term guardian instead of owner.

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Why Shelter Dogs are the Best!

October 1, 2014 by Jillian Leave a Comment

Look at those eyes. Soulful, huh? And those cropped ears. Both features tell the tale of a hard life full of pain and sadness. Yet this sweet girl, Catherine, was always so sweet and outgoing. She didn’t let the fact that she was passed around from owner to owner, dumped at the shelter, unable to find her forever home, and goodness knows what else stop her from giving up. This is why shelter dogs are the best. They are resilient. They endure terrible, heartbreaking circumstances and yet they continue to overcome. And they never stop sharing their love. Most humans I know are incapable of doing this. For me, shelter dogs represent and embody true love. I never grew up with dogs or spent time near them, and honestly, at times I preferred not to be near them. I mean, the drooling and barking and jumping on me – no thanks. But after working at shelters and observing these dogs firsthand, I immediately fell deep into love with their personalities and their stories. I saw them as furry little people, each with their own quirks, likes, dislikes, needs, strengths, and weaknesses. And the fact that they were shelter dogs as opposed to coming from a puppy mill or breeder, just amplified these endearing qualities and made me love them even more.

This is Horatio, one of the shelter dogs that I fostered for a couple weeks. He was so skinny when I first saw him. And as the weeks went by, I noticed that he wasn’t gaining any weight. In fact, it didn’t look like he was eating at all. I decided to bring him home and see if he gained weight. And he did! And my two female pitties absolutely adored him. The first night I brought him home, I had to lift him onto the bed because he was too terrified to move, and my other foster dog, Pretty Girl, started rolling around and stretching out next to him to try to impress him. It was amazing to see her react that way because Pretty Girl came from a bad situation too and was very introverted, yet she connected with Horatio and he brought out the best in her. Poor Horatio was probably the most scared dog I’ve ever met. He was scared to go into my yard to use the bathroom. I’d have to walk him out on a leash, and then he’d be scared to come back in. I don’t know anything about his history, except that my shelter rescued him off the kill list at the city shelter. I’ve always wondered what horrendous things must have happened to him to make him so petrified. He flinched every time I came near him, even to pet him. And yet Horatio was always a gentle creature.

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Little Ways to Make a Big Difference

August 21, 2014 by Jillian Leave a Comment

I think most people agree that in general, we all like animals and we all want to help them. Working at animal shelters, I got to witness firsthand how amazing and kind some people can be when it comes to helping a cat or dog in need. However, I also witnessed that many people don’t know how to help or don’t think to in the first place. Unfortunately, humans have become so conditioned to believe that we matter more than our furry counterparts that we’re used to seeing animals lying in the road that were run over, we’re used to hearing about all the healthy companion animals that are “euthanized” in shelters every year, we’re used to hunting and killing animals for entertainment, and we’re used to eating animals without giving it a second thought. Kinda crazy when you stop and think about it, right? I mean, we’ve been controlling animals minds and bodies for thousands of years without ever really wondering what the true consequence of that is. We’re finally beginning to see some of those severe consequences.

What’s really going on?

Studies show that this current generation of children in America are the first that will shorter lives than their parents. That seems to sort of go against evolution… And it’s all due to the dairy, meat, gluten, and processed foods they are consuming. And it’s spreading across the world. Asia always had the lowest rates of cancer and heart disease because it’s a traditionally vegetarian area. But as soon as they began adopting Western eating styles, their rates of cancer and heart disease steadily rose.

Another scary fact is that we are running out of water, as well as farm-able land. Why? Because of factory farming. Eating cheap meat and dairy has become so popular that this world must sustain the billions of animals that produce this meat and dairy. That means water. Animals consume a lot of water. They also consume a lot of food. These animals are fed corn and grain (not what they’re supposed to be eating in the first place) and corn and grain need a place to grow. That means cutting down the rainforests and other natural habitats to grow these crops. Statistics shows that if we got rid of factory farming and instead used those resources to grow fruits and vegetables and healthy grains, we could easily feed all the starving people in the world. In fact, we would never have starving people. Oh, and animals on factory farms emit more methane gases than all the cars in the world combined.

That’s all the bad news. The good news is, we can do things in our daily lives to make a difference. And if everybody does little things that make a difference, then we can begin to reverse all the damage that’s been done and literally save the world. If we could save the world and also spare animals from the intense suffering they experience at our hands, why wouldn’t we?

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