Of all the things vital to any dog (food and water excepted of course), being taken out for walks is top of the list, not only for the physical exercise but for mental well-being too. Imagine what it would be like if you, a human, never left your home, however nice and comfortable it was. After a while not only would you become horribly unfit, you would also begin to go stir crazy, needing to see life outside the four walls that had started to seem like a prison. It's no different for a dog, an intelligent animal with a mind that needs stimulation and legs that need to run.
Today I witnessed the result of this situation, and I hope it will shake up some dog owners and make them think.
I was at AFCD with another group of Lamma dogs needing to have their licenses updated when a man came into the Animal Management Centre with a Jack Russell terrier, a rather large sized one. He had to wait while my dogs were being dealt with, and the staff told me he had come to surrender his dog. Of course I had it in mind to take it immediately to save it from having to stay at AFCD until the vet could assess it as being suitable for re-homing, so went over to talk to the man. He spoke very good English and was able to tell me that he had come to the decision to give up his dog because it was very aggressive towards his wife and daughter, inflicting serious bites with no provocation. Visitors were also attacked, again for no apparent reason. The terrier had been bought as a baby pup and it was now six years old, and the man pointed out that it was highly strung and very anxious, and constantly shaking.
The first question I always ask in these situations, and particularly in this case because a Jack Russell is a breed that needs long daily walks and playtime, is how much exercise did the dog get? There was a moment of silence before the man answered, "Well he has the whole apartment to run around in". There, in one sentence, was the answer to the dog's behaviour issues, now so deep-rooted after six years that I knew it would be irresponsible for me to take the poor animal and put it in our Homing Centre, knowing that it could inflict serious bites on staff and volunteers. In fact the man himself said he would not let the dog go to anyone else, acknowledging that the behaviour problem was too far gone to do so. He had apparently consulted trainers and tried many other things, including drugs, but taking the dog for walks wasn't one of them.
Given the situation I did the only thing I could do, and that was to ask the owner if he would at least take his dog to a vet and have him put to sleep in his arms, saving the animal the days of fear and stress that he would have had to go through before being killed by strangers. And that is what happened, and I hope that this man never gets another dog, or if he does that he will have heard and understood what I told him, that he had turned his dog into a nervous, frustrated, angry and dangerous animal because it had been given no outlet for its enormous amount of energy, nor been given any opportunity to socialise or experience anything outside the prison walls of the home.
Of course it was upsetting, not only because a born-innocent puppy had lost its life due to ignorance and perhaps sheer laziness too, but also because I know that so many animals are victims of the same total lack of understanding of a dog's basic needs. I see it written in so many of the adoption questionnaires I receive, the long hours alone, the cages and the pathetic exercise time offered. It's heartbreaking to know that those I reject will just go to another organisation that has less stringent adoption criteria, or simply had over their money to a pet shop where no questions are asked and nobody cares. Those puppies will also grow to be nervous adults who will be thrown out or passed on, eventually ending up at AFCD, on the street, or dead.
On a brighter note, there was a lovely and very thoughtful gift waiting for me in the office after I had shipped my dogs back to Lamma. It was a T-shirt from &Dear, the animal-loving design team who were responsible for my own Facebook profile picture (shown at the top), now adorning a T-shirt which I will proudly wear.
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