Landlords and Liberals and Pets, Oh My!

Let me explain one of my comments from yesterday's post. We wanted to adopt a dog, so last Saturday, C and I went down to the shelter and found one we thought would fit in with the family.

After getting to take her for a short walk, we went back into the office to do the paperwork. We were handed a five page questionnaire. Among other things, these people wanted our pet history for the past five years, a detailed pet care plan, and our landlord's phone number. We were told it would be at least a week before they could get around to approving our application and talking to our landlord, and oh by the way, the adoption fee is $100.00. While we were sitting there, the lady told another family that it was no problem to take the dog home over the weekend for a trial visit, but told us we had to bring the rest of our family all the way up there so THEY could observe how the dog interacts with our kids.

Okay, whoa! First of all, it's a DOG! Why the background investigation? I've had animals all my life, and my philosophy has always been that any animal we have is a member of the family, and we don't take in an animal unless we are committed to it, and everything that goes with it. Second, this sweet doggy has been at the shelter for over a year, and nobody has offered to adopt her. So, you ask, why didn't anyone want her? I don't know. But I do know that they deliberately put the rowdy young dogs in the pen with her so she can settle them down. You'd think that they would be thrilled that someone finally wants her. Third, why the hell was it okay for the other family to take the dog with them, but WE have to haul our whole family (including our special needs child AND the cat) up there?

The next issue was the landlord. Yeah, we paid a pet deposit, but thought we ought to let them know we planned on getting a dog along with our cat. As C put it, that just opened a whole can of worms. They couldn't just say okay, oh no. They insisted on coming by to inspect our rugs to see if the cat had done any damage. Our cat is pretty fastidious and has never once messed on the carpet. Our kids have done more damage to the carpet, but of course no one charges a child deposit. SO we said okay, and proceeded to spend three days and $100 dollars getting the house perfect so they'd have nothing to complain about when they came to inspect. So two hours before the appointed time, they call and say they can't make it and need to reschedule. It's not like we can just move, either, because none of the landlords around here allows pets.

So between the liberals and the landlords you have this dynamic where the animal rights advocates say "Please rescue and adopt homeless pets (so long as you give us all your personal information and pass the background check), and the landlords saying, "You can't enjoy animal companionship because we're more worried about the already old, worn-out carpet in our property than your quality of life."

Basically, we've now decided its just not worth the aggravation to adopt a dog, and we can't just go and blow a grand or two on a puppy from the pet store, and no one down here has any puppies for free or cheap. I'm starting to think that the drive to neuter pets has less to do with compassionate and humane control of the potential stray and homeless population, and more to do with restricting the supply to drive up prices and secure a monopoly for the breeders. One wonders that anyone has any pets at all these days...