Sad situation rescuing a dog today

While I was walking my dog this morning, a Pomeranian (possibly a Pomsky bc it was a little bigger but who knows) came running down the sidewalk towards me and my dog. He had a harness and leash on, but no owner in sight.

So I took his leash and took him on our walk with us, which is a 1 mile perimeter of our complex property, thinking I'd likely run into any owners out looking for him. I asked a number of people we passed on the way if they recognized the dog, but no one did. I took his picture and posted it in the 2 FB community groups for our neighborhood and Nextdoor. If no owner came up by the afternoon, I was going to have to take him to a shelter because I can't foster a dog right now.

Well, a neighbor privately messages me through FB to tell me where the dog lives. And she lets me know that the owner has just been evicted, like literally it was the last day of the eviction process, they were just removed from the unit by security and locked out, and they are sitting on the front steps of the unit. She said that when security removed them, they told her to take her dog, but the dog got away cause she dropped the leash and she didn't really go after it.

I realized that I had passed them with the dog while walking, even gone up to them, and they didn't claim the dog. But I walked back over anyways, and gave them back their dog. They said they would like to rehome him. I know I could have said, okay I'll find him a home, but I cannot get stuck with a 3rd dog, so I just kindly said, "I hope you find him a home, I can't take him though." And I left.

I then ran into the neighbor who messaged me and she explained the whole story. Apparently the original tenant of the unit was a 60is year old man who had lived there for 20+ years (can you imagine how cheap his rent must have been? We have rent control/stabilization here). Apparently a couple of years ago, he moved this young woman in calling her his girlfriend. It seems it was sort of a sugar daddy situation. But the woman was not mentally stable and was abusive towards him, lots of screaming and yelling and slamming doors. She never paid for any of the rent. At some point she moved her own mother into the unit too.

Well, after COVID, apparently the man was $30,000 in debt rent and couldn't get the woman out of his home either. So he ended up breaking his lease and leaving (or maybe he just left when the lease is up, not clear on that). But the woman and her mother stayed. And by law, the complex cannot remove her, even with her failure to pay rent, without going through eviction proceedings. Additionally, with COVID, it's only recently that they could even start eviction proceedings. They've been squatting and apparently also pretty nuisance neighbors. And recently the woman moved her teenage son into the unit too.

The neighbor heard from the complex a few weeks ago that the squatters had been given final notice and given a date on which security/police would remove them from the premises, since they were now lawfully evicted.

It seems they didn't care about the eviction notice, and just stayed? The neighbor said they seemed surprised this morning when they got a knock on the door and were removed from the property. They did have 2 dogs, by the way.

Anyways, a little while after I returned their dog, apparently they were escorted off the property entirely, and they dumped the dog at the park across the street. Since I had made my original FB posts, a few neighbors had stepped up to foster, not knowing I had returned the dog. So they went on a walk to see if they could find the people, but just found the dumped dog instead.

Sigh, I want to be angry at them for dumping the dog, but I don't know if I can blame them when they are now homeless.

Anyways, neighbors and I have been networking all morning to get the dog to a Pomeranian rescue. Someone is lined up to come take him. So he will at least have a happy ending.

So many sad sides to this story. An older man preying on a younger woman...a younger woman preying on an older man...clear mental illness and other struggles going on...a teenage boy is now homeless as is his elderly grandmother. But also, they knew it was going to happen, and it seems they made no arrangements. I wonder about hoarding too.

I don't want to get political, so don't take this there, but no one should have to be homeless. We are neighbors and a community - it hurts me that we as a society don't care to take care of each other more. We only do so if we feel the person is morally acceptable or meets certain virtues. There should be no qualifications, moral or ethical or otherwise, on making sure everyone has housing. People are more ready to help homeless dogs than homeless human beings. Even aggressive, practically rabid dogs. It makes me sad. Sorry, end rant.

From personal experience I did bring into my home in Calif a guy that had mentsl illness (met his mom in the medical part of the hospital when I was in there) That was seriously one of the biggest mistakes I made. He stole & then took a truck my now ex had bought & totalled it in the middle of the desert. Seriously not knowing someone & bringing them into your home can be very dangerous. They need homeless shelters to care for people like this because individuals not trained how to take care pf people like that are just asking for trouble. It is no wonder why stigma exists when we have experiences like that & limit what we are willing to do on a personal level for people we don't have a clue what they are really like.

Several communities have homeless shelters especially in the winter when outside is below freezing.

I walked out on my ex for a reason & if he had become homeless, after the harm he did to me I never would have welcomed him back in my home. That is probably why most people don't open their own homes to unknown homeless strangers. Communities as a whole need to provide places where they can at least eat & sleep as a whole but have known some who even refuse that kind of environment

The city near me has loads of homeless, it was only today that i saw shopping centre security trying to move a homeless man, not nicely either, he was clearly in desperate need of help,food and drink and a warm place to sleep kind of thing

I wasnt close enough to be able to do anything, others were nearer and they were just staring

Any of us can end up homeless, it only takes a few missed mortage payments due to job loss etc and any of us could end up on the streets

We dont know their story, how they ended up homeless

Its a sad situation, made worse when the homeless already in this country do not get priority for housing, the ones fleeing war torn countries get priority which means the homeless here die on the streets in winter from the cold, when the snow gets here and the temprature drops into the minus numbers

Another sad fact is theres not enough places for the homeless to go to sleep, homeless shelters get packed in bad weather, so people end up sleeping outside, then they get moved on by either police or shop security.

Thanks, Eskie. I'm not suggesting at all that we let people into our homes. I completely agree with you. But shelters are always full or have a lot of rules that make it hard for ppl to use/access them. We need more solutions and need to be less judgmental with those solutions so we can allow people to be housed.

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Personally if I was able to buy a second house (or even a flat) I'd tell the homeless charity I took stuff to today that they could move a homeless person into there, we can't save everyone but if we can do something to help those who are in a worse position to us, we should be treating those people with compassion I think, treat them how we would like to be treated by them if the situation was the other way round.

Not like shop security today "you can't stay here go away" when the man was hunkered down beside the building, literally shaking with the cold and clutching his stomach, I am certain he was hungry and thirsty at minimum, possibly even literally starving

why would shop security even DO that to someone?

And in case anyone comes out with "but the homeless can find work" nope they can't not without a bank account and banks won't make them a account without them having a address, and without a address employers won't take them on and without a job they can't afford to get anywhere sorted for themself

it's a viscious (spelling) circle

Well, back to the dog part of this post, yesterday was so infuriating with the people who wanted to rescue/rehome this dog.

If you read my OP, you know I was very clear and adamant that the dog was not staying with me. If I did not locate the owners by lunch time, I was going to take it to a shelter because in no uncertain terms was I going to get stuck with this dog. A bunch of people implored me not to take it to a shelter and that they would foster it, etc. I advised them that they could go ask the owners if they would like to take the dog. (You know, leave me out of it.)

Well one of them women, as I mentioned in the OP, goes to find the owners and the dog, finds the dumped dog, then takes it home. She says her friend runs a Pom rescue but can't come to get it until tomorrow. She discovers very quickly that her own dog doesn't like the Pom, and starts asking people, including me, to take the dog. This crap went on all day until I very firmly said, "Let me be clear, it was never my intention to take the dog. I was clear in my first post about finding it that I would take it to a shelter. I am happy to help you network to find someone else to foster, but it will not be coming here."

It just pisses me off because all those people said they'd take it (thank goodness I didn't hold onto it myself thinking one of them would take it), and of course, none of them are experienced enough with rescue or foster to understand the consequences of making that offer. They don't know how to properly introduce animals or that if you're fostering an unvetted dog, you wouldn't introduce anyways, it needs to be separated from your animals because it could be sick! One of the women actually said after she offered, "Oh, I have 2 cats, will it be okay with cats? I have never fostered dogs or had a dog before." Are you f'ing kidding me?

The woman who had it was like, "well I guess I just have to figure out how to keep it separated from my dog..."And I'm just like, what exactly did you expect?!? And like, she was almost begging me to take it, and what did she think I was going to have to do, keeping it separate from my TWO dogs versus her one?

These people kept trying to make that dog my problem all day long, and I just got sick of it. This is also why I don't like dealing with rescues or rescue people anymore. They are so often (but not always) hoarders in disguise. That dog would have been just fine at a shelter. After a 3 day stray hold was up, it would have been neutered, given shots, and easily adopted out. It was a cute little dog - it might have been sprung by a rescue as well.

I'm not against rescue - you all know me far better than that, considering how much behavioral rehab fostering I've done. But I'm just tired of rescues and rescue people trying to foist these problems onto people and make them stretch beyond their limits. The overpopulation problem is not due to people not adopting. No kill shelters are actually a problem and contribute to the overpopulation. And the vast majority of the dogs are poorly bred, with genetic issues, and often with behavioral problems, that they want to foist upon people with minimal dog knowledge (which is the average dog owner, minimal dog knowledge). Is it better to keep an unadoptable dog alive in a kennel for years until that one person who might want to do the behavioral work comes along? And btw, all those years in the kennel have made the behavior worse. Isn't humane euthanasia more humane than living their whole life alone in a kennel with very little time outside every week and very little human contact?

I've been following the new Ethical Rescue Association, which is trying to pass ethical standards for rescue. It's really eye opening to realize how unethical rescue can be -- actually called "Retail Rescue", because they are making more money off of it than they let on.

I will probably get a lot of hate for this post. A lot of rescue isn't about the animals but rather about our human savior complex. I used to be that way until I learned more and opened my eyes and saw how the ecosystem feeds itself.

And yes, there are many good rescues out there. There are also just as many unethical rescues. And probably even more people who individually rescue who are borderline hoarders or just barely not hoarders. That was these people I dealt with yesterday, and it was so frustrating.

No kill shelters do have their place, they can take in adoptable pets and rehome them, I do see what you are saying though

I have heard that some kill shelters literally only give a pet 7 days to find a new home, and if they don't get adopted, no matter how adoptable they are, they go to the vet and never return

My angel Ebony would not of got a home if i hadn't taken her cause her health wasn't good enough, yet she stopped me from suicide cause coming to me she gave me a reason to live, which I didn't have before she came to me (just saying)

All shelters take in and rehome adoptable pets. Their status as to no kill or not doesn't change that.

I am happy you got Ebony, but remember we're talking on the macro level, not the micro/individual level. And the point is that there are too many dogs, regardless if they are adoptable or not, and whether or not they are adoptable is highly subjective. So much of what comes out of shelters right now is rife with behavioral issues that are genetic from poor breeding.

And yes, euthanasia will have to occur to get a handle on the overpopulation. "Adopt don't shop" mentality and "no kill" mentality are what has caused the shelter crisis.

What I was meaning is often 7 days isn't long enough for the right person to walk into the rescue at the same time as the right cat or dog for them happens to be in, I can understand the less rehomable pets getting put to sleep, but the cat rescue I used to volunteer at if they did the 7 days then euthanasia thing they would not rehome 99% of the cats in their care, kittens (and puppies) fly out of the door at rescues, adult pets take months to get rehomed normally

What I'm saying is giving them a proper chance to find a new home I think is the only right way to deal with unwanted pets, otherwise if it's too short a adoption window then most pets realistically will not get any chance at getting rehomed.

Another thing that doesn't help is people thinking it's fine to dump their pets often for no actual reason - I have known cats get handed into rescue cause the owner redecorated their house then decided the cat now clashes with the colour scheme or whatever ..........

One rescue story that broke something in me was when a 14 year old cat got taken to the vet cause the owner wanted the vet to put her to sleep - their reason? they had a new kitten and the 14 year old didn't want to have a kitten in the house, she just wanted peace and quiet in the last few years of her life, not a baby kitten jumping all over her when she was trying to sleep and dream of mice - or birds, or whatever

She was perfectly healthy, sadly psychologically going into rescue destroyed her, a volunteer ended up taking her just to give her a home