Someone please explain to me what is wrong with the people who think it’s okay to just get rid of their pet when its “too old.” Like, who hurt you so badly that you feel morally justified in abandoning your friend, who gave you unconditional love for the past 12 years, but is now too old for you.

I answered a phone call from a woman last year who was wanting to surrender her dog. It started out as a typical surrender phone call where I start by getting more information about the animal and the reason for surrendering so that I can schedule an appointment for the animal to come in to our shelter. So I asked why she needed to relinquish her dog. She told me that she was moving to a new home and that her dog is 16 years old and beginning to have accidents in the home and therefore no longer fits in to her lifestyle. I was speechless for a whole six seconds before I proceeded with the conversation. Like what kind of heartless bitch can say that about their pet? Her dog needed her most at that time but she couldn’t give a shit about it. Like do y’all also forget about your grandparents until you get a phone call that they fell and died in the tub?!

You wanna know how that conversation ended? I insisted that she talk to her veterinarian about performing a humane euthanasia. Because there are enough undesirable pets in shelters and adding in an extremely old dog who is already having health concerns? That dog would have been so unbelievably stressed out at a shelter after being abandoned by the only owner it’s had for it’s entire life. The intake process alone would have been detrimental to it’s health and well-being and possibly have killed it slowly by weakening its immune system and inviting all sorts of illnesses inside until the point that we made the decision to euthanize for quality of life. So yes, I suggested she instead kill her dog to prevent the dog from the pain and fear of being abandoned at a shelter.

Last week, similar phone call. This asshole said his 10 year old cat has stopped using the litter box and he wants to get rid of it. Okay dickhead, I hope that your kids throw you into a nursing home when they’re tired of changing your diapers. He let me know that cat was declawed at age three because it was destroying his furniture. I let him know that the number one cause of litter box misuse is pain caused from declawing (I fucking hate declawing but let me get more into that in another rant). I suggested he take the cat to a vet to have his paws radiographed and potentially do a reparative surgery* or place the cat on pain medicine to help with foot pain. Yet he said he was just “done” dealing with it and insisted on donating extra money so that we’d take it. Well guess what dickhead, your donation covered a fraction of the cost of care but at least now we can make sure his next home is prepared to keep him until his last days.

I will say one thing positive about the assholes mentioned above. At least they reached out to an animal shelter.

I hate nothing more than you motherfuckers out there that let your old pets out to fend for themselves and die in the streets. We’ve gotten two dogs in the last month that were very close to the end of their lives. Both found outside, passed out, too weak to even move. Both ended up at my shelter and deemed to be hospice candidates because they are at least 15 years old with a host of health issues. Both have had photos posted online through multiple sources. And nobody has come forward for them. They were forgotten by whomever had them.

But don’t worry y’all beautiful readers who have come to read my rants. These pups ended up in good hands after being tossed aside like literal trash. One was euthanized humanely after determining she had a cancerous tumor that was causing a very poor quality of life. She was surrounded by people who loved her during her last few days on earth. The other is now in my home being loved on until her very last day.

If any of you read this and try to justify these people’s actions by saying that perhaps making end of life choices is too hard for them. Fuck you. They didn’t necessarily need to make any end of life choices. Many people wait until their pets die of strokes or heart attacks and while I don’t agree with that, at least the pets died inside their homes. And even if you do decide to have the pet euthanized, you don’t even need to be there. Literally you just need to hand over your pet to a vet, pay the sum, and walk out. No money? Animal control agencies usually offer that service for free.

So there are plenty of options when it comes to having an old pet. But don’t be another asshole that abandons one.

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I’d like to dedicate this post to my first cat, my first best friend. I grew up with that cat. He was older than me. He scratched the shit out of me when I invaded his space and he taught me that cats are cats and that I need to respect them. They are not things I can get rid of just because he scratched me. Because he was teaching me what his limits were. He wasn’t being “aggressive” or “difficult to handle.” He was being a cat. So I learned from him. He died at the age of 18, when I was 15. And you damn well better believe I never gave up on him. Even when he had vomited everywhere and shit in my bed. Even when he kept us up all night, yowling in pain. Because I knew that he needed his family most at that time. So we continued to love him, even on the day that we took him to the vet and he took his last breath in my arms.

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* Information on declaw repair surgeries and more: http://www.pawproject.org/paw-repair-surgery/