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Reason
for Surrender
by
Steve Grunow
A bewildering network of threadlike lines, tiny boxes,
and microscopic print tangles its way across the impound form:
Impound date. Sex. Breed. Age. Housebroken. Number of puppies
or kittens. Adoption. Abandoned. Reason for Surrender. So
many blanks to scrunch in so much crucial information about
every incoming animal — and nothing that is written there
tells anything about the feelings that can churn around the
counter each time another surrendered pet comes across it...
Sex:
female (spayed): Breed: golden retriever. Age: two and a half
years... The plump, dark-haired young woman’s tears are
already smearing her makeup and pushing my guilt buttons.
“She’s been spayed. She’s really good with
kids. I’ve trained her a little...” Here the dog
sits obligingly and gazes up at me in that trusting, tuned-in
way that so many goldens have. In this situation, that only
makes me feel sad and I look away. “She’ll go to
a good home, won’t she?” The woman is pleading with
her voice now, as well as with the teary eyes in the pale
face, needing to make her problem mine, and so to be the lighter
for it. I wince inside, put on my flat, facts-and-figures
voice. “Maybe... We get in probably half a dozen goldens
a week. People often want younger dogs.” The woman is
crying in earnest now as she signs the form acknowledging
her dog may have to be euthanized — but still she signs
it. Reason for Surrender: “She plays too roughly with
my older dog...”
Sex:
female. Breed: American longhair. Age: about two years ...
“Shhh, Tess, shhh ...” The young woman cuddles the
continuously wailing cat wrapped in a dark green towel. He
cat’s name seems to fit her stark, melancholic appearance.
The person cuddling Tess is Sarah — but her name could
easily be Tess, too. Long, loose, dark hair, sad, round white
face, sad dark eyes. Same black and white melancholy as the
cat. Sarah’s brother has gone to South America, leaving
Tess with Sarah and her mother. “She’ll go to a
good home, won’t she?” Sarah begs. “Well, actually
...” Once again, I honestly can’t come through with
the answer the person across the counter needs to hear in
order to ease her mind. “Most adoptions want young kittens.
She hasn’t been spayed. Older cats don’t stand a
very good chance.” “I can’t tell my mother
that! She’s crying out in the car!” Sarah’s
protectiveness toward the cat flashes into anger, anger at
me, not at her brother who abandoned Tess. I stand there,
the bad guy. “Have you tried to place her anywhere else?
Maybe with a friend? Are you SURE you can’t keep her?”
Tight-lipped, Sarah signs the papers and goes out to her mother,
crying in the car. Reason for Surrender: “doesn’t
get along with other cat at home.”
Sex: Female. Breed: Siamese. Age: about eight months. A middle-aged
woman, her hair a bronze helmet of lacquered curls, her pink
face heavily iced with magic from vanity jars. The kitten
her daughter got her six months ago is in her trunk. (In her
trunk?) The woman wants someone to go and take the cat out.
Her harsh tone of voice announces plainly that however soon
she is helped, it will not be soon enough to suit her. The
woman’s daughter has moved and left the cat with her.
“So you want to put her up for adoption?” I ask
tentatively. “I don’t care what you do with it!”
The woman’s voice humiliates my concern for the cat’s
future. “It’s not my cat!” she snaps. Reason
for Surrender: “moving.”
Sex:
Female. Breed: Doberman pinscher. Age: ten months. The clean-cut
teenager squirms like a scolded schoolboy. Maybe he was sent
here by Dad to do this: to have the dog put down. “Why?”
The potentially elegant red dog is bony, and stands awkwardly.
The kid is vague. “Something is wrong ... some kind of
bone problem, I guess ... The dog is limping ... We’re
not really sure ... Vet said something about maybe some disease.”
“Is it something she could outgrow? Have you had another
vet look at her? Maybe a second opinion ...” My
hopeful suggestions slide off his embarrassment and don’t
stick. No, they really don’t have the money to have her
looked at ... again ... and she IS limping ... He guesses
she won’t get better ... not really sure. As frustrating
as a mosquito-buzz at night for me. Has a vet really seen
the dog? Does she really need to be put down? No way to find
out. Let’s get it over with then, I guess. Reason for
Surrender: “euthanize.”
Sex:
female. Breed: Australian shepherd cross. Age: two years...
A young, dark-haired man is on the other side of the counter;
a medium-sized, medium-dirty ragbag of fluffy beige excitement
bounces around his knees. “I can’t keep her at my
apartment,” he says. “Housebroken?” “No.
She’s an outside dog.” I stop writing. “Just
so you know: We get so many dogs here. If they’re over
a year old and not housebroken, people usually don’t
choose them. They wind up being put down.” “No!”
At first his forehead wrinkles in disbelief. “She’s
a good dog! She’d be a great pet for somebody!”
“I know, I know.” It is ironic how many people say
their dogs would be “a great pet for somebody”—
as they are leaving the dogs here. Great pets for somebody
else, apparently; not great enough for them to keep. The man
signs the form. He bends down and agitatedly rumples the dog’s
ears as I finish scribbling. His new frustration is now anger:
Anger at the situation making it a problem for him to keep
a dog. Anger at the public for not magically providing someone
who will happily relieve him of his dirty, untrained, adult
dog, and with her, the problem. Reason for Surrender: “can’t
keep.”
Sex:
Male. Breed: German shepherd. Age: a year and a half. “Kahn,
SIT!” The antsy, wolf-gray powerhouse is whirling, on
a leash. The man is visibly tired, dusty, and reaching the
end of some other kind of rope of his own. “Huh!”
the wiry young man snorts scornfully at my “ignorance.”
“You won’t have trouble finding somebody who wants
THIS dog. This dog is a purebred SHEPHERD! I paid two hundred
dollars for this dog. I just gotta leave him here ’cause
my landlord won’t let me keep him — even in my truck.”
The frustrated man speaks in a sarcastic, sing-song voice.
“It would cost me $300 to fly him out to my dad, and
I just ain’t got the money.” I breathe deeply before
I speak to avoid striking back with sarcasm of my own. “I
know he’s a purebred shepherd; we’ve got probably
half a dozen other purebred shepherds that other people paid
lots of money for out in the kennel right now and — as
I said — most of them will probably end up having to
be put down. There are just not enough people who want big
dogs. You may as well know.”
There
is a long moment while this slowly sinks in. The bony, tight
face becomes tighter. Then he throws up his hands in frustration.
I am the bad guy now: his uncooperative landlord, too-far-away
father, and low-paying boss, all rolled into one. His glare
says that I must be a fool if I can’t find some more
reasonable way to solve his reasonable problem. Kahn whines,
rears up on his hind legs and peers over the counter with
good-natured curiosity. He is huge and magnificent. “Couldn’t
you borrow the money to send him to your dad?” I ask
tentatively. It’s probably none of my business, but if
just some money could give this big, chummy bear a better
chance... The man thinks about this — or about something
else — for what seems like a long time, then, wooden-faced,
he signs the forms and turns over the dog. Reason for Surrender:
“landlord won’t allow.”
Sex:
males/females. Breed: American shorthair. Age: eight-ten weeks.
Number of kittens: eight. The red-headed, freckle-faced teenager
looks like he is just off the front of a Wheaties box. He
scrapes the boxful of kittens across the counter. These are
mostly gold or gold-and-white. They all have huge, round blue
eyes that claim innocence, and mischievously busy paws that
bat at my hand and cheerfully prove the eyes are lying. The
kittens belong to his sister, the kid says. Is his sister
getting the kittens’ mother spayed? She’s thinking
about it, the kid says. These raise the total number of kittens
received just today to around 25-30; maybe a third of them
will be adopted. The unwanted others will have to be killed.
I can’t help snapping at the kid, “Your sister’s
cat could already be pregnant again! She’d better have
her spayed!” Too much of me rushes to the surface sometimes.
Reason for Surrender: “too many cats.”
Sex:
male. Breed: Labrador retriever cross. Age: four months ...
The teenage girl faces me from across the counter, the honey-colored
puppy casually draped on her arm. “We’ve had him
three weeks and he chews up everything,” the girl whines.
A puppy, and he chews. Surprise, surprise. I wonder if people
ever get rid of goldfish because they swim. I breathe deeply
to grab my flat business voice, the irritation and the hope
both carefully skimmed off it. Well over a hundred dogs and
cats come into this shelter per day. There are just not enough
adopters for even a third of these unwanted animals. I ask,
“Would you keep him if I told you some ways to stop him
from chewing things?” It’s hard to keep the hope
from creeping into my voice. The girl slides the puppy across
the counter. He is baby-soft, slick, and firm in my arms,
and comfortingly warm against my chest. For the girl, he is
completely gone already, like last week’s hairstyle.
“No.” She shakes her head as she blandly signs the
form. “We’re moving anyway.” One less thing
they will have to worry about packing, I suppose. Reason for
Surrender: “chews.”
Sex:
Female (spayed). Breed: Labrador retriever cross. Age: eleven
years ... The man has graying, sixties-length black hair,
and he matter-of-factly pulls up to the counter in a wheelchair.
The well-worn, apparently healthy silver-muzzled black dog
paces calmly beside the chair, seems to trust that she belongs
there. She has dignity there. I’m not used to being with
chair-bound people. Standing behind the counter, I feel apprehensive
gazing down at him, trapped in the chair. I worry that he
sees my freedom as a taunt. Many who come in here do not need
much before they blaze into anger. Life has already given
this guy plenty to be furious about ... and now he is here
...
When
I look at the dog, irritation and sadness roll over and over
each other in my heart: this man must know that nobody is
going to adopt a dog that old! How can he be callous enough
to leave her here, knowing that — after she has obviously
been with him so long? I shrink at thinking of how her dignity
will crumble when she realizes he’s leaving without her.
He IS in the chair, probably doesn’t have much money
. . . What an assumption! How bigoted can I get? Maybe he
has to have her put down because she’s old ... But she
looks healthy ... There must be SOME good reason ... After
all this time ... He must feel wretched about this ... I feel
wretched about this ...
Automatically
I begin filling out the impound form. Try to stay detached.
Getting involved just makes me feel worse. It’s not my
problem. The man looks a little puzzled as I ask him question
after question from the form, but he keeps answering cooperatively:
Sex? Breed? Age? Finally I get to the big one, the one that
will make this all final: “Reason for surrender?”
At
this, the man’s puzzlement flows away. Amusement tickles
the lines in his face toward new directions, and he chuckles.
“Surrender? I’m only here to get proof for the vet
that she’s been spayed! I’ve moved and lost her
records. Surrender her? Not for a billion dollars!” A
moment for this to compute. Sweet, sweet relief. “Not
for a billion dollars.” A lump is in my throat and the
impound form looks blurry. Too much of me rushes to the surface
sometimes.
Steve
Grunow is a director of humane education at the Humane Society
of Santa Clara in California.
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