We love to tell a good story, a successful story, a story that fills up with hope.
But today we won’t.
Today I’m going to tell you one of my most painful stories in animal rescue. I’m doing this so that you get a glimpse of how it is to do what we do, every day and so that you understand why our adoption rules are what they are and why we cannot make exceptions.
Missy was rescued by one of the SHKD volonteers two years ago. She was a a wonderful sweet gentle and kind female dog. She arrived to the shelter with signs of sexual violence. She had been raped.
The rapist chose its victim well. She was too kind and gentle to fight back.
For months SHKD worked on her, made her recover from her ordeal, brought her confidence up to speed.
Let’s Adopt! had just been created.. we had just a few members, lots of ideas.
I put up Missy‘s pictures on my profile and sent an email to the 400 people or so that made up the group in those days.
A few hours later I received an email from a member. His name was Hakan Bozkurt. Nice guy. told me how he had a dog but had died of old age and how he missed him so much.. wanted to adopt another animal for his child. Any breed would do.
I liked him.
We met at the shelter, he came with his kid and a friend.. they were lovely people, animal lovers, kind and sweet. They liked Missy and Missy liked them.
We got his details, explained all about the dog, he had experience, we trusted him.
So Missy jumped on the car, wagging her short tail, one of the happiest days in her life.
We called that night.. Missy was sleeping with the kid. He sent us some pictures… wonderful!
One week later we called to check how things were going… the guy answer the phone. He was drunk.
He told us that Missy had been missing for three days. She was lost.
Apparently her six year old kid was walking her on the street without a leash, a truck passed, she got scared and run away.
He had done NOTHING to look for her. Nothing. Life continued as normal.
We spent three days looking for Missy all over the area. We checked every shelter, every street, we put posters everywhere…
Nothing.
I would love to think Missy is still alive and in a nice home with a wonderful family, but thinking so would be delusional.
Chances are Missy is dead. And if she is not dead she is trying to survive eating garbage in some construction dump, or dumped at the forest by one of the municipalities in this vast sprawling city.
So Missy was dead… nothing I could do about it.
But what I could do was to learn the lesson and to create a system that minimizes adoption risk. To create a set of rules that secured successful adoptions whilst at the same time helping us enlarge the community. And that is precisely what I did.
This is how we came up with our three basic adoption rules:
1. Family MUST have an existing animal.
2. Animal MUST live inside the home, not on the garden.
3. Animal MUST be fed raw.
Each and every adoption in Let’s Adopt! must be approved by me, and every time we screen a family I have Missy on my mind.
Missy was a failure and a painful lesson… but we learned from it, and created a system that saved thousands.
We must be ready to accept failures if we want to move forward…. and this applies to all of us, in all we do.
Never forget that.
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Poor Missy.I am so sorry.Her experience taught a painful but valuable lesson.Every Let’s Adopt success story is in part because of Missy.
Yep, I agree. These rules are simple, correct and serve the animals. The experiance with few animals shows, that if you do not follow one these rules, there is a great risk of failing!
OMG How tragic, after all she had suffered, to then find herself lost and homeless again. I pray that some kind soul took pity on her and took her in….I can hope!!!!! It is so imperative to make sure you have the right owner, people can be so deceptive when they are after something!!!! Such a shame, but it only makes us tougher in our criteria for adopting in the future. You have to be 100% sure any new owner will be keeping their new dog for life….as it should be!!!! Follow-ups visits as you know are absolutely essential, preferably un-announced!!
Keep safe Missy 🙁
WOW!!! What a sad, sad tale!!! It is such a shame that horrible things such as this happen all too often!!! I truly hope that Missy is alive, happy and well living with a wonderful family!!! Unfortunately the best lessons in life are the hard and tragic ones!!!
Unfortunately Joan.. unfortunately..
🙁
I’m so sorry for this sweetie……
Accepting failure and learning from mistakes; trusting the universe, accepting your limited role in it and trying to think that it had to be that way, and that Missy is in peace in now, whereever she is. So hard to do but I keep telling these to myself for many occasions. But apparently you have done a lot for Missy more than most of us has done to any living thing.
……..DON’T EVEN WANNA ASK WHAT YOU MEAN BY SEXUAL ABUSE….RAPE……THIS IS HEARTBREAKING……BUT MAY BE A MIRACLE HAPPEND AND SHE’S WITH A CARING FAMILY……..IN ANY WAY IT’S A GOOD THING TO HAVE STRIKT RULES AND ENFORCE THEM!!!……IN HER NAME!! SO THERE WON’T BE ANOTHER MISSY TRAGEDY……..SHE’S GONE TO THE RAINBOW BRIDGE….NO MORE SUFFERING………….????
MAY GOD BLESS AND KEEP YOU STRONG IN ALL YOU DO FOR ALL THE UNWANTED SUFFERING ANIMALS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So sad, but Missy has set a mark and will be remembered in each and all of the future adoptions.
I understand completely. Missy is an angel and never deserved her horrific treatment. Her gentleness lives on even tough she died of the neglect and cruelty of humans.
Rescue is tough work and I support your guidelines. Thank you for sharing Missy’s story.
Same thing happened to me… dog went missing right away with new adopter, and they didn’t contact me or care. His girlfriend posted one (ONE!) flier. I went and papered the whole town with fliers… every store, every street corner. I handed them out to houses that had dogs. I handed them out to people passing by. I walked the streets for hours. That night, I got a call — a sighting! I went back, and walked for hours more. Finally, in the early pre-dawn hours, I could walk no more because of the blisters.
I went back to my car, and prayed. I prayed that that sweet, loving, sensitive, probably frightened young animal would be found. And I prayed that, if it wasn’t God’s will that she be found, that He give me some relief from the worry of her whereabouts.
I started the car, and started to drive away. That’s why I saw the flash of fur… she had been hiding in the bushes nearby, and heard my car and came running! I tumbled out of the car, crying, and she ran up to me, crying. I promised her that I would always care for her, and never be negligent with her care again. And I haven’t. But now, I pray the same for your sweet Missy. I pray that she is safe, that someone is caring for her, and that some day you will find out that she has been okay. I pray too, that God can give you some peace of mind and relief. You are doing the right thing now, learning from your lessons and doing oh, so much better for the dogs! And for that — I am grateful!!!
Missy will NEVER be forgotten, and Missy helped you to improve your adoption rules. There is NOTHING wrong with these rules. You and your team are doing a great job.
Thank you for sharing Missy’s story as sad as it is. I have been trying to defend our adoption criteria to Canadians this past week. I try to explain to them how we arrived at the conclusion that these rules are necessary, and for my trouble I have been trashed both personally and professionally and told to leave my own country. I have been called a cult follower, my leader? Viktor Larkhill! Still I stand firm in my resolve that our adoption criteria can not and will not be changed or compromised. No matter how much mud is thrown at me or how many insults are hurled in my direction, my beliefs in what we Let’s Adopt members do and how we do it will not waver, because after 20 years of animal rescue, after my own failures when compromises were made, I know that these rules are a necessity and if i value the life of my rescues they can not be compromised.
Janette Hamilton
Let’s Adopt Canada
Obey your leader! ahahahahaha…
silly people… 🙂
No compromises!! <3
My sister’s rescue group always does a home visit as well as a phone screening and only once the application has been approved with references. Lets hope she found a good home that really wanted her. @ Victor…I always try to think the positive….
That’s so sad Viktor, but it wasn’t your fault. You learned from it and hopefully it will not happen again. It won’t stop the sadness but you did everything you could in good faith. It’s not our fault so many human beings are bastards!
I am so sad 4 the poor sweet dog!!
I do like your new ground rules…to stop a repeat…..!
So sad Victor. I don’t understand people. First of all I would never let a six years old child go walking with a dog alone and second I would become crazy when one of my dogs would be missing. They are my children. How can someone continue his life like nothing happend and nothing changed when one of your children is missing ???
I hope with you Missy is still alive with a loving family.
Victor on this moment you have so many members, why you don’t make an anouncement with all the details. Perhaps someone read it and knows something more.Personally I’d rather get a bad answer than no answer at all.
And for my opinion your adoptions rules are fine. In the beginning when I adopted Vany ( Vanilla ) and Zoë I was still smoking ( on that moment you didn’t ask a non smoking family ) but I quit ( 3 months now ) for myself and of course for those two.
Hi Angela,
I’m so sorry to hear about Missy. Anyone who has been in Rescue has several of these from the dogs dumped back to shelters, to those who disappear (including the owner) never to be heard from again. What we have found helpful in that respect is all dogs leave with a Rescue tag that must remain on their collar for the life of the dog. If it is lost, we will replace for free. All dogs are permanently I.D.’d. In the beginning, we tattooed. When we started microchipping, we did both (b/c MC wasn’t really out of the experimental phase). Now we only MC. Dogs also are provided a MC tag. Fortunately, the majority ot the public believe this is some form of ‘Lo Jack’. 😉 With each heartbreak, something was added to our adoption contract. We went from one page to five! C’est la vie. No one is forcing anyone to adopt from us. We do housechecks (vital) prior to adoption and require VET REFERENCES (as well as personal references). We can refuse an adoption at any time. We are a private non-profit.
Good luck with your ventures!
Puller
Such an unfortunate end for a beautiful girl who so deserved a happy ending. So sad. Rules are made with reason. I hope any potential adoptive families will see this and realize it is for the animal’s best interest these rules exist.