on top of that, i have a friend who adopted a puppy from a shelter almost two years ago. she now talks about wanting another dog but not being able to handle another puppy, so i point out that there are plenty of older dogs that needs homes–and she makes it very clear that she’ll never adopt anything but a puppy from a shelter/rescue, because, basically, you can get a defective/tainted/broken dog if you get an older one since you don’t know what you’re getting. i didn’t tell her, but i took offense to it. i felt like she was saying desmond was defective or that we were stupid for taking a chance on a dog we couldn’t really know the history of. the whole thing made me sad and kind of made me wish she didn’t know desmond’s story either.

All we actually know is that she was turned over by a family with several kids (four I think, I forget) who said that having her was too much, because it was like having another kid. So smart money says she didn’t get enough socialization as a puppy and that she may have been in a rather chaotic environment. For a puppy, that would be enough to make her nervous, no abuse or horror stories needed.

And I think it’s better to focus on where she is now than worry about what her past may have been.

Good point. I think playing the “bait dog” card can backfire a lot. If you have a rescue dog whose history you don’t know, it’s worth keeping in mind the possibility, but it shouldn’t blind you to the dog in front of you.

And a lot of people have the idea that the majority of pit bulls have been abused or used in dog fighting. (I don’t know the statistics, but I’m guessing that the number of dogs used for criminal purposes are vastly outnumbered by the ones who are just pets living a relatively normal puppy dog life.)

I actually thought it was kind of a sweet impulse–that people’s nurturing instincts came out and they wanted to imagine the worst so they could feel part of an even-more-dramatic happy ending. But you are absolutely right, that for the dogs’ sake we’d be better off carrying around happy images for them, rather than traumatizing ones.

Those of us with what I call a “social justice heart” and a love of the underdog tend to sympathize with the sad stories, but your average Jane probably thinks that dogs who have been abused or have been victims of fighting or other cruelty are just plain scary. We’re not doing the dogs any favors by assuming that horrible things happened to them.

Animals have an incredible capacity to forgive, forget, and move on; we should allow them and help them to do so.

Of course, now that I’ve read the rest of her post, I’m reminded once again of what an amazing woman I married. Maybe *I* need to become a Baltimore Orioles fan.

Naaah. Not up to it.

Please, dear SWTWC readers, don’t take it out on Pam. She really had no idea when she married me. (Also, she’s a Baltimore Orioles fan. . . .so that makes two long rows for her to hoe.)

I can only imagine the stories that people create 🙂 This is wonderful food for thought 🙂