Killing me Softly

In the world of dog rescue we are witnessing a wholesale slaughter of Staffies because they have been discarded by society and nobody is prepared to take them on.  Police and Council Pounds do their best to find homes or rescue places for them but there simply aren’t nearly enough of either available so they are left with no choice but to have the majority put to sleep.  Meanwhile the cycle repeats itself with more and more Staffie puppies added to the population many to be discarded later while rescues are bulging at the seams with perfectly good adult dogs desperate for a home.

 

Bull breeds are powerful dogs and need aware and responsible owners who can optimise their many many positive attributes and kindly train and manage their considerable potential towards their natural inclination to love and obey.

 

 

Free-ads advertise many litters of Staffie and Staffie x’s for sale. Little licky, overtly cuddly Staffie pups in pet shops start their journey and with money exchanged and not a glance back unscrupulous breeders walk swiftly away.  Buy that pup, see it grow into adolescence. Try to contain a Staffie who isn’t receiving exercise or training and is denied the company, love and stimulation it needs for positive development.

As a rescue we regularly receive reports of Staffies left all day in kitchens or sons’ bedrooms, often crated for five to eight hours at a time.  Hear the family rows, see relationship splits, the landlord insistence NO DOGS, evictions, the sense of wanting to be free of this mighty bond – aka small, carriable wonderment.  Witness the attempts to pass on, payment swings the other way to ‘take it off our hands’. Our Staffie moves through homes or the music fades… time to RID of the Staffie’. Anyone there for an adolescent Staffie?  Wonderful adult Staffie all singing all dancing? The phone line goes dead! Our Staffie has become worthless; society’s liability.  Rescues struggle to get the public to appreciate with today’s veterinary costs alone they run at a loss.  Add kennel costs and fund raising is essential. Then ask those Rescues to consider an adult Staffie, whose prospects of homing are slim, who can blame them in limiting their intake or turning their backs.

We found a dead Staffie in a park in good condition just dead, we took in a pregnant Staffie 10 days off giving birth, full of worms; a starving Staffie found abandoned in the cellar, her pups were sold from the pound and she was about to be put to sleep.  Let’s face facts, so many Staffies are being dumped or handed over on street corners to concerned passerby; thrown out of moving cars and worse.  Destination unknown, leave it to its fate. Arriving at the council pounds and the frown goes on faces; Yet another Staffie…what hope…the following poem says it all. Our council pounds have become death camps for Staffies…is there a political solution?  It must first start with subsidised bull breed neutering and denying the oxygen of Free-ad publicity to the Staffie breeders or pet shop space. Staffies are paying the price by being killed in large numbers softly in our pounds.