# Letter from a shelter manager posted on Craigslist



## Marcia

*I found this on my local Craigslist under "Pets". I hated reading this. I hate that this happens but the reality is that it does. God bless those that work the awful jobs in the shelters. *



*Letter from a Shelter Manager (Please read)*

The shelter manager's letter:

"I am posting this (and it is long) because I think our society needs a huge wake-up call.
As a shelter manager, I am going to share a little insight with you all - a view from the inside, if you will.
Maybe if you saw the life drain from a few sad, lost, confused eyes, you would change your mind about breeding and selling to people you don't even know - that puppy you just sold will most likely end up in my shelter when it's not a cute little puppy anymore.

How would you feel if you knew that there's about a 90% chance that dog will never walk out of the shelter it is going to be dumped at - purebred or not! About 50% of all of the dogs that are "owner surrenders" or "strays" that come into my shelter are purebred dogs.

No shortage of excuses
The most common excuses I hear are:

We are moving and we can't take our dog (or cat).
Really? Where are you moving to that doesn't allow pets?

The dog got bigger than we thought it would.
How big did you think a German Shepherd would get?

We don't have time for her.
Really? I work a 10-12 hour day and still have time for my 6 dogs!

She's tearing up our yard.
How about bringing her inside, making her a part of your family?

They always tell me:
We just don't want to have to stress about finding a place for her. We know she'll get adopted - she's a good dog. Odds are your pet won't get adopted, and how stressful do you think being in a shelter is?

Well, let me tell you. Dead pet walking!

Your pet has 72 hours to find a new family from the moment you drop it off, sometimes a little longer if the shelter isn't full and your dog manages to stay completely healthy.
If it sniffles, it dies.

Your pet will be confined to a small run / kennel in a room with about 25 other barking or crying animals. It will have to relieve itself where it eats and sleeps. It will be depressed and it will cry constantly for the family that abandoned it.
If your pet is lucky, I will have enough volunteers that day to take him / her for a walk. If I don't, your pet won't get any attention besides having a bowl of food slid under the kennel door and the waste sprayed out of its pen with a high-powered hose.
If your dog is big, black or any of the "bully" breeds (pit bull, rottweiler, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much dead when you walked it through the front door. Those dogs just don't get adopted.
If your dog doesn't get adopted within its 72 hours and the shelter is full, it will be destroyed.

If the shelter isn't full and your dog is good enough, and of a desirable enough breed, it may get a stay of execution, though not for long. Most pets get very kennel protective after about a week and are destroyed for showing aggression. Even the sweetest dogs will turn in this environment.
If your pet makes it over all of those hurdles, chances are it will get kennel cough or an upper respiratory infection and will be destroyed because shelters just don't have the funds to pay for even a $100 treatment.

The grim reaper
Here's a little euthanasia 101 for those of you that have never witnessed a perfectly healthy, scared animal being "put-down".
First, your pet will be taken from its kennel on a leash. They always look like they think they are going for a walk - happy, wagging their tails. That is, until they get to "The Room".

Every one of them freaks out and puts on the breaks when we get to the door. It must smell like death, or they can feel the sad souls that are left in there. It's strange, but it happens with every one of them. Your dog or cat will be restrained, held down by 1 or 2 vet techs (depending on their size and how freaked out they are). A euthanasia tech or a vet will start the process. They find a vein in the front leg and inject a lethal dose of the "pink stuff". Hopefully your pet doesn't panic from being restrained and jerk it's leg. I've seen the needles tear out of a leg and been covered with the resulting blood, and been deafened by the yelps and screams.

They all don't just "go to sleep" - sometimes they spasm for a while, gasp for air and defecate on themselves.
When it all ends, your pet's corpse will be stacked like firewood in a large freezer in the back, with all of the other animals that were killed, waiting to be picked up like garbage.

What happens next? Cremated? Taken to the dump? Rendered into pet food? You'll never know, and it probably won't even cross your mind. It was just an animal, and you can always buy another one, right?

Liberty, freedom and justice for all
I hope that those of you that have read this are bawling your eyes out and can't get the pictures out of your head. I do everyday on the way home from work. I hate my job, I hate that it exists and I hate that it will always be there unless people make some changes and realize that the lives you are affecting go much farther than the pets you dump at a shelter.

Between 9 and 11 MILLION animals die every year in shelters and only you can stop it. I do my best to save every life I can but rescues are always full, and there are more animals coming in everyday than there are homes.
My point to all of this is DON'T BREED OR BUY WHILE SHELTER PETS DIE!

Hate me if you want to - the truth hurts and reality is what it is.
I just hope I maybe changed one person's mind about breeding their dog, taking their loving pet to a shelter, or buying a dog. I hope that someone will walk into my shelter and say "I saw this thing on craigslist and it made me want to adopt".
That would make it all worth it."


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## grrawritsjordi

Thanks for making me cry!

It makes me so angry when people buy "designer" dogs or purebreds from pet stores. Honestly, I don't see what all the big fuss is about. I would much rather have a mixed animal that will give me love and attention because I chose it from all of the other animals in the shelter, not the animal that I choose because it is the cutest one at the pet store or because it will look great in handbag. More than being angry at the people who buy those dogs at the pet stores, I detest people who breed dogs and cats for money without caring about the animal. Puppy mills are the worst. The only "purebred" animals we have owned (and I put purebred in quotes because I am not sure if one of them was) were animals we adopted from people who didn't want them anymore or strays. 

When I was little we had an English bull dog that a guy's new wife didn't want because it was mean to her ferrets. Ferrets?? REALLY? They were going to take Winston to the shelter where he would probably not have lasted because he was kind of mean and a bull dog. (he was pure bred)

Then we got Miss Kitty, a himalayan, who was only used for breeding and the lady we got her from (an old gym teacher of mine from middle school) didn't want her because they had just gotten a skunk.. Yes, a skunk. Miss Kitty lived to be about 14-16 and died this past spring living a healthy and loving life. She probably would have been put down at the shelter too because she wasn't a lap cat and was very peculiar.

The third purebred (he is the one I am not sure of being purebred) was a bull mastiff. He walked up to my dad in the city and jumped in the back of his truck and my dad instantly fell in love with him. He went to the store and bought some dog food and Brutus was ours from that day. I still miss that guy. He was the best dog in the entire world. His owners left him to die. When he walked up to my dad he weighed about 30lbs, when his normal weight was supposed to be 110lbs. We took him in and although he never got to the size he should have been due to malnourishment, he lived to be about 8 years old. We had to put him down due to kidney failure. That was the only time I have ever seen my dad cry.

Having those "unwanted" animals in my life have given me some of the best memories I will ever remember. I feel sorry for the person who doesn't have the compassion to keep an animal that has brought so much joy to their lives, but I am so grateful that we got to rescue three animals who didn't have a chance.


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## Arianwen

I hated every word of this - especially the parts that I know are all too true but I doubt that this was 100% honest. 

For example, when animals die they normally defecate - it's nature - we do too. This would be enough to put someone off ever having any animal put to sleep and sometimes it is the right thing to do. The last time I had an animal die in my arms was my beloved old Trixie. Of course that happened! It shouldn't be turned into a horror story for those who abandon their animals but should be something we all recognize.

I also have to say (and maybe this is because of location or my cowardice) I have never, ever visited a shelter this grim.


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## BigDaveyL

I adopted Oreo, a 6 year old cat. I think she missed her former owners. They took her to the shelter because they were moving across the country. She's slowly coming out of her shell.


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## grrawritsjordi

BigDaveyL said:


> I adopted Oreo, a 6 year old cat. I think she missed her former owners. They took her to the shelter because they were moving across the country. She's slowly coming out of her shell.


I think that is the absolute worst reason to give your animal up. If I ever move back home, across country, you bet I will be taking my Moosey with me.


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## Carmel

Arianwen said:


> I also have to say (and maybe this is because of location or my cowardice) I have never, ever visited a shelter this grim.


I agree. But I think a lot of what happens behind closed doors the public doesn't know about and/or turns a blind eye to. 

This person likely lives in the many areas, and sometimes entire States, where animal surrender rate is very high while adoption is rate lower due to the economy tanking. 

A lot of dogs from California, for example, are being pulled from shelters there all the time and shipped all over the States and parts of Canada. The dogs are young, sometimes purebred, wonderful temperaments... but they're not getting adopted.

This story remind me of the story My name is Sam. Very sad.


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## 3furbabies

I worked at a shelter before and almost everything she said it true. Now the one I was at was no-kill but it was pretty much the same. They get very little contact other then to be fed... usually staff are kept two busy to walk dogs/visit cats and when you are caught it is highly discouraged as you must not be busy so they assign you more tasks. I usually got around this and walked dogs/groomed cats any free moment I had... even on lunches. As for intakes, it was brutal. If it was full, large breed dogs would be confined to a way too small crate(not even a run) where it pretty much had to poop in it's food dish (this was the case most of the time) as there was no room. Cats were held far too long where a lot of them because aggressive due to being locked up in a small cage and the only contact they had was when they were examined or their cage had to be cleaned. Most cats were held sometimes for up to a year for very little reason... and in that time they ended up getting sick/mean because of the poor conditions. It was a horrible place and I would rather euthenize my animals and send them to prison.

This is why I can't look on kijiji (canadian criag's list). It infuriates me how many byb are on there... cat and dog. These people are in it for a quick buck and don't even like animals or else they wouldn't be doing it. Beeding should be illegal. There are too many animals that are killed for no reason due to irresponsible idiots.


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## Arianwen

Couldn't face any more tears tonight, Carmel, so I'm afraid I chickened out. 

I do know intimately a cat shelter and a horse rescue (and a dog rescue reasonably well) and I am very glad that this awful horror is beyond my experience. I have seen many neglected animals - conditions on the local commons for horses have deteriorated badly in my lifetime - but have not for an awfully long time found something this dire in the locality.

I simpl;y count myself (and the local animals) lucky.


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## Blakeney Green

This hit close to home for me because when I met Zephyr at the shelter, he was about half an hour from being put to sleep. I signed the adoption paperwork only a few minutes before he otherwise would have died.

He'd only been at the shelter for five days, but so many people were dumping their unwanted kittens that he had run out of time.

The people who dropped off his litter said they had tried to find homes for the kittens and were unable. The shelter workers told me they do this 2-3 times a year when their unspayed cat has litters. So do a lot of other people.



grrawritsjordi said:


> I think that is the absolute worst reason to give your animal up. If I ever move back home, across country, you bet I will be taking my Moosey with me.


The moving thing gets me, too.

Now, I'm not trying to say a person could _never_ legitimately get in a situation where they are forced to move and are unable to take their pet. (Although rehoming to friends is much better than leaving the pet at a shelter.) I'm just saying that the circumstances where there's truly no other choice are few and far between, but the excuse is used very, very commonly. 

I think most of the time it _is_ just that - an excuse when they just don't want to bother.

For the record, I moved across national borders with my cats during rather difficult personal circumstances, so I'm not saying this as someone who has never been put in this position.


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## Arianwen

A friend of mine has recently moved back to the UK from South Africa and all her animals (I think it is 12 cats and 4 dogs) are being flown here. Another friend hadd to leave Egypt in something of a hurry but still got homes for all her cats and her horses before leaving.


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## soccergrl76

I feel that most of this is true. However, my local shelter has a 90% adoption rate which is the highest in my state (I believe).

We adopted our dog from the shelter. She is a purebred Norwegian Elkhound and was 5 years old when we got her. She is 10 now & has been the greatest dog. Her owners had her & 2 others since they were puppies. They abandoned all 3 at the shelter saying they had allergies to them. I discovered later that they adopted a puppy. It broke my heart. We have given her a great home and she is very spoiled. 

If we ever move my pets will come too, no matter how far it is.


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


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## Marcia

Yes, I kind of questioned if this was actually from a shelter here in Virginia Beach or not. We do have a huge concentration of military here so it would not surprise me if some shelters have to do this. 

When I adopted Lacey last week the city shelter where I got her from (thank you, God) said that since they built the new shelter last year they have not had to euthanize much at all. I mentioned this to my friend that ran a private shelter and she said "they told you THAT?" which left me wondering if the shelter woman was lying to me or not. :dis I hate to think this is true, but I am a realist. 

The euthansia process as described is meant to shock people I suppose into not giving up their pets, not discourage the humane and peaceful process a vet would provide when necessary - just my guess really.


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## marie73

That letter has been all over the internet, Craigslist and even here before.


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## Alex Harris

Another thing that gets me is when people wait until the absolute last minute to find a home for their pets and then use the 'Fluffy has 24 hours to find a home,or she's going to the pound' line.


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## 3furbabies

gharrissc said:


> Another thing that gets me is when people wait until the absolute last minute to find a home for their pets and then use the 'Fluffy has 24 hours to find a home,or she's going to the pound' line.


Yes! That's why I stopped reading those ads. They would say ' if no one adopts fluffy by tomorrow they are going to the high kill shelter'. There's a no kill shelter 20 minutes away so why do they have to go to the extreme? Probably to get people to feel bad for the cat but there's too many of these ads.


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## spidermilk

That post is very sad but true. I sometimes go on the Craigslist Pets page because I need to check for 'Lost' adds on a dog I found (I have found four and gotten them back home...) and the combination of "Purebred puppy for sale! $100" and "Moving and can't take puppy!" makes me sick. It is obvious they just think they're pet is like a pair of shoes that they can throw out when they get sick of them.

I didn't get any pets (though I desperately wanted them) until I bought a house and had a stable job just because I didn't have a pet friendly apartment, enough money, or enough time.


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## Alex Harris

I always get people who contact me after they have gone out to buy a puppy,only to have the landlord find out. I will never understand why someone would try to get away with getting any animal when they *know* that pets aren't allowed in the first place. Then there are those who go out and get animals (usually dogs),and are always hiding the animal. My friend is a leasing agent for a condo complex that only allows small pets. I remember her telling me about a woman and her boyfriend who had two Labrador Retriever puppies. My friend told them that they had two weeks to find the puppies homes,but instead these people resorted to hiding the dogs. She found out about them still having them because the smell from the dogs pooping in the house was so bad. They stopped taking the dogs outside and just let them go in the house. I know this is a cat forum,but I had to share that. People are always putting themselves and animals in such preventable situations.


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## Blakeney Green

gharrissc said:


> I always get people who contact me after they have gone out to buy a puppy,only to have the landlord find out. I will never understand why someone would try to get away with getting any animal when they *know* that pets aren't allowed in the first place.


This really confuses me too. I get how difficult it is to want a pet and not be able to have one, but bringing in a pet that isn't allowed can get you evicted, and that puts both the owner and the pet in such jeopardy.

When Zephyr had been with me for a few weeks, I had a dinner party that included some friends and some acquaintances. One of the acquaintances offered to buy Zephyr from me. (What? Who goes into someone's house and tries to buy their pet?) I said he wasn't for sale, but that if she wanted a kitten there were a lot of cute ones at the SPCA. She said okay, and I thought she would be adopting from the shelter.

Turns out she figured out the shelter wouldn't approve her because she wasn't allowed to have pets in her apartment (which I didn't realize when I recommended the SPCA) so she bought a kitten from a shady backyard breeder instead.  I felt really guilty, like I'd accidentally pushed her in that direction.

Her landlord never did find out, but a couple of years later she and her boyfriend bought a dog. It didn't get along with the cat, so they rehomed the cat because, and I quote, "The dog was expensive." At least they gave the cat to a friend rather than a shelter, but still...

I didn't really keep in touch with her after that. There were a lot of other things about her I really liked, but that really soured me on her company.


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## JustOneMore

Marcia said:


> *I found this on my local Craigslist under "Pets". I hated reading this. I hate that this happens but the reality is that it does. God bless those that work the awful jobs in the shelters. *
> 
> 
> 
> *Letter from a Shelter Manager (Please read)*
> 
> The shelter manager's letter:
> 
> "I am posting this (and it is long) because I think our society needs a huge wake-up call.
> As a shelter manager, I am going to share a little insight with you all - a view from the inside, if you will.
> Maybe if you saw the life drain from a few sad, lost, confused eyes, you would change your mind about breeding and selling to people you don't even know - that puppy you just sold will most likely end up in my shelter when it's not a cute little puppy anymore.
> 
> How would you feel if you knew that there's about a 90% chance that dog will never walk out of the shelter it is going to be dumped at - purebred or not! About 50% of all of the dogs that are "owner surrenders" or "strays" that come into my shelter are purebred dogs.
> 
> No shortage of excuses
> The most common excuses I hear are:
> 
> We are moving and we can't take our dog (or cat).
> Really? Where are you moving to that doesn't allow pets?
> 
> The dog got bigger than we thought it would.
> How big did you think a German Shepherd would get?
> 
> We don't have time for her.
> Really? I work a 10-12 hour day and still have time for my 6 dogs!
> 
> She's tearing up our yard.
> How about bringing her inside, making her a part of your family?
> 
> They always tell me:
> We just don't want to have to stress about finding a place for her. We know she'll get adopted - she's a good dog. Odds are your pet won't get adopted, and how stressful do you think being in a shelter is?
> 
> Well, let me tell you. Dead pet walking!
> 
> Your pet has 72 hours to find a new family from the moment you drop it off, sometimes a little longer if the shelter isn't full and your dog manages to stay completely healthy.
> If it sniffles, it dies.
> 
> Your pet will be confined to a small run / kennel in a room with about 25 other barking or crying animals. It will have to relieve itself where it eats and sleeps. It will be depressed and it will cry constantly for the family that abandoned it.
> If your pet is lucky, I will have enough volunteers that day to take him / her for a walk. If I don't, your pet won't get any attention besides having a bowl of food slid under the kennel door and the waste sprayed out of its pen with a high-powered hose.
> If your dog is big, black or any of the "bully" breeds (pit bull, rottweiler, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much dead when you walked it through the front door. Those dogs just don't get adopted.
> If your dog doesn't get adopted within its 72 hours and the shelter is full, it will be destroyed.
> 
> If the shelter isn't full and your dog is good enough, and of a desirable enough breed, it may get a stay of execution, though not for long. Most pets get very kennel protective after about a week and are destroyed for showing aggression. Even the sweetest dogs will turn in this environment.
> If your pet makes it over all of those hurdles, chances are it will get kennel cough or an upper respiratory infection and will be destroyed because shelters just don't have the funds to pay for even a $100 treatment.
> 
> The grim reaper
> Here's a little euthanasia 101 for those of you that have never witnessed a perfectly healthy, scared animal being "put-down".
> First, your pet will be taken from its kennel on a leash. They always look like they think they are going for a walk - happy, wagging their tails. That is, until they get to "The Room".
> 
> Every one of them freaks out and puts on the breaks when we get to the door. It must smell like death, or they can feel the sad souls that are left in there. It's strange, but it happens with every one of them. Your dog or cat will be restrained, held down by 1 or 2 vet techs (depending on their size and how freaked out they are). A euthanasia tech or a vet will start the process. They find a vein in the front leg and inject a lethal dose of the "pink stuff". Hopefully your pet doesn't panic from being restrained and jerk it's leg. I've seen the needles tear out of a leg and been covered with the resulting blood, and been deafened by the yelps and screams.
> 
> They all don't just "go to sleep" - sometimes they spasm for a while, gasp for air and defecate on themselves.
> When it all ends, your pet's corpse will be stacked like firewood in a large freezer in the back, with all of the other animals that were killed, waiting to be picked up like garbage.
> 
> What happens next? Cremated? Taken to the dump? Rendered into pet food? You'll never know, and it probably won't even cross your mind. It was just an animal, and you can always buy another one, right?
> 
> Liberty, freedom and justice for all
> I hope that those of you that have read this are bawling your eyes out and can't get the pictures out of your head. I do everyday on the way home from work. I hate my job, I hate that it exists and I hate that it will always be there unless people make some changes and realize that the lives you are affecting go much farther than the pets you dump at a shelter.
> 
> Between 9 and 11 MILLION animals die every year in shelters and only you can stop it. I do my best to save every life I can but rescues are always full, and there are more animals coming in everyday than there are homes.
> My point to all of this is DON'T BREED OR BUY WHILE SHELTER PETS DIE!
> 
> Hate me if you want to - the truth hurts and reality is what it is.
> I just hope I maybe changed one person's mind about breeding their dog, taking their loving pet to a shelter, or buying a dog. I hope that someone will walk into my shelter and say "I saw this thing on craigslist and it made me want to adopt".
> That would make it all worth it."


Can you post a link to this?


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## Breshiki

*So SAD!*

OMG! This is sooooo sad! I hate it, but thank you for sharing! I'm going to post this on facebook, do you have a URL???

I adopted my little guy (cat obviously) from the shelter last week. He was brought in with his brother (the owner though he was a girl) saying they couldn't keep him because the 2 year old kept pulling their fur! REALLY?! You can't teach your snot nosed brat to kind and not hurt an animal, so you sentenced him to almost certain death?! _(and no I don't think all kids are snot nosed brats, just when their parents are too stupid to teach them things, and they turn into heathens)._

And the story is right, it never crossed my mind how many pets are put down each day/month/year at our local shelter. Thankfully my little guy and his brother were both adopted out. I wonder how long our shelter lets the animals stay?!

My local shelter posted this on their facebook right about the time I got my guy and when I saw it, it was like a slap to the face. 

_WEEKLY UPDATE for 1/13 - 1/19/13:
29 dogs and 30 cats were adopted; 13 dogs and 2 small mammals were reclaimed by owners = 74 animals saved. 

During the same time period, 151 animals were brought in._


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## Marcia

Blakeney Green said:


> Turns out she figured out the shelter wouldn't approve her because she wasn't allowed to have pets in her apartment (which I didn't realize when I recommended the SPCA) so she bought a kitten from a shady backyard breeder instead.  I felt really guilty, like I'd accidentally pushed her in that direction.
> 
> 
> I didn't really keep in touch with her after that. There were a lot of other things about her I really liked, but that really soured me on her company.


No, you didn't push her into that direction - she was bound and determined to get an animal as an object, not a life companion. You shouldn't feel guilty. Good move to dump her. Life is too short to stay in the good graces of people that do things like this.


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## Blakeney Green

Marcia said:


> No, you didn't push her into that direction - she was bound and determined to get an animal as an object, not a life companion. You shouldn't feel guilty. Good move to dump her. Life is too short to stay in the good graces of people that do things like this.


Thanks. At the time of that dinner party I barely knew her (it was always more of a friend-of-a-friend type deal anyway,) so while it definitely raised a red flag for me when she tried to get me to sell Zephyr to her, I thought it might be social awkwardness in not knowing how to just leave it at complimenting my cute kitten, rather than anything more worrisome in her attitude toward animals. 

I figured it wasn't really my place to say if she was or wasn't a suitable cat owner, and if she wasn't then the shelter would tell her no. But then of course, she didn't go to the shelter after all, so there were no checks. Later I really second-guessed it, like I should have been more discouraging about whether she should get a cat in the first place... but you do the best you can at the time.

The whole time she had her cat, whenever she saw me she would talk about how lucky I was that Zephyr was so well-behaved, because her cat was a terror. I _am_ lucky to have Zephyr and Maisie, but the reason for their difference in behaviour wasn't luck - I trained my kitten and she didn't train hers, bottom line. I tried to tell her that, but she always blamed genetics.

In a lot of other ways we would have been really compatible as friends and we had other shared interests, but I just couldn't get past her attitude toward animals. I definitely don't regret letting that friendship wither.


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