Crios is one of many sweet souls that DRSF has lost this year and his story brings to light one of the many unanswerable moral conundrums that arise in rescue work. From a 30,000 foot view, Crios is the victim of the classless act of backyard breeding, and while the breeder is more than guilty, as Crios’ story unfolded, the question arose as to where the family who “purchased” him should have known better and the psychology behind this family and others who “surrender” and then come forward, identify themselves, and try to not only justify their actions, but actively participate in the dialogue while a social media community rallies to save their dog.
If you are new to Crios’ story, you can get up to speed on what happened on his Fundrazr, but the long and short of it was that he was surrendered as a sick 4 month old puppy to a local shelter, and after having two negative parvo tests, Crios ultimately succumbed to Parvo after a week in intensive care at LeadER Animal Specialty Hospital in Ft. Lauderdale, all funded by our DRSF community.
There is a curious phenomenon in rescue where a family will still choose to surrender a dog after being told that dog could be euthanized immediately, and then reach out to the rescue who has that dog to inquire how they are doing and share their story that they had done “everything they could” to help that dog. This is what happened to Crios….we are not sure how his former family came to know that he was with DRSF, but they started reaching out to Facebook and IG DM’s asking, begging for updates on how he was doing and when he could go home.
We have done this long enough to know that we don’t always know the entire story and TRY to give the benefit of the doubt to people. We also walk a thin line on Social Media in that our main goal is to educate, as much as we try to keep our karma straight, sometimes, we have to be more than direct. Crios’ former family was actively following his story and after another question on one of his updates about his condition, we replied that we didn’t even know if he was going to live let alone when he could go home and the heartbreaking thing was that one $20 vaccine could have avoided all of this. We did not call them out his previous owners to everyone else as that is not our place, but facts are facts and when we are answering your questions about the dog that you surrendered on our personal time after a “regular job” (and perhaps a glass of wine or two) we sometimes get a bit raw in our answers.
To most, that would have been enough to cool your jets, hang back, and just wait for info. Nope – not the case. They then took to DM to explain that “they had been told that Crios had been vaccinated as the person they bought him from TEXT THEM THE VET RECORDS and their friend, who had also bought a dog from the same people, had no problems. They had done EVERYTHING THEY COULD BUT THEY HAD A JOB, and had to surrender him.
Crios care came at a significant cost to DRSF and there was an outpouring of love for him when we lost him. We cannot bring Crios back and give him the Happily Ever After that he had ahead of him (Crios was to be adopted the day after he was admitted to LeadER and have a human big brother and to be one of his new big brothers’ birthday gifts). All of that was lost.
It is not my place to judge. It is not my place to say what one person can do to care for an animal with a full time job. It is not my place to ask how you can show your face as a volunteer non-profit works with the best doctors in our area to save the life of a dog that you didn’t care for and then gave up on and then ask for details.
It is my place however, to ask how or why you didn’t know better. Why with all the awareness of rescue and puppy mills and backyard breeders, why you chose to purchase a dog on Craigslist or how you thought that was right. I can absolutely ask how you can be a dog owner and not know that vet records cannot be “texted” to you. I can ask you even if you choose to purchase a puppy on Craigslist why you didn’t take that puppy to a vet after you got him. I can ask you how you could hand over a sick 4 month old puppy to a shelter and walk out the door. You can say you didn’t know, but I can say you should have.
Crios did not have his chance, but we can honor him by sharing his story. Share that backyard breeding is a horrible practice by those who choose to exploit animals for money. Educate others that you should never, ever buy a puppy from someone in a parking lot. Share that shelters and rescues are the only way to go. Share that if you chose to get a puppy from a shady situation, take that puppy to the vet. Share Crios’ story so that you may save a life just like his.
