God, what a morning it is out there! I saw two shooting stars while I was letting the dogs out this morning! Beautiful and clear out, it should be a wonderful day here.
This morning I'm going to try to walk Bear for a bit. Don't know how far we will get, but hopefully we will at least stretch the legs. We've been playing ball out back and the husband has taken to having wrestling matches with Bear in the afternoons to give them both some exercise. He's been pretty good waiting for my toe to get better, but really needs his morning walks...on top of playing ball and wrestling.
Another thing I was able to do yesterday morning, because I went in late to work and worked into the evening, was start the final assault with the State of New York. We've had Bear for a few days more than a month now and he needs to "get fixed." Because he was adopted from an approved pound, he is part of a state program that greatly discounts the price of neutering. Our town is enrolled in this program but never got the applications for the people who adopt to mail back to the State to get the certificate to take to the Vet when they get an animal "fixed" and thus get the discount.
After spending a great deal of time on the phone with the Animal Control Officer, I called the State Ag Dept and hopefully got the situation straightened out. They are mailing me an application directly and also one to the town for future adopting people which the town can photo copy. Why this stuff isn't online, I have no clue. It seems to me that the Animal Control Officer should be able to just hook into the system and print the application out, but that would be logical. Instead, there is a file cabinet somewhere in Albany that some clerk has to pull out the one existing copy of this application from, make two photocopies of it and refile it. Then this poor clerk will have to get two separate envelopes and mail one copy to my town and one to me.
That should take a week to accomplish.
When I get my copy of the application, I will fill it out and mail it back to the clerk in Albany. The clerk will then probably have to go back into the file cabinet and get the one copy of the certificate that I will present to the vet, fill it out by hand and mail it back to me. This process should take another week and a half.
Once I get the certificate, I will then call the vet, who is currently waiting for my call because I set that up yesterday, and we will make an appointment. (This should take another week.) Then we will take Bear in to be neutered.
So, we're looking at three and a half weeks until we can get Bear neutered.
I'd like to say that I'd be more than willing to spend the obscene amount of money that is being charged in this area to neuter a dog, but I'm not. I think if you are not breeding the dog, it should be fixed and getting that done should be affordable. Without this program in operation in our community, it isn't, which is why the town and I are working at getting it established, even if it takes a little longer to get things done. This way, the next person who adopts a dog from the pound won't have to go through this kind of hassle.
Anyway, the wheels are in motion and we should be able to get things happening soon in that area.
Happy wandering!
The Writer...and her dog, Bear
12 years and still going
8 months ago
6 comments:
Isn't bureaucracy wonderful?
I had some catching up to do; glad to hear you've got a "crate plan." I keep Dex and Ernie's crates side by side so they can keep each other company. They both go in willingly, so I don't feel bad about crating them as necessary.
Just an FYI, I had to crate Ernie consistantly until he was about a year and a half, and now he's fine. Hang in there!
I just love and adore bureaucracy. Not! I am glad you are taking the time to do it for the people that come behind you. The Überhund is not neutered and has his family jewels quite prominently in place. This has never caused a problem and I think it is not required by law, as we got him from the pound this way. Every once in a blue Monday, we run into a female dog in heat, but the Überhund has not caused us any embarrassing moments. I love the way everything dangles around when I walk behind him. It makes him look quite macho, which he isn't at all. He is just an 11 year old Cocker Spaniel who's a bit tired.
That's quite the ordeal to get Bear neutered!
Its amazing what you have to go through sometimes to get the smallest tasks accomplished. Theres way to much red tape in this world.
Hope all works out for you. Without realising it you have become an animal angel for the next family to adopt a dog. This information could be passed on throughout your town and maybe even encourage others to adopt. God bless you and your angelic mission. God bless Bear and all our precious animal gifts of God.
Isn't it a shame that you try to do the right thing by altering a companion animal, and it's almost impossible to get that accomplished? Makes you think about how many people gave up without ever following through. Why does beauracracy make it so hard to be responsible?
My rescue group always did the spay/neuter before the dog left for the new home, and many of our area shelters have gone to the policy where you adopt the dog, then the pound takes the dog to your choice of vet, and you pick up the dog from the vet. The last dog I pulled for rescue, let's see, they gave me a fax number and said I had to fax the neuter receipt to them. No discount, though, but am glad to have a great vet who does a rescue discount for me! Still an ordeal, trying to close the loop on the adoption!
Post a Comment