The Reality of “Shelter to Helper”

trainingfaith:

Pulling dogs from shelters and training them for service work is a very noble thing to do. I wish it were something I could recommend to every prospective handler. Truly, I think there is nothing better than being able to save both the life of a dog and the life of a handler at the same time. However, it isn’t for everyone… and here’s why.

Yesterday, an apprentice trainer and I drove almost 100 miles to visit 3 shelters. We saw over 40 dogs. We took into account things like age, history, if they were dog/cat/kid friendly, and how they reacted to us coming to visit. That’s when we narrowed it down to just 15 dogs. All 15 were given a very thorough and honest evaluation. They were scored on baseline temperament, touch sensitivity, noise sensitivity, willingness to retrieve, trainability, prey drive, distractibility, excitability, attachment/attention seeking, scent drive, and overall work drive.

Want to know how many passed?  One dog. 

And even then, it’s a dog who will take a LOT of work. I’m only about 75% confident he’ll make it through training. If he does, he will never be able to be placed with an inexperienced handler. It left me wondering… is it worth the risk? Is it worth all the time, funds, and resources to try and train him for the next two years knowing he has a lower chance of finishing?

I will continue to drive around the state evaluating dogs because that is what I do. If I can help a shelter dog, believe me, I will. However, only about 1-2% of shelter dogs actually have what it takes to make it through service training. 

So… if you are owner training a dog… think very hard. Do you have the patience to evaluate 50-100 dogs before finding the one? Furthermore, is it honestly worth that giant risk of “the one” washing out? If it is, all power to you. You’re doing an amazing thing. However, if you don’t have the patience and/or it’s not worth the risk, know that IT’S OKAY. Nobody is going to judge you for going through a responsible breeder where approximately 40-50% of puppies make it through training.

snaxattacks:

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c1qfxugcgy0:

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Ha ha, no, of course not.

Yahoo is a notorious repeat offender. Yahoo is the reason the “if you’re not paying money for a service, then you’re not a customer, you’re the product.” saying exists.

Here is some fully general advice: If you’re the user of a free-to-use website, and you learn that it’s being bought by a large company, then this is always, and forever, bad news. If it’s not an acquihire, then it’s something worse. You’re not a customer, you’re the product.

If we’re lucky, this will be a Livejournal-style buyout, where the site just gradually disintegrates over the course of several years. If we’re unlucky, then it’ll be a Posterous-style buyout, and Tumblr will be shut down when Yahoo goes bankrupt in six months. It is vanishingly unlikely that being owned by Yahoo will benefit Tumblr users at all.

Predictions:

  1. More ads. Karp has a weirdly principled dislike of ads, for a guy running a free social network. Marissa Mayer is unencumbered by morals, here. If you spend a billion dollars on something, you’re gonna want a return on income.
  2. NSFW content is probably going to be banned, or heavily restricted. (As in, “verify your age by giving us a credit card number”) Ad networks hate and fear porn, and Yahoo is going to run more ads. No other Yahoo property allows NSFW content, for precisely this reason.
  3. They might try to restrict fan content, due to copyright/CP concerns, as Livejournal did; they might not.
  4. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria!

I called it, five years in advance.

The prophecy was right there and we all ignored it.

deebott:

@staff all you busted faced bitches had to do was get rid of the pedophiles and child porn. All you had to do was listen to the fucking users. Get rid of the Nazis and pedophiles who are often times the same fucking thing. But instead you crusty cunt hoes made nipples illegal….. Y’all can choke.