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“Have you ever owned a dog?” It was one of the many questions I got from the animal charity’s form for prospective pet owners, and I resolved not to lie.
“No,” I answered, but I think it was the wrong answer, and another nail in the coffin in my quest to find a pet dog.
It seems I can’t even get a foot in the door.
My first visit was to a respected animal shelter, where I was interrogated.
“Yes I own a house, have a yard and high fence,” I told an unfriendly staff member.
“How big is the yard?” she asked. “There are two yards, front and back,” I said. “They’re not pocket-sized but they’re not huge.
“They’re perfect for a medium to large dog, which is the type of dog I want.”
The staffer only heard the words “not huge”.
“Well then, you’ll be looking for a small dog,” she said, as a statement. “No,” I replied. “I’m not.”
I reiterated that the types of dogs I’ve dreamed of owning, including mixed breeds, have been medium-sized.
She indicated that those breeds need families, with big yards and someone always home.
“Don’t plenty of single people live in much smaller houses than me, and flats, and own all sizes of dogs that are perfectly happy?”
It was no use. She wouldn’t budge. Those were the rules.
At another shelter, three staffers stood taking notes, watching me interact with a dog. I felt like I was on a reality TV show, about to be evicted.
Most adoption places email you a barrage of questions that make you question your life achievements, like, “How many people live in your house?”
They set impossibly high bars. Their ideal seems to be to have a five-member family, constantly entertaining Fido.
Another doozy is their question, “Describe how you’d interact with the dog each day.”
I’d write, “I am sorry, but I wouldn’t plan what to do with the dog to that degree. It would vary.” It was too honest, again, and insufficient to satisfy the boffins who decide who gets a dog.
And I’d never hear from that shelter again.
I find that there’s never space on their forms for me to write how any dog I owned would be well-loved. How it would have free run of the house (and decent-sized yards!), be walked regularly, fed well, and have the best veterinary care.
Whenever I see that “have you ever owned dog” question, my heart sinks. I type “no” – but it’s not the whole story. Again, there’s no room for nuance in these adoption forms.
Various life situations meant I hadn’t owned a dog, but I’ve been around dogs my whole life. My auntie owned a beautiful golden retriever called Ocker. A neighbour owned a sweet corgi called Sugar. I once, deftly and calmly, helped a friend round up and leash her great dane, who had escaped her house.
No, I’ve never owned a dog, but sometimes people with big yards, and nuclear families, have owned five dogs – and have been cruel to them all.
Shouldn’t the main criteria in assessing a dog owner be finding someone responsible, who loves dogs? And not whether they have a (perceived) idyllic family, home and lifestyle?
What happens to the dogs that they won’t let me adopt because they don’t find the perfect dog-owner on paper? Are they euthanised?
When I adopted a cat from an animal shelter years ago, I chose a kitten I liked, paid a fee, answered some non-judgmental but smart questions from volunteers about my fitness to care for a pet, and off we went. Toby lived like a cat king and died of natural causes at age 13.
I now wonder whether I’ll ever own a dog. Yes, I could go to dog breeder instead. But it’s much more expensive, and I don’t want to raise a puppy. I’m after an adult dog.
It seems I’ve fallen short of the so-called ideal for dog shelters. I beg to differ. I reckon I’d be a very good dog owner. But not good enough for some, apparently.
Carolyn Webb is a senior writer for The Age.
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