Grrr-bad shelter!

[winic1]

Poking around on Petfinder, the main website where shelters can list all kinds of pets they have up for adoption.

Shelter a hundred or so miles away has 5 young female degus, four babies, two males listed. Says, "they eat a mix of chincilla food, guinea pig food, and rat blocks" as they tell how they have everything you need for them if you adopt them.

My 9 year old daughter is reading with me, and gets very upset that they are feeding them such wrong stuff. So, we email the place, and do our best to gently tell them that that is not good for degus. They need timothy hay and degu pellets, and be careful what treats and how many. (figure a shelter is not going to go making wild flower mixes. let's just try to get them corrected.)

Degu pellets cost no more than guinea pig pellets here. Can get them at any of the major chain pet stores, or their websites. Easy.

Well...got very huffy reply from shelter today, how people dumped these pregnant degus on their lawn, and degu food is NOT available at their stores and it costs a fortune to order it online and their vet said the other animals' food was fine, and they only buy the finest hay and foods and they can't afford to feed all these animals and so why don't I just (essentiallly shut up and) make a donation to them since they spent $800 in vet bills for these now 16 degus.

I just deleted her email. Figure I tried. Wanted to say, Lady, I did not drop degus on your front lawn. I have not let my degus have or start unwanted litters. I did not cause your vet bills. I am not your problem, and if you want anyone to help you solve your problems, you might not want to be so offensive to them. I have a rescue dog (from a very bad shelter who was not taking proper care, we found out after we took him home, and now still owe the vet another $1000 but he is now healthy and will live), two rescue cats, two degus, two guinea pigs, one hedgehog, and sixteen parakeets (budgies). And if we can make a big enough cage for the degus, we will take in two young males a local shelter has, if they still have them when we finally get it done. I am doing my part for shelter animals.

ggrrrrrrr. Poor degus. Can only imagine the cages they have them in.

[deguconvert]

My goodness!! She was a little huffy alright!! That's too bad! Maybe she will think better of your advice and desire to help in a few days time? One can hope!

[malteser60]

That is horrible to hear winic1! I can't stand it when rescue centres develop a bad atitude like that, where they take it out one everybody and believe that only they suffer! (i.e. vet fees, etc etc) Also when they believe they know it all. Grrr.... that makes me mad. There is always more to learn, about degus in this case and you should always keep an open mind and your thinking hat on.

I mean seriously, don't they know how high in protein rat blocks are! <sigh> if people don't want to listen there's not much you can do really.

Well done for trying to educate them though.