A Response to "An Open Letter to the Person Who Left This Sweet Dog at the Kill Shelter"

Today, I saw this posted at Huffington Post:  "An Open Letter to the Person Who Left This Sweet Dog at the Kill Shelter."  While I understand the Ms. White's feelings, I think perhaps she is judging too quickly and to harshly.

Before I get into it, let me tell you who I am with regard to animals.  I have had many hamsters (14-ish), one rabbit, three turtles, one dog (two if you count partial responsibility for one at Dad's house), and several fish in my lifetime.  I am from a middle class background and have never had a huge amount of money.  I have college loan debt.  I love animals to the extent that I have had two hamsters for whom I paid to have surgery.  One of those hamsters was also treated for rodent lice he picked up in the pet store and was on phenobarbital for his entire lifespan in my care for seizures--a hamster that frequently bit, and when he bit during a seizure could not let go on his own, and I loved him.  I've spent the money to have hamsters who were very ill put to sleep.  My dog had a heart condition, and I spent a lot of money on him because of it, though I had to draw the line at certain chest x-rays that would have cost more than we could afford and did not necessarily have a high probability of helping prolong his already good, long life.  When he was going downhill, I took him to the vet.  I watched them give him his last meal.  I held him while my husband and young daughter came to say goodbye.  I held him and told him how much I loved him and said my goodbyes and continued petting him as they administered the medicine to stop his heart.  I know animals, and I love them, and they are part of the family.

Back to the Huff Post article.  First off, I applaud Ms. White for taking in this dog and taking such good care of it.  Thanks to her, Cocoa got the end of life she deserved.  That being said, I think Ms. White needs to take the time to think about what might have led to a family to give their dog up to animal control.  She says that the intake sheet said the family was moving to a no pets apartment and had limited means:

"Because the people at Animal Control gave me Cocoa's intake sheet. You know, the one you filled out. The one that said Cocoa was 12 years old and you'd had her all those years. The one that said you were moving to a pet-free apartment and couldn't take your faithful companion of 12 years. You know, the one that you said was a "sweet old girl -- a wonderful companion." The one that said you had limited funds."

Ms. White takes this information and decides that these people are simply cold-hearted.  How does she know?  Does she wonder if they are moving to that apartment because they have lost employment and are under or unemployed?  Does it occur to her that their hearts may have been breaking when they did this?  That they may have felt they had no other choice?  When you take on a pet, of course you expect to be able to care for it no matter what.  However, unforeseen circumstances can change all of that, especially in an economy like ours today.

The author adopted this dog and found she was very ill--she was incontinent; she had pancreatitis, and she had cancer.  (I believe this was not found out where she got the dog because it was Animal Control rather than an actual shelter.)  The Humane Society definitely does (more on that later).  She belittles the family for not paying for the medications and the special dog food and for not having the dog euthanized.  She ASSUMES they knew how bad the dog was.  I agree that if they knew how sick Cocoa was, it would have been best for them to euthanize her and have her die in their arms.  But does it ever occur to Ms. White that maybe they didn't know what medical conditions she had because they couldn't take her to the vet because they were having to penny pinch because of unemployment or other dire financial circumstances?  No, she doesn't.  She just judges without any compassion or thought about what the other family may have been going through.  She doesn't give them the benefit of the doubt.  

At one point, she says, "What upset me so much is that you couldn't be bothered to drive the extra 20 minutes to take her to the Humane Society, a no-kill shelter."  This surprised me greatly since all of the chapters of the Humane Society I'm familiar with would have euthanized this dog.  I checked into Humane Society websites from several states, including Minnesota and Arizona, and found that they do medical exams of incoming dogs and they do euthanize those who are extremely sick.  So, unless her local Humane Society runs very differently, she's very much mistaken about it being a "no-kill" shelter.

So, in short, my message to Ms. White is this:  don't assume you understand other people's circumstances because of a short intake questionnaire.  Learn to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Survey Makers: Get a Clue

I don't know about you, but I take Internet surveys on a regular basis.  Yougov.com allows you to trade in points for goods or gift cards.  E-rewards.com allows you to add money to your Upromise account (kids' college savings--yay!).  And e-miles.com allows you to earn airline miles so you don't have to keep shopping to keep your miles active (I can't say I've been flying as much as before kids, but I want to keep them active).  I don't mind taking these surveys.  They can provide useful information to companies and government.  However, when they are poorly thought out/written, the data they gather isn't going to be that useful.  I suspect the people writing these surveys are just too homogeneous a group to think outside their box.  Maybe, they'll stumble upon this and learn a little more about their survey takers.  Or maybe not.  At any rate, yougov.com does the best job on their surveys BECAUSE they allow you to evaluate the survey at the end, including a comment section, and they frequently will allow you to leave an item blank.  But anyway, onto the problems.

In my experience, there are a few areas where survey developers frequently fail.  The number one thing is early in the survey:  they show their sexism.  Seriously.  At least 90% (probably closer to 95%) of the surveys I see list "male" before "female."  You would think they would try to make questions neutral, such as doing things alphabetically (which they frequently do on race questions, though a few years ago they weren't as good about it).  In that case, it would be the opposite or they could use man and woman alphabetically.  Another neutral way to do it would to make it randomly alternate with each survey you develop.  But if they were doing it this way, about 50% of the surveys should list male before female.  If you want to do it by adult population (which should be those taking the surveys), the last census data I looked at showed that there is a slightly higher percentage of females living in the U.S., where most of the surveys are based, so again, "female" should come first if you're going to base it on a neutral way.  Instead, they base it on what comes to their mind first:  men.  It's sexist.  Find a better way to do it.

The other big thing is they often don't have an option for "don't know" or "none of the above."  Usually, survey developers aren't so perfect as to think of every possible answer.  They should acknowledge this by giving an "out" option.  Especially when they just asked a question to which your answer said that the next question clearly wouldn't apply to the first.  Also, they rarely seem to acknowledge that some questions just aren't applicable to everyone.  Not everyone has a favorite sports team.  Some people hate all sports.  Give people the option to be honest.

Which leads to the problem of inconsistency within the survey.  If a person just told you they don't have _____, and your next question is about their _____, then you need to either have a "doesn't apply" option or to program your survey to skip that question.  Most of these surveys do not allow you to move on until you've answered.  So, unless you want people to just insert random answers, you should have a way to answer the question if it doesn't apply. 

Another problem:  poorly worded questions.  I've had some of the vaguest questions asked of me in surveys.  Often, context would change my answer.  So when you ask me a vague question and don't even give me a "not sure" or similar answer, my answer will either give you inaccurate data or I will quit your survey, depending on how strongly I feel or on how aggravating your survey has been.

Meandering Thoughts on Entertainment

So, I was blogging in my head in the shower again.  And as usual, my thoughts went all over the place.  I believe it all started with watching The Avengers with my son today.  He asked who the "guy" was that was talking with Loki.  So, I had to go to IMDB.com to figure it out.  And there, right next to the character name "The Other," is "Alexis Denisof."  The Buffy/Angel fan girl in me was all "OMG."  Of course, I should have expected something like this from Joss Whedon.  He tends to enjoy bringing in actors he's worked with before (as do many in Hollywood).

Later, as I was getting ready for bed and such, my thoughts wandered to another actor from Buffy:  Nicholas Brendon.  A short while back, I rented Kitchen Confidential from Netflix.  The star was Bradley Cooper from Alias, and getting NB was a side bonus.  I really wanted to love it but figured that if it was truly lovable, it probably would have lasted more than one season.  I was right.  It wasn't lovable, but I did enjoy it.  It had some fun moments, including a guest star spot for Michael Vartan who was on Alias with Cooper.  Yeah, that was probably a publicity stunt.  It was mid-season on a flailing show.  But it was still kind of fun to see them together, even if both of their characters were very big caricatures.  I'm actually pretty sure that's why the series failed.  There was very little depth in the characters.

This led me to thinking about Arrested Development.  The characters there aren't very deep either, but they're extremely quirky.  Quirky makes the lack of depth tolerable and even funny.  That's why they built a strong fan base that allowed them to last more seasons and come back through Netflix after they were cancelled.  However, I did not stick with them when they were on network TV.  Why?  Because once my kids were born, I had a hard time keeping up with much of anything on TV.  When I found out Netflix had new episodes, I couldn't remember where I left off so I started with Season 2.  Eventually, I'll be caught up and watching new episodes with the rest of the world.

This, of course, led me to thinking about the silly lawsuit the band Arrested Development brought against the show, saying they were infringing on the name.  I liked the band in college, but the lawsuit irritated me.  Anyone familiar with psychology knows it's a psychology term, and to say anyone has sole use of the name is silly, IMO.  They settled the lawsuit, but I'm sure that was more about not wanting to prolong the proceedings than any admission of anything.

And what does all of this have to do with anything?  Nothing, really.  Like Seinfeld, it is solely for entertainment purposes.  Thank you for bothering to read it, and I hope you have a nice day.