Good read for rescues!

That's a really good article, Sharyn.  Thanks!

Very interesting... and very true. Thank you

Yeah, this might be worth pinning... what do you think Dani?

The most telling quote of all: Imagine you are captive in a place you do not know with people you cannot communicate with. Imagine how horrifying that could be.

That is what you must remember when you adopt any creature, whether it's a parrot or a puppy or a goldfish. Once you think of it in those terms, you will have a whole different approach. I know that Rocky, for example, had a very troubled past and suffered a lot of abuse. He had no idea when he arrived in our home what he would face and he acted and reacted accordingly. Because we only know sketchy details, we pushed buttons a lot without meaning to. It takes time and mountains of patience, both on your part and on the animal's, to build a trusting relationship and to get past the inherent distrust and even hostility that a rehomed animal will have until he/she knows you are not like the people in the past who hurt or rejected or abused or neglected him. You have to EARN that trust and sometimes you have to earn it over and over again. They never forget but the memories will fade a bit with time and with proof that this home is not like the others before. With most of our other critters, the homes they were in might not have been ideal, or in Ringo's case, she was a wild bird rescued from certain death and had known nothing but kind, if indifferent, treatment. Nobody expected to make her a lifelong part of their household; they intended to release her and it didn't work. Jade was locked in a cage, but she was fed and taken care of. Freddie was with a breeder and Benjy in a pet shop and not loved and pampered, but again, I don't think anyone deliberately mistreated either of them. They were just a commodity to them. Johnny and Maggie belonged to people who loved them but could no longer keep them.

But Rocky was deliberately mistreated and abused by people who found it amusing to do so. And if I ever get my hands on those people, it won't be pretty. So with Rocky, we have to constantly reassure him that those days are behind him, that we are not like that. I think he's beginning to get it, and then I do something entirely innocent (give him a basket to tear up, or offer a bite of food that looks like something that scared him in the past) and we lose some ground. Each time, we gain it back a little more easily, but it's a daily, constant thing and it may take a very long time to complete this process, if we ever do.

I am perfectly capable of violence if the situation warrants and that is one of the situations that warrants it in my book. I actually know one of the people who abused Rocky, only slightly and rarely see him, but I can tell you he's going to get a piece of my mind next time I do see him. I didn't know he had once had Rocky until last weekend, or what he'd done to him, or he'd already have a piece of my mind.

I recommend tar and feathers-- and I, and I think most of us here, would be glad to supply the latter from our accumulations of molted feathers. Anyone who mistreats animals deserves at least a good dressing-down, and maybe a little public humiliation too.

I'm more in favor of some of the things I've read the Apaches did to their enemies. They were creative, those Apaches. They cut off people's eyelids and staked them faceup in the bright sun. They poured honey on them and tied them up next to anthills. Or the famous draw-and-quarter punishment where you tie the arms and legs to four different horses and send them in four different directions.