Have a heart. Don’t dump your senior dog at a shelter.

We save dogs, so we are writing about dogs. But this plea applies to all animals.

Many of the dogs Shamrock rescues are seniors. Dogs generally are referred to as seniors around 7 to 9 years of age, but at Shamrock we save a lot of dogs whose ages come in double digits. We save these dogs because, in most cases, their owners let them down.

Maybe you’ve seen some of the videos on social media: An older dog is brought to a shelter and, when the owner who is turning her in is asked why, the owner replies, “She’s old. She doesn’t do anything anymore. She’s sick. We can’t afford her medical bills.” Tugs at your heart, doesn’t it?

Sadly, it’s not an unusual situation. Every day, dogs who have given their lives to their people – who have loved them, guarded them, played with them and kept them company – are relinquished to shelters because they’re “too old.”

When you obtain a dog, however you obtain it, you are obtaining that dog for life. You are making a commitment to care for that dog to the best of your ability until he or she dies. You are not committing to care until “we don’t want to anymore,” or until “it’s too much trouble.” Your dog depends on you for his or her health, well-being and protection. Those are lifetime promises you make when you bring your dog into your home.

Yet, too many people renege on those promises. They take their old, often sick, sometimes injured, sometimes nearly-at-death’s-door dogs to a shelter and fool themselves that “He’ll find a home.” Sadly, that’s highly unlikely. Our oldsters often have a hard time finding homes precisely because of their age. “I can’t take a dog I’ll only have for a few years,” many people say. “I just can’t lose a pet that soon.”

We understand this. In a perfect world, this would never be something rescues had to worry about. All dogs would be loved and cared for until they passed. But we don’t live in a perfect world. And neither do our dogs. And they are the ones who too often pay the price.

If you obtain a dog, or if you already have one, please don’t take him or her to a shelter when the end is near. We understand that it can be hard to say goodbye, and sometimes turning a dog over to a shelter can help you avoid that pain.

But that’s not fair. It’s not at all fair to the dog who has loved you for years. It’s not a fair way to reward loyalty and love. Your dog would rather say goodbye with you present than in a strange place with strangers trying to do their best to ease the process.

It’s easy to blame the shelters. “Cold-hearted killers.” “They don’t care.” “They have no compassion.” These statements and many more – many far worse in nature – have been tossed about because shelters euthanize. They euthanize not because the people who work there are cold-hearted or don’t care. They do it because too many owners don’t care enough to do the right thing by their pets. They dump them and move on. But for the dogs, often there is no moving on.

Please don’t be a part of this problem. Please be part of a solution. Love your animals. For their entire lives.