Anyone who has seen the recent newscast about Finnigan, knows he has since passed away. When I saw the newscast I didn't realize that I knew Finnigan, even before his rescue. I used to see him as I drove around town, he lived in my area that i worked, I recognized the house and the dog standing there. I always looked closely because he was a chained dog and he was matted and obviously never groomed. But he had access to the porch and his chain was attached to a pulley so he could actually move. Did Finnigan have a good home? No, frankly he had one that sucked. But it met all the standards that our pitiful laws require,and still I am really glad he was rescued off that chain. I actually met Finnigan in person after his rescue, he was incontinent of both bowel and bladder and this was an issue for his foster home. His rescuers were unable to find him another with his incontinence issues so Finnigan came out to saints. We named him Begin Again Finnigan (i can't remember what his name was when he arrived, i think it was "prince"). Anyway, his incontinence was related to a couple of things, neurolgical disease in his spine (probably end stage hip dysplagia or an arthritc spine, but he wasn;t here long enough for us to look further) plus a raging bladder infection. we started him on pain meds and anti inflamatories and with the decreased inflamation and pain control, he soon regained control of his bowels. Antibiotics fixed up his urinary incontinece and when he began to go after the cats (cuz geez now finnigan was feeling a heck of alot better and able to get into trouble), we returned him to his original rescuers who now were able to find cat free fosters for a continent dog. Last time i heard, he was doing really well and I hoped for a fairy tale ending. But sadly in life, it doesn't always happen and it sounds like his neurolgical disease progressed even further and his pain was unable to be controlled. I was sad to hear that Finnigan died the other day.
BUT...i am not all that happy to see him on the news in this way and would like to say a few things. If we want dogs off chains who are barely surviving while suffering from mankinds neglect, then we better change the laws. Because despite all the claims and blame of the SPCA"S neglect and their own stupid admission of Finnigans falling thru the cracks....that dog suffered because you and i let our laws stay as they are, "food, water, shelter" that's what our laws require and none of them have to be all that good, just there. you cannot enforce laws that do not exist and the SPCA can't either. So could we please quit using the sad life of a dog to beat up the SPCA. if we are going to exploit him, lets do it with purpose and go after the laws that allowed his owners to treat him that way. This is really none of my business since i returned Finnigan when he couldn't fit in here but I cannot stand by while the waters get muddied by a heartwrenching one sided media compaign. It is such a waste of time and resources to be systemactically destroying the credibility of the SPCA when no one has any idea if they can do the job well or not because they don't have the laws to enforce to find out. CHANGE THE LAWS...that is how you make the SPCA to do the job that we expect them to do. And please, if the SPCA spent as much time lobbying for actual law changes as they do in the media doing damage control we might actually make some progress with their help too.
Rest in peace Finnigan, your life and your death were probably truly in vain because we can't stop fighting and arguing and blaming and defending and offering excuses long enough to fix a god damn thing. a spade is a spade even if we pretend its a club and someone else's fault that it's now percieved as a club, but honestly folks, it really is still just a spade....
and that's my dangerous venture into the political arena for this year at least.
Thank you for that write up, when I saw the news heading, it made me feel aweful I volunteer for the SPCA, when I can, and was looking for answers and you just gave it to me and made me understand why I volunteer THANK YOU . Your right ppl are way to quick to point the finger at the SPCA. They should be using that energy to help make the laws stronger. Thanks for the link to the petition, it will be passed around.
My heart goes out to Finigin and all the mistreated.