Anger as family surrenders two dogs, tells shelter: “euthanize them”

Animal lovers have been left horrified by a shelter’s heartbreaking story of two dogs surrendered to their care.

The Hearts for Paws shelter, a foster-based rescue service in California, began the story in May of this year, when it shared a clip of a young chocolate Labrador retriever, Godric, adding he had been “surrendered with request to euthanize.”

The shelter wrote on its Instagram page, @heartsforpawsrescue, that Godric had been given up by his family after biting their baby, who had “crawled into his food bowl.” In the video, the shelter showed Godric playing and cuddling with staff members, saying he was “as sweet as he looked” and “it was hard to believe his family wanted him euthanized.”

However, there was another twist, as Godric seemed to recognize another dog in the shelter’s care, with the clip showing him sniffing and wagging his tail at another, older canine through a fence.

“What we didn’t know when we filmed this moment was this dog also came from the same family. Dropped at the shelter a month prior,” the shelter wrote. “Also requesting euthanasia.”

Hearts for Paws then introduced Sadie, a 6-year-old Plott hound who had “reportedly growled at the 8-month-old baby.”

“Instead of looking to rehome, or even just surrender, they asked the shelter to kill them both,” the staff member wrote on the video, They added that, while “no one wants a baby getting hurt,” they didn’t witness any behavioral issues with either of the dogs since they have been in their care, and that both “deserve a second chance.”

At this point, Godric had been at the shelter for two weeks, and Sadie for two months, and the staff members pleaded for any potential adopters to get in touch.

Instagram users were horrified, with one user writing: “I volunteer at a shelter and the amount of dogs surrendered for being ‘aggressive’ and then they turn out to be the sweetest. People are the problem, we are able to re-home them all to a family that deserves them!”

“Some of us want our dogs to live forever while others take them to the shelter to be euthanized, we are not the same,” another posted.

Weeks later, the shelter provided an update: Godric had been taken in by a foster-to-adopt program, but Sadie was still waiting for her forever home. And in July, the shelter revealed Sadie was still there—and she later became its longest resident.

In an update, the shelter wrote: “She is a great dog [and] there is no reason she can’t be adopted!”

Describing her as good with other dogs and people, the shelter wrote that Sadie has “spent the last five months in a cafe, waiting [and] hoping for a real family this time.”

In the initial post, the shelter wrote that both dogs would do best in homes without children.

And in a comment, weeks after that, the shelter added that Sadie had been sent to Miranda’s Rescue, an outdoor animal rescue in California, “meaning she is still in a kennel environment and still looking for a home.”

Sadie isn’t alone: each year, approximately 2.1 million animals enter shelters across the United States, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).

Newsweek has contacted Hearts for Paws Rescue and Miranda’s Rescue for comment on this story.

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