Practically Speaking

Kyle,

Please consider the Elmbrook Humane Society for all your future pet needs. The executive director, Holly Houston, is a kind and caring person.

Kyle,

Please consider Elmbrook Humane Society, in Brookfield,  when adopting a pet. It is basically a no-kill shelter, and the executive director , Holly Houston, is a kind and caring person who has paid for many an animal to be saved.

EBHS has also raided Amish puppy mills, and has been featured on Channel 4 (WTMJ-TV)

The staff is also very helpful  and caring.

Kyle's reply: I am sure the Elmbrook Humane Society does have caring people working there, but at risk of sounding like the Scrooge or something worse, a no-kill shelter is not necessarily always the best fit for every prospective pet owner. Sadly, some dogs are just not suitable for adoption.

We actually had 2 very terrible experiences adopting dogs before Zipper. The first was Willie, an adorable 6 year old Silky-Yorkie mix. He came from the Waukesha Humane Society. They told us a family surrendered him. We could not figure out why...until about 3 weeks later. The longer he was in our home, the more aggressive he became. We called him the wife beater--charming to strangers, awful to us.

After 6 weeks, his aggression became so bad that he growled all the time and snapped at my son. He then growled and bit my husband's hand (broke the skin resulting in bleeding injury.) We called the shelter and they told us to bring him in, not knowing that they required him to be put down. Everyone was in tears and wanted to return to take Willie back, but I said there was no way we could have a dog we had to worry about biting and disfiguring us or other neighborhood children.

We later found out some information from Willie's file on that they really should have disclosed to us--it may have helped us know what we were in for. Possibly, and this was a long shot, with proper handling, we could have controlled our little Hitler and trained him. (I knew nothing of dogs, but my husband had several growing up.) 

We then adopted a Westie from a rescue organization in Aurora, IL. That dog probably was a puppy mill producer. She was a bad fit too. Here the dog was supposed to be for my son, and she hated men! She followed me around devotedly and would growl and snarl at my husband and son. I never trusted her when children were around. We worked with an animal trainer from Waukesha who gave us good tips on how to work with this new dog. The trainer also told us that from what we described, Willie was pretty much hopeless--even for a trained professional. That Westie went back before there was any incident of biting, only because we were careful.

Then came Zipper. He was a joy from the start. Never any aggression issues. He is not perfect, mind you. The first thing he did when he entered our home was to lift his leg on my refrigerator! He also chews blankets. We joke that is better than chewing us!

My heart goes out to these animals, but our experiences were painful, not to mention expensive. Bottom line, know what you are getting into. Ask to see the surrender file and for the shelter to disclose anything you should need to know. 

I did meet a very charming, cute Bichon who came from the Elmbrook Humane Society. He is now a therapy dog at Fairview Senior Living homes in Brookfield. He is cute and friendly. So Elmbrook Humane Society, I am sure, has made many pet owners happy.

If I were ever to get another dog, I would get it from a shelter instead of a breeder. (You can get a bad dog from breeders too.) Most shelters will let you fill in a request form for specific dog breeds.