Brought to you by the Shelter Pet Project, which has an amazingly creative site, featuring the dog in this video as spokesdog. This may be the funniest one in the adoption series  — as opposed to the spay/neuter series — so far, though the practice it depicts is awful and all too common. What do you think?

22 thoughts on “Pet Adoption Videos That Don’t Make Me Want To Kill Myself, #6”

  1. I think it’s important to start education YOUNG on every topic, including animal welfare. There’s a wonderful series of books from Scholastic called The Puppy Place, written by Ellen, about a family that fosters dogs for adoption. The book <iChewy and Chica is specifically about puppy mills. I can personally attest that my three girls LOVE these books. Even though they’re aimed for children in grades 2-4, my 13-year-old in grade 7 insists on reading each new book that comes out. So if you’re looking for a little gift for a child, and want some slip in some subliminal education on animal welfare issues, I highly recommend this series!

    1. Thanks for this information, Lori. Sounds like a great series. And thank you for adding the name of the author in your other comment–we authors appreciate that! 😉

  2. An elderly dog was found out in “the bush” here recently – too old and isolated to be “lost”. Some jackass probably abandoned him to die cold and terrified. Fortunately, a human with compassion found him and took him home. Sometimes I dispair of the human race.

    1. That’s disgusting. Maybe that’s why this video is so satisfying to me, because it’s such a revenge fantasy. I was thinking it would have been even better if the dog had peed on Randy’s wallet.

      1. Oh yeah, peeing on the wallet would have been perfect. Or we could mix the adoption and neutering messages and sign Randy up to be neutered. If this is the way he treats his dog, he’s definitely not the kind of guy we want reproducing.

  3. True, the video did not want to make me kill myself either. But, that people dispose of their dogs that ways makes me physically ill. So, while I don’t want to drive over a cliff, I do think I need a brown paper bag.

    But, then maybe that’s partly the point of the ad.

    1. Good point, Deborah. The video does bring to mind the fact that such losers exist, which makes me feel ill too. But I guess the notion that there’s a karmic “reward” for those guys — and that people shouldn’t judge dogs by their owners, which I think many do — compensates for me.

  4. I’ve actually seen this commercial on TV several times. I think it is well done and has an important message but it still brings tears to my eyes and makes me really sad.

    1. Thanks for the information, Sheryl. And for the feedback. Clearly for many viewers the situation itself, rather than the dog overcoming it, is the more powerful message. It didn’t work that way for me, but I can certainly see that.

  5. I loved this video despite my normal aversion to talking dogs. And I think the dog didn’t pee on the wallet because he’s obviously of a much higher character than Randy. He didn’t want to stoop to that level.

    But seriously, I think this is good education. Many people who don’t volunteer or work at shelters have no idea why many dogs end up there. It often has absolutely nothing to do with the dog.

    And not all people whose pets end up in shelters are jerks either. The story we heard about Shadow when we adopted her was that her person needed a kidney transplant and her doctor told her to get rid of the dog because of her compromised immune system. This family was obviously under a lot of stress but they drove over an hour from their home and passed 3 other shelters to get to our no-kill shelter with an excellent adoption program.

    Shadow may not have had a perfect life but I believe she was loved before ending up at the SPCA.

    1. Ha — I don’t generally like talking dogs either! And I am particularly creeped out by dogs with human hands doing human things. So you won’t see any of those here.

      You’re right of course about the fact that many dogs end up at shelters because of things that have little to do with human idiocy. Health and financial reasons play a big role. But I’d love to get some stats — or even impressionistic data — about reasons that pets are surrendered. I know in the case of dogs it’s often behavior issues — or I should say perceived behavior issues, people thinking that growling, say, means a dog is dangerous.
      If any shelter workers would care to weigh in here…

    1. Those ARE fun — thanks! Is today Spay/Neuter Day? How did I miss that? Hmmm, I might have to dip into my video reserve.

  6. Aside from the mouth-moving creep factor, I really like it! Thanks for looking so hard for all these videos. It’s such an awesome project and it has helped me notice the more positive ads for other causes as well. In my opinion, they are all much more effective than the usual slit-your-wrist propaganda. I will have to share this!

    1. I’m glad you’re enjoying these. The research is fun for me — too much fun, in fact. Way too often, I find myself checking out “just one more” video instead of working.

  7. I’m laughing at the talking dog comments 😀 My hubs, Sean, has had to work on animating commercials like that before. It’s very hard to get the mouth to look “natural” Anyways, great find and thanks for sharing!

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