Chip Chick
“I know you can’t judge fitness by looks, but I’ve never met someone her size fit enough to run 2+ hours a day with a hyperactive dog or chase him when he jumps the fence.”
This woman was very interested in adopting Rocky, so he proceeded to ask her all of the standard questions they require answers to in order to take home one of their dogs.
He did say that her responses all seemed to indicate that she might be a good fit for Rocky, but still, he couldn’t get past her weight.
“But I couldn’t shake the uneasiness,” he continued. “I asked about her activity level, and she said she had an “active lifestyle” but didn’t elaborate. “Active lifestyle” has many meanings nowadays.”
“I learned after having this job for a while that you have to go with your gut and prioritize animals over peoples’ feelings.”
“As excited as this woman was about Rocky, I saw him going home with her, getting little to no exercise, trashing a couch or two, and then being taken back here, or worse, to a kill shelter. I’d rather he spend a few more months here with staff who can meet his needs and wait for a better home.”
He informed this woman that she could not adopt Rocky, and he mentioned that a cat might be a nice fit for her instead.
This woman instantly got angry with him, as she knew that he was declining to let her adopt Rocky because of her weight.
After she got so upset, he paused to think that maybe he had done the wrong thing in not letting her take Rocky home.
Later on, his boss did admit that he also would have turned this woman down as Rocky’s potential new mom.
“Now, apparently, the woman I turned away has a large social media following, and she’s been talking crap about the shelter, calling us fatphobic, and urging followers to post bad reviews of us and not to donate to us,” he added.
