SPCA/Animal welfare workers of Reddit, what is your worst story from the job?

More than five dozen dogs, from puppies to nursing mothers, were dumped at a rural intersection, and discovered by neighbors the next morning. They were covered in urine and feces, full of worms and sores, malnourished, and suffering with illness and eye infections. They were all the same breed, which pointed to a backyard breeder abandoning the animals when they started getting sick. I've handled a lot of scared animals, but these dogs were terrified of humans. They'd never been taken care of before. It was one of the most cruel things I've ever seen, and the breeder was never identified.

That's in addition to people dumping dogs over our fence in the middle of the night, ditching them in the parking lot, or outright threatening to kill the animal if we didn't take it. I once had a man call after reading a profile we'd printed about a long-term guest, a neutered Blue Heeler that needed an experienced owner. This man wanted to let us know he'd trained a dog of this breed before, and he'd found an electric flyswatter worked really well. I told him something about using it on his own face, which got me a lecture from the Executive Director, but it was worth it.

/r/AskReddit Thread