There is a shitload of miserable people out there. There is also a shitload of crazies. It’s been a long time since I interacted with one, and because of this miserable crazy person, my family was impacted. I hope this post finds its way to both the miserable bitch we dealt with last weekend and to the company that uses her as a volunteer, called the Southwest Oasis Lab Rescue (SOLR).
You see, we have been trying to find a dog to adopt. Mutual friends, who adopted two dogs from this company, recommended SOLR. We contacted them and a week later they sent a volunteer to our house to check it, check us and ensure we were qualified to adopt a dog. Turns out the person they sent was a long-time acquaintance, as we have raced together and volunteered together for a non-profit triathlon team for years. She signed us off and the following day we had access to look and inquire about dogs on their website.
The first dog we acquired about we liked and made plans to visit in Tucson. Getting a funny feeling from the foster family, we asked if they still wanting to adopt the dog out because they sounded very attached to it. 12 hours before we were scheduled to make the two hours drive, and after cancelling other plans we had for that Saturday, we were called, and they decided to keep the dog.
One of the employees reached out to us after they had heard what had happened and pointed us in the direction of another of their dogs they thought was a good fit. We agreed and contacted the foster family. After going back and forth over text messages for several, we set up the foster to come to our house with the dog. She arrived the following Saturday and was at our house for about an hour. During that time we determined the dog was super chill, had no behavioral issues, no aggressions issue, was house broken and seems to have been trained well. My wife and foster woman also hit it off. They are both named Kristen. Both are nurses. And both had a history with Marquette University. Crazy.
SOLR has a 24-hour rule. Once you meet the dog the foster will not allow you to adopt it for 24 hours. We contacted the foster later that afternoon and told her we were seriously considering the dog. After talking about it and discussing the dog with our family, we ultimately determined the dog would do better in a slower paced house and that our family would do better with a more energetic dog. Later that night my wife sent a text to the foster saying exactly that. We got a nice message back and that evening from her.
At roughly 3pm the following day, we received the following email from SOLR:
From: Southwest Oasis Lab Rescue <solr.appreview@gmail.com>
Date: January 16, 2023 at 3:51:01 PM MST
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Southwest Oasis Lab Rescue Application
Hi Kristen,
Upon further review of your application, home visit, and what you’ve told our fosters, we regret to inform you that we can no longer approve your application.
What you are seeking is unrealistic with owning a dog, especially a rescue dog. There is a high risk of return if we adopted a dog to you, as it would almost certainly not meet your behavioral expectations (i.e., no getting on furniture, no chewing, no barking, going potty in a very specific portion of the yard, etc.).
We will refund your application fee.
Best,
Southwest Oasis Lab Rescue
Application Review Team
We were like, what the actual fuck, and immediately my wife reached out to our friend within the organization and asked her to investigate what had a happened. Our friend did, went to bat for us and voiced her displeasure about the whole situation. Nothing but HUGE props for her and her help, including all the text messaging with my wife to calm her down.
Long story short after we spoke with one of the main people at SOLR later that evening, the bitch who was the foster and came to our house (yes, sweetheart, you are a giant bitch) flat out lied about her interaction with us, the questions we asked and her time with us. According to the information provided to us by SOLR, very early the next morning the foster woman wrote a note to the organization stating that she refused to adopt the dog to us and provided several bullet points why. Here is some of what she reported.
One, she wrote that we demanded the dog only “potty in a very specific portion of the yard”. Here was the actual discussion. We are in the middle of redoing our back yard. One thing we had discussed was taking the unused side of our yard and creating a dog run. With it the landscapers would use special artificial turf on an area for the dog to use to go to the bathroom. It would be rather expensive. We explained this to the woman and asked if she felt it would work with this dog and if she had success directing the dog to go in a certain portion of her yard. If not, we would probably not spend the money on the side of the yard.
We asked if the dog had a history of destroying anything in her house and if the dog was a chewer. Along with that, we asked if he allowed the dog on the furniture, in bed with them, etc. Sorry folks, my wife and I are old school. We have a child. We do not believe dogs are people, or our “fur babies”. As a result, we believe dogs don’t get to sleep in our bed, sit on our furniture, eat from the table and get the run of the house. Our dog will not be flying with us. The dog will not go to restaurants with us. Nor will it jump on our guests.
Let me clue all the crazy dog people into something most people understand. People might love dogs. But, they might not love your dog. Most people don’t want to have someone else’s dog jump on them or come to your house and not be able to sit on a couch because it covered in dog hair, smells like your dog’s ass or gets molested by your dog as it is on the couch too. These are the things we inquired about because we needed to know if we were going to need to re-train the dog.
This line of inquiry was twisted by the foster bitch and she wrote to SOLR that our “behavioral expectation” could never be met. I also have “behavioral expectations” for my son. I expect he gets As and Bs in school. I expect he treats adults with respect and refers to them as Mr. or Mrs. I expect he does not fight with other kids. I expect, when he is older, he doesn’t rob a liquor store. I know, crazy expectations in today’s world.
Then we asked about the dog’s demeanor. You see, the dog was found on the streets of Mexico being chased by a group of people trying to abuse it. A good Samaritan intervened, gathered up the dog, drove it across the border to the US, left money for its care and returned to Mexico. So, we had a dog that was estimated to be around 2 years old that might have been abused for years. Therefore, we asked about any signs of aggression or unpredictability. We were told the opposite was the case, that the dog was super chill and unaffected by anything, and the dog hardly ever barked. My wife made a comment to the woman that we were looking for a dog that would bark and could be counted on should someone try to get into the house, etc. Mrs. Miserable turned this around in her email, lied, as said we were looking for a low energy dog that “never moved”. Again, fuck right off.
Finally, the woman wrote to SOLR that we had unreal expectations and that we said we were looking for more of “a stuffed animal that never moved and would just sit there.” This is deeply ironic given the fact that the single reason we opted not to adopt this dog was that it appeared to be too low energy for us. In fact, this was exactly what we told the foster person in our text messages.
I think the employee was very surprised when we provided him the text messages and he could read for himself two things proving how badly the bitc . . ., errrr, woman had misrepresented us. One, she did not refuse to adopt the dog to us, but we declined and did not think the dog was right for our family. It should be noted that us to this point she thought we were probably going to adopt the dog and even began the paperwork for us. Two, the reason we cited in the text was opposite what s he reported to the company. We didn’t want a “stuffed animal” for a dog that would “never move” and “just sit there.” We actually wanted the opposite and we feared the dog she had would “just sit there”. Whatta BIACH.
After speaking with a SOLR employee later than night, providing all our correspondence with the foster and laying out the timeline of events, he apologized and offered to reinstate our status to adopt. We declined. Here is why. This woman was a first-time foster. This was the first dog she ever fostered for SOLR and was the company’s first experience with her. After she provided false information about us and our interactions with her, so much so that they immediately revoked our application, you would have thought they would have first contacted us, or at a minimum contacted our friend who did the home initial home visit. They did neither. Second, before you fire off a judgmental email which states “what you are seeking is unrealistic with owning a dog, especially a rescue dog”, you might want to think about how you word the email and ask yourself is you have all the facts.
I’m not sure what damage this woman walks around with. I’m not sure why you would want to fuck over people, especially a family with a 4th grader that desperately wants a dog. I’m not sure what motivates a person to wake up at 4am and pen an email full of inaccuracies and lies. People are fucking nuts.
After we declined to work with SOLR anymore, we explained to the employee we spoke with that we only were talking with him for one reason, so that they discuss firing the woman and placing the dog with another foster so that this type on incident is not repeated with another family. One person can really harm the reputation of a small business like this.
And to the woman (I hope you find you way to this post somehow). Fuck right off. You are a miserable, miserable person. You have no integrity. You have no virtue. You spoke about being very involved in the Girl Scouts. I hope you treat those families better than you did us and that you are not instilling your values, or lack thereof, in the next generation of young girls. I hope you know what a pain in the ass you proved to be to our family. I want you to know how you devastated our child, as we did not understand what was going on and thought this meant we could never get a dog, ever.
Finally, let me warn people about using SOLR. Let me post their website and Facebook page. While they are doing something positive, their lack of follow-up with us before they rendered a judgement is unacceptable. Adopting a dog should not be this much drama. And I’m referring to the first foster that cancelled on us, followed by this second incident. There are lots of dog adoption programs out there. Find another one.
Miserable. F*cking. People.
Last thought. There are a ton of miserable fucking people out there. Fine be miserable. But, what you owe to others this that your misery will not affect them. It’s seems that is often not the case. Most miserable people want others to be miserable and will do what they can to create that circumstance. Kinda reminds me of someone I used to work with.