Now, because we are transparent... I will explain to you that no-kill does not mean that animals are never put down. It simply means they are never put down due to space or behavioral issues. We rarely put down animals. I can only think of twice in the last couple of years where we have had to put down a chinchilla, and both instances were due to severe malocclusion, which is incurable and super painful for the chinchilla. Other than severe health issues that basically result in no quality of life, that chin will chill here til it gets adopted.
Some rescues are no-kill, some aren't. Some rescues that we would THINK are no-kill, are NOT. Have you ever heard of Whimsy's Menagerie, the chinchilla rescue on the east coast? Did you know that they're NOT no-kill? No? I didn't either! We were talking with one of our previous adopters the other day, and she mentioned that she would no longer buy from or support Whimsy's, so of course I asked why. She said that they weren't no-kill, and that they euthanize for behavioral issues, such as biting and spraying. Not that I didn't believe her, but I had to look it up for myself:
Well... there you have it. I will be honest, that absolutely floored me. Sure, you may have heard me joke about eating a chinchilla for dinner when they make me mad or whatever, but it's just that... a joke. Sprayers and biters are FULLY adoptable, to the right home.
Let me tell you a quick story. We got a chinchilla in here from a small breeder who was moving out of his parents' house and wanted to reduce his breeding numbers (I think we got in 7 of his chins). One of the chinchillas that came into our rescue from him was a black velvet female. She didn't have a name, so Jennifer (our worker) named her Onyx. Onyx came in fully matted and icky. I let her settle in for a week, during which she would bark at me, but nothing overly obnoxious. About a week later, over a couple of days span of time, I spent all sorts of time pulling out mats and grooming her so that she would be more comfortable. She was NOT happy. Time unfortunately didn't help this, and the longer she was here, the more pissed off she was. I couldn't even feed her without her acting like an obnoxious brat. If I was filling the feeder (which is outside the cage, a J-feeder) she would spray me. If I cleaned the cage, she would spray me. God forbid I tried to take her out of the cage, she would spray me AND try to bite me. She acted similarly with Jennifer, though not with quite so much menace... but still a crabby furball.
Because she was an adult, she was cheap ($100 adoption fee) and everyone wanted her, with her being an unusual color (black velvet). It didn't matter that she was listed as "under evaluation" (because of the spraying / biting / etc), everyone asked about her. Once I would mention her attitude, everyone was (understandably) like "ehhh...nevermind." So, I finally took her down from the website. Nothing happened to her, I just removed her listing. I figured, when she was ready, I would list her again. In the meantime, I set out to find a foster who wanted a difficult chin to work with... and I almost had one lined up... when one of our previous adoptive homes messaged me asking if I had any chins that might pair with one of theirs (the cagemate had passed), and problem-chins were ok with her. So you know who I thought of.
The family came over to meet Onyx. I got a wonderful pee-shower and some chomps on my hands getting her out of the cage... but magically... she got along with their chin just swimmingly, and they took her home. She now lives in a big cage with their white mosaic chin, Peanut (also from the rescue... as are all but one of their 8 chins). I got the chance to go over to their place in Chicago last week and see the chins. Onyx, now re-named Cookie, actually let me pet her! She's super happy there. She does occasionally bark at her new family, but she's no longer spraying or biting. She loves getting neck scratches!
Here's Cookie with her new human mom, Claire:
...and sprayers and biters are un-adoptable? No. The just need the right home.
So to me, to cull (aka put down / euthanize / kill / pick-your-word) them is just... unbelievable. We only ever put down chins for major, incurable, no-qualify-of-life-health-issues, NOT culling / biting / behavioral issues... and that is how it will remain.
So, going back to the previous post. You may think our cages are not the greatest, some are small and not chin-mansions... but sometimes, the reason other rescues have room for chins and can manage to use only big fancy cages is due to the fact that they are putting down the less-than-perfect chins... which we would never do. We might use smaller cages for some of them... but they all get a chance at a forever home.... regardless of how much they might be little furry turds at times. That is all.
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