Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats, and Everyday Heroes at a Country Animal Shelter

by Elizabeth Hess

Based on her years of volunteer work at the Columbia-Greene Humane Society, the author sheds light on the often unheralded experiences that both animals and people have as they try to make the most of life together.

Genres: Animals, Nonfiction, Dogs, Memoir, Cats, New York

225 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Elizabeth Hess is a journalist who continues to write about animals. Her articles have appeared in the Village Voice, New York magazine, the New York Observer, the London Telegraph, the Bark, Art in America, Art News, Artforum and many other publications. She is the winner of a Genesis Award (1998) for an investigative article on New York City’s animal control program, which appeared in New York magazine. Along with Nim Chimpsky, her books on animals include Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats and Everyday Heroes at a Country Animal Shelter. Hess is currently writing a social history of the American Pit Bull Terrier.

Reviews

[Winter Sophia Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartwarming, Inspiring, Gripping, Mesmerizing, Moving, Unforgettable & Insightful! A Beautiful Read! I Loved It!

[Laurie (barksbooks) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book details life inside a NY animal shelter. The writer starts out as a somewhat naive pet lover who visits the shelter to purchase a pet for her child. She's so taken with the place and the plight of the animals that she begins to volunteer her time. As she spends more time inside the shelter, she begins to understand all of their rules, procedures and the distrust the employees have towards potential adopters, those who surrender their pets and most people in general. It's a gripping and very realistic account of what happens inside the shelter and tells so many stories of helpless animals and thoughtless people. It also shows the good side of daily shelter life; placing a pet into a loving home, saving animals from abuse and neglect, giving an unwanted pet a second chance through training, love and attention. I thought it did a decent job of showing both sides of the story though sadly it is a reality that the story is often a sad one. The next to final chapter details euthanasia and is difficult to read but important to do so. I wish every pet owner would be required to read this book before buying, adopting or taking in a pet.

[Katiem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lost and found chronicles the authors eye-opening introduction to the world of abandoned and disposable animals in a tiny New York shelter.Originally the author went in looking for a dog for her daughter, but the shelter ended up taking a much larger role than she originally expected in her life.

Having been a shelter worker, and being someone who solely adopts rescue animals, this book had me bawling. Some of these incidents hit so close to home it was incredible, especially when she describes her first time in the freezer where the euthanized pets are kept, and her first time experiencing euthanasia.

I would seriously recommend this book to anyone who works with animals, or anyone supporting animal rescue. I would also recommend this to people who think shelters are cruel places, or people who think shelters animals are second hand and useless.Try reading this and not coming away with a different opinion.

[LibraryCin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is a journalist who went to volunteer at an animal shelter in New York state. This tells of some of the behind-the-scenes happenings at the shelter.

I was surprised at how much the author was invited to help with, but maybe they had to her doing more to help with her book? I have volunteered at both “kill” and “no-kill” animal shelters, so much of the book wasn’t a surprise, including reasons people surrender their animals, etc. Although, not a surprise to me, still sad and/or frustrating, and/or sometimes just making me completely angry! Though I’ve read and seen video (see “Animal Cops” on Animal Planet), one of the hardest chapters for me to read was when the author accompanied the director of the shelter on a puppy mill raid. Another tough one was the one discussing euthanasia. Overall, a good look at animal shelters.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you really care about our companion animals I think that you should read this book. I was shocked at one section when a dog's owner just gave up her dog to the shelter then was heard the same day in a store talking about the next dog she wanted to get. The dog she turned over to the shelter just had pneumonia. How can anyone heartlessly get rid of an animal just because she got sick? How selfish and cold this was. The writer of this book said that the same woman asked about her dog and commented on what a nice dog that she was and yet she gave her up.

I have been through many illness and a few surgeries with my dog of 15 years. The last time she required surgery instead of following the technicians to the surgery she looked back at me and all I could do was cry after getting to my car. She looked so sad and yet trusting at the same time. She recovered quite nicely because she was in good hands and because I think down deep inside she knew I would be back to get her and to take her home.

I am not a silly dog owner. Yes, I love my dog and she is cared for 24/7 but she gives back tremendously. When ever my husband has to work late or has to be gone over night I really think I sleep much better and feel safer because I know my dog will alert me if anything is wrong. So I think of us as a team in that we each do our part to make our relationship work so well.

And, yes, she was a shelter dog.

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of my reading goals for 2007 is to read and release the BookCrossing books I've had the longest. I have a shelf of these books next to my bed. The one book that has been catching my eyes for nearly four years is Lost and Found. Prior to the book coming to me, it had been well traveled for about two years and I feel a little guilty about letting it languish on my shelf for so long.

Lost and Found is the memoir of a year worked at an upstate New York animal shelter. With cramped space and a finite budget the shelter has to make life and death decisions numerous times a day.

The book also covers the sorts of situations where the shelter has to seize animals. It's amazing how bad things have to get before they can legally take an animal. There are the animal abusers who later become child abusers; the animal collectors who can't keep up with the demands of their animals, and the "mills" that breed animals under grotesque conditions.

[Lorrainesoucie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this book difficult to read because of the content not the style. It is so sad what goes on in the world of animals. Elizabeth does a fantastic job of describing the realities of what goes on in the animal shelters,and why they exist. I put it down several times thinking there was no way I could finish it. But the book is compelling and I did finish it. This should be required reading for anyone who is considering having a pet of any kind.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great read about a small town animal shelter.

However, there is a whole chapter on how they euthanize a LOT of animals. You are supposed to feel sorry for the director who picks them out. I don’t.

If you read anything about the No Kill Movement, you will see how wrong these people are to just give up on so many animals. They need to get out there in their community and raise money for the shelter, get volunteers involved more in raising money for the animals, have a yearly fundraiser gala, get connectd with Best Friends as a partner shelter. There are a million things you can do such as post really good pictures of the animals on a website.

Such a sad story that could have a better outcome.

A better book - And film is written by Nathan Winograd who is the head of the No Kill Movement - Redemption. Shelter killing is the leading is the leading cause of death for dogs and cats in America.

[Pug · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book, with just enough snippets into the lives of dogs, cats, volunteers, and owners (good and bad) represented within one small county animal shelter. It's interesting to see how the various paths all converge. So many different stories, it reminded me of The Possibility Dogs: What a Handful of "Unadoptables" Taught Me About Service, Hope, and Healing.

I actually found the good, bad, and ugly parts all equally interesting to read... even if it was infuriating to see people treat their pets so poorly. I will never understand how anyone can abuse an innocent animal like that!? So I made sure to spoil Bubbles just a little more. (If that's possible!)

[Sillyhoffmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to read about the reality of shelters, but was well written, and kept lite. For us who are involved to any extent, it is a sould touching book, and I think should be a read for any pet owner, or anyone who wants to own a pet.

[Marcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Educational and insightful on issues related to the disposability of pets and the volunteers who try to save them. Puppy mills, animal abuse and neglect, euthanasia and other topics are covered. The volunteers and staff work hard to save animals and it takes a toll on them.

[Khanh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad read. While it was heart-wrenching to read about the suffering and neglect of shelter and abandoned animals, the writing style was a bit dry for me.

[Ck Knight · Rating 2 out of 5]

mostly factual, but Dalmatians twice were represented in a bad light, which is very unfair. I have raised Dals since 1980 so feel the author did not represent this breed appropriately in this book.

[Shelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually, I'd go more 2.5

didn't thrill me. I never really engaged with many of the stories.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's an emotional book that breaks your heart, and makes you want to go punch anyone who mis-treats animals.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat interesting reporting about what goes on at an animal shelter. No great revelations and no analysis to speak of. An easy read.

[Susan Metters · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book many years ago, and it ended up having a profound impact on me, though I don't think I realized how much until now. The book chronicles the everyday workings of an animal shelter, and at the time the biggest impact it had on me was to dispel the myth of "no-kill" shelters. Like much of the general public, I was under the naive impression that all shelters should be "no-kill", and that "kill" shelters were horrible. What the book helped me understand is that no-kill shelters are not as righteous as they seem, and they are not reducing the number of euthanasias overall. All they are doing is passing the buck.

It's a numbers game all around; the bottom line is that there are far more homeless pets than people willing to adopt them. So what happens when the shelters are full? And not just full, but overflowing? The no-kill shelters deal with that problem by turning people away. They have to, right? What else can they do? So they send people to the shelter down the road, because that shelter never turns anyone away. How are they able to do that if they are overflowing as well? Because they are willing to carry out the sad duty of euthanasing the least adoptable animals.

Now think about what would happen if ALL shelters were no-kill. A person goes shelter to shelter to surrender their pet, but they keep getting turned away. What are they supposed to do? A very small few might end up keeping their pet, but the vast majority would find some other way to get rid of it. Many of those outcomes could quite possibly end up being worse than being humanely euthanized. Maybe that pet will be relegated to the outdoors and chained to a tree for the rest of its life, maybe it'll get dumped on the side of the road to fend for itself, or maybe it'll get shot in the head and dumped in a dumpster. I'm not kidding, these things happen.

Shelters that euthanize are merely dealing with a pet overpopulation problem in the most humane way possible. They should not be viewed as villains. No-kill shelters should not be viewed as better or more humane. They are both heroes on the same team. The real villains are irresponsible and ignorant pet owners who let their pets breed indiscriminately. Puppy mills who churn out pets for a profit. They are the ones who have created the pet overpopulation problem in the first place.

Okay, I got carried away with that! But I am passionate about it, and that began with this book. A few years after reading it I left my corporate job to go work full-time for an animal shelter, and it was the most rewarding job of my life. I worked mainly in adoption, but did some work in the vet department and assisted with some euthanasias. It was terribly sad, but I knew we weren't the bad guys. All of us were good people, who loved animals more than the average person, trying to do our best to deal with the pet overpopulation problem in the kindest and most compassionate way possible.

Read this book, and the next time you're looking for a pet, consider your local animal shelter.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book often went with me on vacations because the chapters were intriguing but moderately short, and perfect to read in a hotel after a long day of swimming or touring Disney World while my dog was at home or on his own 'vacation' and I missed him so. However, I never finished it on any of those vacations and it would remain in my suitcase until the next one, which invariably came months later after I forgot what I read in the beginning. Enough was enough, and when I found it in my suitcase recently, I took it out and put it on my 'read soon' pile.
Hess is a writer by profession (as opposed to people whose experiences encourage them to write for the first time) who sensed there was a good story to be written about the shelter from which she adopted her dog Snowy. To gain inside knowledge, she became a regular volunteer there, and I get the feeling that she remained as a volunteer beyond the time frame encompassed by the book. Readers get to briefly meet some of the memorable animals who spent time at the shelter, meet staff members and learn a little about their personal lives, and confront the truths about running a shelter and why 'no-kill' shelters are neither sustainable nor necessarily the most humane option for the homeless animals of the world.
In addition to work inside the shelter proper, she often accompanied staff members on trips into the community. From those experiences, Hess tells of investigating complaints from neighbors of neglect or smells, many of which the shelter staff could or would not be able to resolve within the limits of the law. For example, a dog may look skinny and be chained outside all the time, but as long as it had shelter and clean water available, there was no justification to remove the dog from the home. Other times, she participated in more long-term projects like accompanying staff to court to prevent a local 'rancher' from getting a zoning variance that would allow him to operate a petting zoo and safari on his small parcel of land, or raiding a known puppy mill and being the one who had to make the decision of which animals to take back to the shelter and which to leave behind hoping a representative from another shelter would take them.
I enjoyed this book very much and don't know why it took me so long to finally read it cover to cover.

[Diane D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lost and Found is an eye opening and heart-felt book that looks at the inner world of an animal shelter.,

For years Elizabeth Hess volunteered at an extremely humane animal shelter in New York. In this book she describes in detail, the inner workings, the day to day operations of the animal shelter. Many of the people that work in shelters, do so strictly for the love and welfare of the animals. This shelter, like many others is short on money and staff, but long on abandoned and surrendered animals. She describes in detail the many myths and misconceptions people have about shelter pets --they are not animals with behavior problems; a good percentage are purebreds.

More than 20 million animals end up in US Animal Shelters each year. Many of the cats and dogs (and some rabbits, ferrets, birds etc) came to the shelter from loving homes, mostly because their owners were no longer able to keep or care for them. As the author put it, "when a crazy dog arrives at the shelter, there is usually a crazy owner at the end of the leash".

I had volunteered at our local no-kill shelter for several years, and found most of what the author says to be true about the staff, animals , and the individuals who adopt and surrender animals. In my opinion, shelter animals often make the best pets. Every cat we ever adopted from the shelter was so grateful to be with us, and showed their love and affection daily, in return for a second chance at life.

My recommendation -- read this book and --think about adopting a shelter pet, and saving a life at the same time. You will be glad you did.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was left in the volunteer area of the local Humane Society -- where I am a volunteer who also happens to be working on a book about my experiences. The note on it said that it was quite a good read and was available free to the next reader.

I took it home and read a rollercoaster of a book that described Hess's experiences as a volunteer at a small animal shelter in upstate New York -- and that allowed me to see how far we've come in terms of humane education and animal welfare.

While every state's anti-cruelty laws differ, I can only say that 1998 was a far different time. This book was written before a craze for "doodle dogs" led to mutts being purchased for sums well into the thousands of dollars from backyard breeders -- while animals of the same parentage languish in shelters awaiting homes. Likewise, more and more states have felony animal cruelty laws now. In 1998, a harsh sentence on cruelty charges was a rarity.

The good news is that one things has not changed: the passion and commitment of shelter workers and volunteers to rehome animals with the right family so that they may live out their lives in happiness and kindness. Hess's book shows the difficulties of dealing with puppy mill owners, negligent owners -- and the delights of happy families who fall madly in love with the new best friend they found in a shelter.

[Margaret]

This book really captures the animal shelter world from a volunteer's view - I can definitely relate. It is a complicated world where seemingly opposing events often occur. Not everyone (human & animal) can handle this environment but surprisingly many wonderful animals are not damaged from their shelter experience - and are lucky enough to get adopted. Another twist to this picture is the difference in shelter procedures and policies (often due to funding) even between shelters in the same counties. I found it interesting to compare the shelter I volunteer at to the one in the book. Much improvement is needed in the US shelter "system" (I use that word loosely) if we really value animals like we say we do.

Thank you for sharing this book - there were many heart-touching moments, frustrations, tragedies and triumphs. I will pass this along to my animal-loving friends.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly a heartfelt read! I own a rescue dog and if it wasn't for my husband I would probably own a lot more. Although I knew about a lot of the information that is brought up in the book due to being associated with a rescue organization I think reading this book opens up some eyes for those who are or choose to be blind to the fact that animals...good animals die everyday for no good reason but overpopulation.

[Brianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This really changed my perspective on shelters and what they do there. The people that work there are always trying their best to save any and every animal they possibly can and they're willing to fight for the animals' rights. It also made my desire for a Husky stronger. If only my parents would allow another animal...

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reality of a shelter is difficult to hear. Although there are success stories, there are plenty of others that are not. Some people have acceptable reasons for needing to give an animal up, but many others do not. If you are looking for a happy read, this is not it, this is about reality, the animals that deserve better, and the dedicated people who love and look after them.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book really opened my eyes to shelter work, and I understand a little better why the adoption processes are how they are. The stories in here are a definite mix, but the reading overall was delightful. I enjoyed all the various stories and memories from the characters within! Hard to believe they are actually real people sometimes.

[Misty Melsheimer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very enlightening book about the behind-the-scenes of an animal shelter. It tugged at the heart strings as you want a happy ending for all the animals, but that's simply not possible in an overcrowded shelter. Bravo to the staff and volunteers at Columbia-Greene and shelters all over the country for doing an incredibly tough job.

[Sarah Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

While some things are outdated and many positive changes have occurred in the animal welfare industry over the last several years, Lost and Found still provides a good overview to what a typical animal shelter is like. A great read for anyone who is unfamiliar with animal shelters.

[L K · Rating 5 out of 5]

a really touching and moving look at some unsung heroes in our community--- MUST READ for any animal lover!

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing fancy, just a quick, adorable read. Plus, there's an entire chapter on a pair of boxer siblings, including a picture that's cute enough to puke on.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm in love with this book though reading it with great trepidation, as animal cruelty ranks up there, for me, with the most horrible of human atrocities.