Ruff House Rescue mistreated my family Internet

It has been a long time since this happened but they just sent me a friend request which reminded me how steamed I was when it happened. We all do our best to protect our kids and these people had no care about doing just that after I made every effort to avoid it. 

I have had a dog my entire life and all 3 of those were shelter dogs. My wife and I adopted Buddy, a German Shepard mix in 1998 from North Shore Animal League.

We euthanized Buddy in 2013 at the age of 15. He had bad arthritis and was getting shots 2 times a week until one day when his legs could not take anymore and you could see the suffering. My children were 8 and 5 years old. They loved this old dog and still honor him on his birthday. His remains are on a shelf in our den with his favorite chew toy and a photo of him.

After years of taking care of a large dog my wife wanted a smaller dog. We went to many shelters and checked many websites until we finally came upon the Ruff House Rescue website. There we found 2 adorable miniature pinscher mixed brothers named Peanut and Pistachio. All my dogs have been shelter dogs so I knew there would be a process and I didn’t tell the kids our plan so as not to upset them if we did not qualify or if the dogs were no longer available. I filled out the on-line application which included the ages of my 2 children amongst other information. I was contacted by Ruff House and we scheduled a visit with the dogs at a foster home in Huntington where we could meet the dogs.

I told my children that we were visiting a friend from work and she had many dogs so they could come and play with the dogs. I felt the visit went great and they must have agreed because the day after the visit we started discussing when I could get the dogs.

The only thing left was an inspection of my home to ensure that it was a safe environment for the dogs. I agreed that since I never had a small dog I would certainly be willing to make modifications as necessary to protect the dogs. I even agreed to sign papers to that effect upon picking up the dogs because they were busy and would not be able to perform the home inspection for a week or so. They agreed. We made arrangements to pick up the dogs on Friday! They referred me to the mandatory items I must have when i pick up the dogs on their website. By the way, kids still don’t know.

Friday was a terribly crappy rainy day but I was so excited. I left work early to allow enough time to stop at Petco for the supplies. Somewhere between work and Petco, Ruff House calls and says that due to the weather the foster parent would like to reschedule. She would rather not drive in this weather. By the way, the foster parent is a wonderfully sweet woman and she is doing a great thing helping all these dogs. I ask if it is possible that I pick up the dogs in Huntington and bring them to the shelter office in East Rockaway to fill out the papers. They agree to allow it.

The Big Day! I go to Petco and buy 2 of everything since there will be 2 dogs. I  then go home and get my wife and kids. We then drive from Westbury out to Huntington to get the dogs. Finally I have to tell the kids that we will be adopting Peanut and Pistachio. After all, we are putting them into brand new pet carriers that we brought with us. The kids are ecstatic. We drive all the way to East Rockaway with a pet carrier on each kids lap. They consider renaming the dogs s****.>

We arrive to find that Ruff House is a tiny little storefront space with cages on top of cages. The heat in the facility doesn’t work and it is loaded with space heaters. We met with 3 women. One of whom was Diane Indelicato, the owner. We chat for a while and fill out some forms. At one point she says they aren’t going to let us take the dogs home today because they want to neuter them before we take possession. I’m a little upset and very disappointed because I feel this was never mentioned. Something isn’t right here? We say goodnight to the dogs and go to the car so the dogs can go to bed.

The Hammer Comes Down. Once we’re outside I tell my kids I have to go inside because I forgot to ask Diane something and I will be right back. I go inside and I ask Diane what the real story is. I sense she isn’t being honest with me since there was many opportunities to bring the neutering to my attention. She tells me that we’re not getting the dogs because it is there policy to not give such small dogs to people with young children. I remind her that my kids ages were on the application and she knew how old they were from day one. Also, the kids were at the foster house where the foster parent saw how old they were and how they interacted with the dogs. So why the sudden concern? It all comes down to a comment my 8 year old son made 15 minutes earlier which was something to the effect of how little the dogs were and how easily they could be injured.

I explained to her that this is the same kid that would periodically bring the water bowl over to his German Shepherd because the dog hadn’t drank water in a while and my son knew he couldn’t get up that easily. Also the same kids that would sit with there dog and read with him because they thought he might be lonely in the family room by himself when it was reading time. There was no reason for concern. She wasn’t having it. She had made her decision and despite all my efforts to keep my kids from getting there hopes up and being disappointed I had to go out to the car and tell them what had just happened. I guess she didn’t have the heart to say it while they were in there. She left that for me. I made another appeal by phone the next day but it was useless. All hope was lost.

That weekend we went out and bought a dog. That’s right, after years of telling all my friends and family that there is no reason to buy a dog when there are so many without homes I had to cave in and go get a puppy to ease the disappointment in my children as quickly as possible. Please note, the tiny Javanese we bought is just fine and my kids have never hurt or tortured him in the years since we got him.

Look this woman up on Google and draw your own conclusions about her character. Her name again is Diane Indelicato.