Apollo

Apollo German Shepherd Korea
What happened? I loved my family. Was I bad?

Quick Bio

Age: Young (1-3 years old)
Gender: Male
Breed: German Shepherd
Size: Large (over 20 kg)
Colour: Brown & Black
  • Good with kids
  • House trained
  • Crate trained
Description: 

Apollo is a two year old pup and a victim of two irresponsible owners. His issues are SOLVABLE! and are as follows:

- Pulls on a lead (can be worked on with positive training reinforcement such as bringing treats and starting from square one - working on lead in the house! Keep his focus on you via treats and reward! a Halti may be a helpful tool to begin training him as well.) We also recommend a Halti or Gentle Leader.
- High energy and always wants to play (needs to have a good run everyday and at least 2 walks in addition to that - morning run, afternoon walk and evening walk for example. he will also need mental exhaustion such as interactive play with his person or interactive toys to play with on his own)
- He is housetrained and crate trained (but he must go out right when you arrive home because he will get so excited he'll pee!)
- Barks when alone and at times when all are home (ignore the barking! reward good behaviour leave him with stimulating toys or treat dispensing toys to keep him distracted when you're gone.)
- Gets too excited around other dogs and children he does not know (train to keep his focus on you as in first issue with leash pulling)
- Jumps up (ignore him totally when he jumps, reward when he is down)
- Begs (feed on a schedule. DO NOT GIVE IN TO BEGGING! feed a good quality food)
- Eats trash (put the trash away! work on "leave it")
- Drinks out of toilet (buy this: http://www.amazon.com/Drinkwell-Big-Dog-Starter/dp/B000F1R8FO)
- His "wink" comes out often (neuter him!)

No dog is perfect once you adopt, but they can be perfect for you. And the work you put into them can be SO rewarding. Also know you are not alone should you take this boy on and everyone here would be more than happy to help with training and vetting advice ^^

Reason for giving up the animal:
"He is not getting what he needs with us. He needs to have more attention and he needs more space. He needs to be able to run."

"We took him in, we've been here only 3 months. We have 3 kids under 4 years old. I don't have the time. The baby got sick. It's just too much."

Previous owner prior to the family who entered him into KAPS was a teacher in Ulsan and has left Korea. The family was not in contact with him.

He is a beautiful boy and just needs a chance. He is a Korean Kennel Club registered dog who has met a very sad fate, but this doesn't have to be the end of his story! If you are interested, please email KAPS.Adoption(at)gmail.com. Should you be approved and adopt Apollo, please know we'll help you every step of the way to train and understand him.

He was surrendered on May 20th to KAPS. Here is his intake information: http://www.animal.go.kr/portal_rnl/abandonment/public_view.jsp?desertion...

Shelter Name: KAPS: Daegu

Comments

kmwg19's picture

I emailed to check in on Apollo, but apparently he was very stressed in the shelter and became extremely loud. Due to the noise he was making, several complains were made and the case became very severe. The shelter is located in a residential area, and as such they must keep the neighbours happy or risk being evicted. For this reason they have told us they had to put Apollo down.

This is a shock and a surprise to myself and all of the KAPS Coordinators who had previously been told dogs could only be put down should an animal be terminally ill, be extremely aggressive or should there be overcrowding. Additionally we were told that animals have at least 10 days to be re-claimed, and even those who as in Apollo's case are owner relinquished, we were told have 10 days to become acclimated to KAPS/reclaimed/a period until they can be fostered or adopted...

We currently have very little information about the situation but we wanted pass on the information we have. As this is a totally new situation to all of the Coordinators, it was not something we could have foreseen, nor had we received any suggestions such a thing was even possible. KAPS must consider their neighbours and all the other dogs in the shelter rescued from Daegu's streets. We are very sorry to be passing on such sad news and to have heard it ourselves. We will continue to discuss this case and work on things.

adoptbullies's picture

I am sorry to hear about Apollo but I would like to clarify.

This is not something totally new to you coordinators, and you shouldnt be shocked or surprised by this, I told you this fact. While everyone was trying to blame me about my statement on Foley, http://www.animalrescuekorea.org/dog/725 I made this clear to all of you before I resigned my position. None of you took the time to really know the truth when I was coordinating, and even when I gave you the truth in black and white, you denied it.

I was deeply hurt when Emma and the other coordinators announced here on ARK and Facebook that I didnt know what I was talking about when it came to euthanasia at KAPS, and was quite perturbed that my comments on KAPS fbk was deleted when I tried to get a longtime Korean volunteer involved in the discussion, this was the same volunteer that informed me about the 10 days and the occasional discrepancy to the 10 days.

You are trying to save face right now rather than being honest.
Maybe now you will see that I am still for KAPS and have never had any other intentions than helping. If you had paid attention to what I was trying to inform you all about, then perhaps it could have changed the outcome for Apollo. As it has been stated a million times over, it takes a community to rescue, not just coordinators.

I hope Apollo becomes a beacon against euthanasia, and stirs more folks to foster dogs like Apollo.

emmat191's picture

I am sorry for the confusion. I’m sure this does seem to be very similar to the Foley discussion we had, however after our discussion we liaised and discussed the rules carefully with the KAPS staff and founder. We made sure to clarify carefully exactly what the parameters were for euthanasia. However as with everything there are always exceptions to every rule. In this case it seems perhaps we were not clear enough with the shelter that foreigners were interested in him. It also seems that Apollo was making far more noise than the average dog does, I suspect he was howling, although we are yet to get the specifics.
The truth of the matter is that KAPS is a shelter run by and for Koreans. As coordinators we are attempting to smooth the way for foreigners to adopt, however we are not team members, we are not paid for the work we do. Also none of us speak sufficient Korean to really communicate our position and the position of the foreign community effectively. I suspect that even if we did Korean culture is based so strongly on saving face that we would still not get the truth.
Suffice to say that there will always be mistakes and problems. As coordinators and volunteers we do our best to try and prevent as many unnecessary deaths as possible, sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don't. There are hundreds of lost, relinquished and unwanted animals who are brought into the shelter. Relinquishment is rarer but we were hoping in this case, as our Adoption Co-ordinator had been working hard to find Apollo a home (foster or otherwise), that we could get him out of the shelter and into a home as soon as possible.
Unfortunately there are sometimes unforeseen circumstances, this is one of those times. We can not be prepared for every new situation, we can only learn from them as they come up and hope to prevent it in the future. We appreciate all the hard work that all the foreigners in the rescue community do in Korea and always appreciate any constructive criticism, help and insight they can give us in working better and more smoothly with Korean rescuers.

adoptbullies's picture

"We appreciate all the hard work that all the foreigners in the rescue community do in Korea and always appreciate any constructive criticism, help and insight they can give us in working better and more smoothly with Korean rescuers."

When I tagged Gwiran, (a Korean volunteer that told me the euth policies herself, and was the governing factor in the TNR project: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57586461/KAPS2011Newsletter.pdf )on the fbk page, in order to elaborate on the "discussion" why did you delete it? Deleting doesnt sound like appreciation, nor does it sound like a discussion.

Karen's picture

adoptbullies, I don't see anything on this or Foley's page that could be read as blaming you about anything, or saying you "didnt know what you were talking about". As far as I can see, emmat191 was simply conveying KAPS official policies. I'm glad that you share your perspective on what you witnessed while you were at KAPS, especially pointing out when practice differs from policy, but I think it's unfair of you to accuse anyone of dishonesty or "trying to save face".