would all go to great homes.
make every effort to secure a foster home before accepting an owner surrender so the animal has a
safe and secure place to land. While the group tends to rely mostly on AAU for taking any surrendered
pets from the community, it also works with a couple of other rescues, including
messages with their foster network, trying to find placement for the scruffy terrier mixes. Mission
accomplished, we loaded the pups in crates and packed them in the back of Jennifer's SUV, quietly
jubilant that these lucky dogs were now headed for much better prospects.
with puppies on the way, cats running around everywhere, none of them fixed, one of them badly
injured. One skinny, chewed-up looking tomcat ran up to me as I took a break by Danielle's truck,
crying beseechingly as if he knew I was there to help him. I quickly opened a can of cat food and sat by
the skinny feline as he enjoyed his meal, yellow eyes glazed over in contentment. He reminded me of a
tiger-striped cat I had had as a child and a wave of melancholy washed over me.
people for the neglect we continued to witness, house after house,
street after street. But once you started talking to them and looking
into their eyes, you realized that most of them were actually kind
people who cared about their pets, they just didn't know any better
or simply couldn't afford to take better care of them.
how to properly care for an animal," Danielle explained as we drove to the next street. "Some of them
think they're doing right by them, like, `yes, my dog is chained outside, but I feed him.' They simply
don't understand."
probably not going to spend what little you do have on veterinary care or premium food for your dog.
So if your dog gets sick, pregnant or goes without a meal, that's just how it is, and the animal has to
live (or die) with its lot in life. Yes, maybe I am different in that I have always put my animals first, and
if I couldn't afford to properly care for a pet I wouldn't have one in the first place, but not everyone
thinks that way. And therein lies the emotional and mental torture of rescue enduring the ignorance
of human beings and the intentional or unintentional cruelty they inflict upon their pets.
petting dirty, neglected dogs and spooning cans of cat food into bowls for hoards of hungry kitties, I
had to wonder, when does this end? As long as these people are living in poverty, so will their animals.
So is it realistic for Rachel and her group to just keep coming out here month after month, year after
year, and if so, is that really going to solve anything in the long run? Wasn't this mission like putting a
Band-aid over a much deeper, larger wound?