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More Shelter No. 1
RECEIVED Tue., Nov. 29, 2005
Dear Editor,
It was hard not to feel angry after reading the Gimme Shelter piece [“What Happened to the No-Kill Millennium?,” News, Nov. 18]. Not at the shelter, but at the owners' and would-be owners' irresponsibility. If you allow your pet to have babies, you have the responsibility of finding them homes. If you “owner surrender” your pet you need to realize that someone has to assume your responsibility.
The article may have served the shelter better if it looked at its strengths. The employees diligently provide care to ill and healthy animals, spay/neuter all potential adoptees, and tirelessly create an environment to facilitate adoption.
A bigger shelter, though necessary, will not stop irresponsible humans. Our culturally facilitated self-centeredness can skew any sad reality placed before us. We are tethered to our cell phones, e-mails, DVRs, Web sites – unwilling to miss anything, except what really matters.
The shelter faces a grim task with much dignity.
It was hard not to feel angry after reading the Gimme Shelter piece [“What Happened to the No-Kill Millennium?,” News, Nov. 18]. Not at the shelter, but at the owners' and would-be owners' irresponsibility. If you allow your pet to have babies, you have the responsibility of finding them homes. If you “owner surrender” your pet you need to realize that someone has to assume your responsibility.
The article may have served the shelter better if it looked at its strengths. The employees diligently provide care to ill and healthy animals, spay/neuter all potential adoptees, and tirelessly create an environment to facilitate adoption.
A bigger shelter, though necessary, will not stop irresponsible humans. Our culturally facilitated self-centeredness can skew any sad reality placed before us. We are tethered to our cell phones, e-mails, DVRs, Web sites – unwilling to miss anything, except what really matters.
The shelter faces a grim task with much dignity.
Diane Stonecipher
