Rumpydog

MEOW! My name is June Buggie, and I have something to say.

This is an Official June Buggie Rant!

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Recently while perusing Facebook, I saw a post complaining about the number of people dumping animals, and it got me thinking.

Is animal dumping anything like baby dumping?

Society vilifies women who dump their babies, but we also know these women are often desperate, many times young, and feel they have no other viable options. A solution for those women are Safe Haven laws. Some states here in the US allow a woman to surrender a newborn to a hospital, no questions asked, after the first few hours of birth. The hope is that these women will surrender the babies instead of killing them or leaving them to die. It doesn’t save all babies, but it saves some.

Is that not also the case of some people who have animals they can no longer care for? OK, some may just be mean, but I propose many of those people may also be under a great deal of stress. They fear taking the animal to Animal Control, because we’ve brainwashed them into seeing these services as bad, so they think they the animal will fare better “in the wild as nature intended” instead of being “murdered” in a shelter.

And while there may be plenty of places to take their animal that don’t kill animals, have you ever seen how some of these places treat people turning in animals? It’s shameful. For a person who is already depressed or stressed, such actions are not at all helpful. To be honest, I wonder if some rescues are as much a part of the problem as they are the solution.

Malachi- 8 yr neutered male, showed up at our house emaciated and near-death.

I think that criminalizing the dumping of animals is important, but we must do much more. I think we’re going to have to be less condemning and more helping of people who have animals they cannot or will not care for.

If a person finds they can no longer care for an animal anymore for whatever reason, they should not be treated like a criminal for surrendering that animal.

If a person no longer wants an animal, then they should be encouraged to surrender the animal instead of being shamed and ridiculed.

Oh, I know it goes against your nature, but really, it’s the best thing for us animals.

After all, is it better for a dog to go to Animal Control and face death, or spend years tethered to a tree in the backyard with no mental stimulation?

Is it better that a cat die in a gas chamber, or die of starvation in the middle of winter?

There are no easy answers, but some are no-brainers. In order to change the way animals are treated, we’re going to have to convince some of you to get over your sense of moral superiority and do what’s best for animals. Only when we stop making this an “Us versus Them” issue and make this a What’s Best for Animals issue will be able to start to convince people to make responsible choices for us.

MEOW!

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