(708)301-1594 
Open 11 am-4 pm Tuesday through Saturday Closed Sunday and Monday webmistress                   |
Reprinted from The Homer Horizon March 22, 2006
Heather WarthenEditor
On this week's front page, you saw a story by assistant editor, Abby Milone about the abandonment of animals and how it has been affecting the Homer area, including TLC Animal Shelter. Last week's pet of the week on A7 was a little bit different, featuring a story about a poor dog Sullivan that TLC Shelter saved from euthanasia.
I have had a consistent soft spot for animals and I've had a variety of pets including a canary, goldfish, Red Ear Slider turtles and my late beloved Yorkshire Terrier, Truffles. As a kid, and this may be a dream that a lot of kids have, I wanted to be a veterinarian to help animals. Obviously, I didn't pursue that dream.
So as it was brought to my attention a couple weeks ago by a Homer Township resident, many people have chosen over the years to drop off their unwanted pets near their home close to Messenger Woods.
I can imagine how this happens and I will gladly detail it for you:
Child begs and pleads with parents for a dog, cat, iguana (insert animal here), etc. and finally wins the long-fought battle that includes arguing who will feed it, who will walk it, who will clean it. Family picks out that soft cuddly puppy or the tiny scaly lizard and brings it home. For the first couple of weeks, the child is obsessed with the new addition to the house, constantly playing with it and caring for it. Unfortunately, after those first couple of weeks, the newness of this animal wears off and suddenly, it just becomes a nuisance or an annoyance, particularly if the person who begged and pleaded for it has a strong disinterest in caring for it. So what happens next?
The parents, or whoever approved this final decision to get rid of the beloved pet, decides its time to say good-bye and carts it off to hopefully a nearby shelter, but often times, an empty field or somewhere in the middle of nowhere where chances of survival are slim to none.
Or what I love is people buy puppies or kittens because they are so adorable when they are young, forgetting that they will not stay like that forever. Like us, they grow up. So after the puppy and kitty stages, some people get rid of their pet when it becomes an adult and too difficult to manage.
Words cannot express my anger towards people like this - completely full of ignorance and negligence. These people that drop off these pets must be cold and heartless because I don't know how you can even stand to look at the face of an animal and just leave it alone in an open field to fend for itself. I can't stand even going into TLC Animal Shelter without feeling guilty that I can't bring them all home.
So for those of you that decided that abandoning your pet because caring for it was just too much effort, please think twice about dumping it in an empty field. Take it to a local shelter where maybe it will find a family that will love it and care for it.