The Houston Chronicle has been following a story of some worth to this writer, that of the deplorable state of affairs at the City of Houston's Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care (BARC), a euphemism for The Dog Pound.
I used to work as an animal cruelty investigator for one of Houston's largest shelters and, later, as a volunteer for a poor small shelter down in Galveston County. At both places I either participated in or witnessed the destruction of healthy dogs and cats. Needless to say, the experience left me embittered for many years towards a large chunk of the human race.
But back to the topic.
It seems that in addition to killing thousands upon thousands of adoptable dogs and cats, BARC has had trouble training its employees to use a computerized system to keep track of the body count.
The whole department is a mess and a new director has the unenviable job of trying to sort it out. May God give her the strength for THIS assignment.
I'm glad the Chronicle is covering the story about BARC's failure to keep good records. But I'm sorry the real story is being buried in the process.
What is the real story?
That in the 21 century we still cannot, as a people, figure out a way to keep our dogs and cats from breeding such that their offpspring overrun shelters and pounds and end up as a pile of corpses to be bagged for the landfill.
That far too many veterinarians who could make their big money on a host of other procedures continue to make spaying or neutering people's pets so impossibly expensive that most folks just don't bother (or can't afford) to have it done.
That, as I just finished blogging, our culture's love of status and trend compels people to do ridiculous things in an effort to get the latest popular breed as if it were a fashion accessory rather than a living creature and then turn around and breed said popular animal in hopes of making some money from the sale of its puppies or kittens.
If I had a dollar for EVERY SINGLE PUREBRED ANIMAL I SAW COME THROUGH THE ANIMAL SHELTER DOORS COMPLETE WITH PAPERS OF AUTHENTICATION I could endow my own animal shelter in perpetuity.
That's right, folks. So-called "valuable" animals, animals that someone paid a lot of money for, end up just as abandoned and just as dead in shelters all across this country as their mutty mixed-breed peers because their humans were too greedy to prevent a glut.
Surely the world wants or needs one more poodle-poo, chowdle, rottsschaund or some other such ridiculous and Frankensteinian hybrid, right?
It's been a long time since I've stood up on my Spay/Neuter soapbox. I thank the Chronicle for giving me the inspiration to do so. This feels good and it'll be worth my while if just one dog or cat gets "fixed" as a result of someone reading this entry.
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