By Glen Turner – Special to the Sydenham Current
Have you ever had anyone say to you… ‘Oh, it’s just a dog’ or ‘Oh, it’s just a cat’?
I have… several times.
Recently, a guy I met was talking about his hunting dogs – apparently one of them had gotten older, and wasn’t as good a hunter as it once was.
His comment was – ‘Well, I just put a bullet in her head, and got a new one.’ The new one was just beginning the training to become a hunting dog. I wonder if it will suffer the same fate when it ages… as will his other dogs.
Recently we’ve been hearing about the operation of a dog-fighting ‘business’ in the Tilbury area. Charges were laid, animals were rescued, and a comment was made that these are the kinds of people who will kidnap other people’s pets, and use them as training bait for their ‘fighting dogs.’
I had a neighbour who has populated my neighbourhood with feral cats – she’s moved away, but told others in this area that she couldn’t afford to feed (or neuter) her many cats, so… they were just allowed to run wild. That, of course, means – allowed to breed, decimate the wild bird population AND spread whatever diseases they’d picked up along the way, not to mention suffering from other health problems that occur when lack of care is their norm.
Hopefully, those kinds of mentalities are not predominant, but… we DO have local pet and wildlife rescue organizations, animal shelters, the OSPCA and groups that will assist with the neutering of feral animals, not to mention many individuals who try to do their part by finding homes for abandoned or unwanted animals. They raise funds by donation, mostly, and some pay a lot out of their own pockets to try and help.
Dog parks exist in Wallaceburg and Chatham now, for the owners who would never, ever say – ‘Oh, it’s just a dog.’
Go to the website of THIS online paper, and see the pet section. If you haven’t looked before, you’ll be amazed at the efforts people are making to help out the rescues, lost dogs and cats, and see the advertising for events for some of the groups.
Congrats to Aaron and Dana for making this a part of their Sydenham Current.
By the way, my suggestion for the three people facing charges for the dog-fighting establishment – put all three of them, weaponless, in a dog ring and let them fight. The ‘winner’ then has to face 20 or 30 of their former fighting dogs, alone… in the same ring.
Think of how much we’d save the system on court costs and jail time 🙂
