OK, it's time for a heart-to-heart.....if you live in the north you can't possibly know what our fellow rescuers in the south face every day. There are agonizing decisions about (literally) who lives and dies because they have too many dogs surrendered, found as strays, dumped at their doorsteps, and born in their care and it's just unmanageable. Some of us from Lucky Pup Rescue went to a lecture about dog rescue and transportation and we heard about a shelter who has to euthanize 180 dogs a month - that's 40-50 sweet lives each Friday that are brought down the hall, if they're lucky, to a waiting needle. In many southern areas, the gas chamber is how they do it. This is NOT euthanasia, which is defined as "mercy killing" or "the practice of ending a life in a painless manner" - gassing is neither merciful or painless, and if you want to know how it affects the body you can certainly look it up. We hate thinking or talking about it.
We get lots of questions like "what can we do about it"? "we can only save one life at a time, what difference will that make long-term?" Well, part of each adoption fee goes to the southern vet for the spay or neuter fee which means one less pregnant female or one less breeding male - this can ultimately mean hundreds fewer dogs that need to be saved. Also, the rescues and shelters are helping blitz the media outlets in the south with spay/neuter messages; that is made possible by your donation as well. It's true that attitudes of the humans take a lot longer to change, but one family at a time, one dog at a time is what we can all do. Look into some of these sweet faces if you think you wouldn't make a difference by donating, fostering or adopting.
