Blissfully on the Safe Side

My dogs don't know how lucky they are, and that's the way I like it.

Waldo doesn't ever need to know about the horrors that may have befallen him at the Summit County Animal "Shelter". He doesn't need to know about how dogs were fought on death row there under the old administration, or about the heartsticking without anesthesia.

Lammy Lamb, Waldo, Rocket Boy and Maria, chillin'.

Lammy Lamb doesn't need to know about how many dogs find themselves in shelters where they languish ignored and alone until they are euthanized to make room; because there are just not enough homes for all the homeless.  She never needs to worry as my friend Dawn Ashby has pointed out, "that her fate relies on a few people up too late on Facebook." We are her third home, and her forever home.

Taco doesn't need to know how many female Chihuahuas like her are spending their entire lives in wire cages in puppy mills across the nation. She doesn't need to know about backyard breeding and what it's like to be pregnant all the time. When she landed at our house (also her third home), we had her spayed.

Lammy Lamb and her cuddly bear.

Rocket Boy doesn't need to know about all of the dogs that were burned in Arizona this year.  He doesn't need to know about the dogs that are beaten to death by their owners or shot by their neighbors, or staked out in yards to live lonely lives on the end of a chain.

And Maria doesn't need to know what can happen to pets that are offered "free to a good home". She doesn't have to worry about being sold by a buncher to a class B dealer, and then being sold to a laboratory to be tortured.  Abandoned by three previous owners, she is home now.

My dogs are cuter than your dogs.

None of our dogs have to worry about being crammed into a cage with so many other dogs that they can't move, and then be butchered for somebody's dinner. Our dogs eat better than we do; natural food with no preservatives.

Dogs all over the world are experiencing these horrors every day, but our dogs are loved and they are safe. They have no idea how lucky they are.

I'm glad they never will.