ABBEVILLE, VERMILION PARISH, LOUISIANA – Dogs brought into this animal control have a mere 4 days before they are at risk of being killed.

Baron’s plea for help started on March 22 – four days ago. His need is urgent.

This beautiful dog, only one year of age, is facing imminent death if a 501©3 rescue organization does not speak up and say that they can help.

Unfortunately, there are no notes to indicate what Baron’s personality is like. All that is shared is the following note,

URGENT BARON is a male German Shep. mix about 1 yr. old and 30lbs. He needs a very good and warm place to call home.

Baron actually appears to be a Belgian Malinois mix – his size and coloring are more in line with the characteristics of the Malinois breed than those of a shepherd.

Baron is at the mercy of strangers right now. The clock is ticking and he needs help – at just one year of age, he has so much living to do.

If you can help, or if you have questions, please contact:

CINDY HUNT AT ANIMAL AID 337-247-2562, email animalaidvermilion@gmail.com
TARA ANDREWS email to tara.andrews@rocketmail.com
JOELLE RUPERT email to larryandjrupert@hotmail.com

Contacts at the shelter: 337-643-3160, Fax 337-643-3161

If you live in this area and can help, please contact the animal control facility quickly. If you can not help, please do your part by sharing Baron’s information. His life depends on it.

Just one of several horrible stories I saw courtesy of FB today and, yes, I know there are thousands more, and hundreds of thousands of human beings in desperate need of help as well. The difference is no one's going to "compassionately" kill them if they don't find a home within four days of the need being discovered. I don't know this dog's current status, but I can do math, and the article was posted on 22 March. It's hard for me to believe animals like this wouldn't have a better quality of life than waiting four days alone for someone to come kill them if they were simply vaccinated, sterilized and released to fend for themselves. Particularly when I recall all the stories I've heard here in the last year alone, about the subway riding strays of Moscow, or the Japanese puppy whose master took him to the subway every day and picked him up on the way home--for the first two years of his life, until his master died at work one day and the dog continued to survive, a threat to no one, dutifully visiting the train platform every day at quitting time to meet the master who was never coming.

There is, however, a better option: No Kill Shelters and Rescue groups, both of which shelter animals for as long as it takes to find a loving home. Perversely, while many "shelters" that kill animals due to overcrowding subsist on tax payer funds, most no kill shelters and rescue groups survive almost entirely through private donations. For my money (literally) I'd rather support true animal shelters that I know don't kill animals than those I know DO kill, despite making "prevention of cruelty to animals" part of their name. In some cases, demand for purebred pets eliminates the incentive for Breed Rescue groups to kill animals unless they have injuries or illness so bad that it would be truly cruel to keep them alive--but such resources are few and far between for "mixes" and almost non-existent for true mutts, who don't have the fine markings, intelligence or other traits so highly sought, and are thus often doomed to die because they are "merely" devoted and affectionate companions.

So, first, a global plea:

If you find a stray for which you can't find a home on your own, please deliver it to a no kill shelter if at all possible, rather than to a "shelter" that will "humanely" start a death clock the moment the animal comes through their door, please donate to such shelters if/when you can and encourage people you know to do likewise.

Now, a local plea:

If you or anyone you know live near Abbeville, LA and are looking for a nice puppy, please call NOW! Donations at any time would help extend the time they can afford to keep animals for adoption before killing them.

Now, a few more local pleas:

This 15 year old Shepherd in L.A. is near the end of his natural life, but apparently healthy apart from the blindness for which his owner abandoned him to wait, alone in the dark, for a stranger he'd never seen and never will to kill him. A local rescue group learned of him and took him in, but, as is so often the case for such groups, was already operating above capacity before that. Anyone in the nations second largest city who can give a loving dog a home for whatever time he has left would be easing their operation and making room for young, perfectly healthy and loving companions who will certainly be killed by local "shelters" otherwise. Lest you think, like this poor dogs owner, that being blind makes him a worthless burden (in which case he should've at least requested euthanasia while he remained by his loving dogs side), my grandparents once had a dog that was blind all her life yet perfectly happy and functional until my grandmother left the laundry detergent down one day and the dog died from eating it--just like any sighted dog would've done.

Finally: What kind of sick freak cuts the eyes out of a deaf puppy and abandons it to die? Whoever it is lives in Phoenix, where, somehow, a young Boxer remains a friendly affectionate dog waiting for the chance to be a devoted companion. A rescue organization there has also stepped in, and pledged to find this severely challenged dog a good home--but they also don't operate for free, so anyone in or near Phoenix who can give this dog a good home would be helping others as well. Humans cut the eyes out of deaf animals and leave them to die, and dogs continue loving humans despite being subjected to that. Is it any wonder I prefer most dogs to most humans...?