Tuesday, April 17, 2012

• "O" is for Orange

Orange is the color of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month—April—sponsored by the ASPCA. If you see people on the street in orange T-shirts, as I did last year, they're probably spreading the word about this initiative. My 2011 post on the subject mentions ways you can take action.

You don't have to look far for examples of animal cruelty. A woman contacted me on Twitter several months ago. Every day she drove by a dog sitting in its yard, but never saw people in the yard. She assumed the dog had food and water, but still, it didn't feel right. Should she do something?

Report it to the local animal welfare agency, I Tweeted. I'm not sure there's anything wrong, she replied; her gut told her the dog was being neglected. Call animal welfare, I wrote. They'll check into it—that's their job.

In a much more serious incident, my stomach sickened when I read a news story about a drunk man who cooked his roommate's hamster in a skillet. I felt overwhelmed with grief, especially since I've owned these gentle rodents for nearly a decade.

It's easy to feel defeated at the scope of animal neglect and cruelty. In recognition of this, Be the Change for Animals highlights one issue a week. Its goal is to "ignite and accelerate the change we can make as individuals at a pace that doesn’t overwhelm."

I hope the woman who Tweeted me took action. I hope she changed that dog's life. That's how it can happen: one small action at a time.

Yours.

1 comment:

  1. Totally agree - I do think that society has broken down in that people do not keep others in check any more. Cruelty of all sorts seems to abound. It's always worse when you have a pet like one that you have sen being ill-treated on the TV etc. When you have first hand knowledge of just how fabulous and loyal and really loving a dog or whatever can be. Great subjects for your blog.

    If you fancy reading mine, it is about endangered animals - and also my service dog, Lola. Who suffers from being spoilt rotten. I'm leaving you my A-Z link as blogger
    always identifies me as my shared blog with other poets - my A-Z is this one: http://www.lizbrownleepoet.com

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