Think twice about our animal friends

Last week, I received an e-mail that caught my eye. The subject line read, "56 puppy mill puppies rescued ...."

It wasn't local, but it's a topic I'm interested in, so I opened the e-mail and read more about the situation with the puppies.

Basically, the operator of this puppy mill, which is a large scale commercial dog breeding facility, for profit, that operates under substandard conditions regarding the well-being of dogs in their care, called up a rescue shelter and said he had to go to the hospital. If the puppies weren't rescued before he left for the hospital, he planned to shoot all the dogs.

Thankfully, the agency managed to rescue all the dogs and puppies, but most of them suffered ailments, such as eye and/or ear infections, teeth diseases, matted hair and skin problems, and more.

Many dogs in puppy mills are kept in small cages with minimal attention for the sole purpose of breeding ... again, and again, and again, until their bodies simply cannot reproduce anymore. At this time, those dogs are put down, often times inhumanely.

The puppies born in puppy mills are many times shipped to pet stores, and many times have physical and/or behavioral problems as a result of poor care and lack of socialization within the puppy mill.

How can people -- puppy mill operators -- be so heartless, greedy and irresponsible? I simply cannot understand how any human being could operate a puppy mill, knowingly hurting animals over and over again, just to make money.

Hmmm ... I have to go out of town for a few days so I guess I will just shoot all my dogs. Yes, that makes sense ... Or, I'll just call animal control to have them deal with the dogs. That's what they're there for anyway, right?

Puppy mills are bad enough as it is, but they become worse when owners don't consider options for care of the dogs given a situation where he or she has to leave town, go to the hospital or what have you. How does it become animal control's responsibility?

A couple months ago, a stray cat found her way to my house. I couldn't resist feeding the beautiful and sweet feline, whom I, along with my neighbors who also fed her in the beginning, named her Fancy Snowflake. (I named her Snowflake and they named her Fancy so I just combined the two.) The long, white haired, blue eyed cat turned out to be pregnant.

She had her kittens about 8 weeks ago. While mama cat did all the work the first few weeks, I eventually started going through kitten food like you would not believe. Because of the overpopulation of cats in the county, I worried I would not be able to find homes for the kittens, and I certainly did not want to take on the expense nor responsibility of feeding, spaying and caring for seven cats.

At least five people told me to just call animal control or drop the kittens off there.

Once again, I wondered how anyone could seriously think that dropping six kittens off at animal control was any sort of responsible solution. Does anyone have any clue how many dogs and cats they have to put down daily as a result of our irresponsible behavior toward animals?

Not only do I believe it is our responsibility to spay and neuter pets that will be roaming outside, but I believe it's our duty to take care of animals in need, including strays.

I ended up putting an ad in the paper for the kittens. Believe it or not, I found really good homes for all of the kittens. I have also made an appointment at a low cost spay and neuter clinic (not in Shelbyville) to have the mama cat spayed for $30.

I realize not everyone can afford to feed a bunch of cats and kittens or spay and neuter every stray that comes along, but I am quite certain that just about everyone out there can find a better alternative than shooting, or just nonchalantly dropping a load of kittens off for animal control to deal with. Cat food is fairly cheap -- go without one fast food lunch this week.

Bottom line, where there's a will, there's a way. It just takes a little bit of thought and effort.

-- Sadie Fowler is lifestyles editor at the Times-Gazette. Her columns, Sadie Says and Simply Delish, run every Sunday. She may be reached at sfowler@t-g.com or 684-1200 ext. 214.