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It's a Dog's Life

It's a Dog's Life

 

The plight of dogs on chains in all weather and with inadequate or no shelter is nothing new. However, it’s an issue that maddens caring people and challenges humane organizations. Talking to the guardians of chained dogs is a good first step, but whether it will work or not is anyone’s guess.

In the last week of January, in Lauderdale County, Mississippi, two women made the decision to help a dog who was continually kept in a wire crate in all kinds of weather. They initially asked for assistance from animal control, which in turn directed the keepers of the dog to place a tarp around his crate. Thus, the dog was not only confined in a space barely large enough to turn around in, but also he was basically in solitary confinement , with a view of nothing but the inside of the crate – a punishment usually reserved for people who have committed the worst of crimes.

The women spoke with the couple involved because they couldn’t see the dog. They were told the dog had been taken to a relative for care. So it would seem that now the unfortunate dog is gone and hopefully in a better circumstance, but we can’t know that with certainty.

Comparatively few communities have laws against chaining animals, and federal laws are equally lacking. The so-called “Animal Welfare Act” only covers government regulated laboratories and teaching institutions. These places must cage animals so that they may stand and turn around and have some type of potential exercise, albeit severely limited. The Act has little to do with ensuring the humane treatment of animals, and more to do with misleading a concerned public into thinking animals in laboratories are “just fine.”

If we can’t get our federal government to truly protect animals, the fight must begin on the ground, at home. The Justice for Animals Coalition serves to gain humane treatment for animals through local and regional ordinances, and to use these changes to give the wider public the confidence and influence to remind state and federal legislators that they answer to us, the public.

Unfavorable practices usually don’t end until they become too much trouble to continue. It is up to each and every one of us to stop animal cruelty wherever and whenever we can.

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