A Humane Society Thanksgiving-Adopt a Pet

It always breaks my heart when I go by the Wichita humane society or city animal shelter and see all those unwanted or lost animals.

When a dog looks into yours eyes from behind those bars it looks so sad. I can feel it deep down. The sadness, confusion and pure desperation. The thing is a dog, or cat, doesn’t understand. It just knows that one minute it was frolicking happily about without a care in the world and the next minute it’s locked in a cage completely alone.

I shouldn’t say completely alone. Those people who work at the humane society and animal shelter here in Wichita are really great people. They give the animals all the love and support they can.

The reason I bring this up tonight is I was writing about foreclosures earlier. What I found is that, like what happened in New Orleans, when people lose their homes, their pets lose their homes too. Many people just can’t afford to take their animals with them as they strike out into the cold and lonely world of homelessness. Even when taken in by relatives, friends or the Government, the pets generally aren’t welcome.

The alternative is “the pound”. While I’m sure many people would like to and may even plan to come back for them, most of the time it’s just not feasible. No one ever knows how long the bad times are going to last.

The country has had an unprecedented number of foreclosures this year. That has left the homeless pet population growing immensely. The shelters are filling up quickly right at a time when the lost and homeless pet problem was nearing a solution.There is an actual plan, a goal, to not have to put animals down anymore sometime in the future and to get control of this problem.

The shelter and humane society will keep the animals for some time waiting for the owners. I’m not really sure what the policy is exactly, but the last time I was there interviewing some of the workers they showed me some dogs that were being “stored” while the owners were in jail or working out some other problems.

So if anyone has ever thought about getting a pet, a dog or a cat, please think about coming down to the shelter at hwy. 96 and Hillside. Come down and take a look around. There are so many different kinds of dogs and cats. Young and old. Playful and subdued. Small ones, big ones and even some Goldilocks ones (just right). Your sure to see one or two that you’ll just fall in love with, and you’ll find it’s easy for them to love you too.