A pet project
The real end to the pet overpopulation problem and its attending euthanasia rate can be brought about quite simply. By melding the laws of supply and demand with the practices of nonprofits, rapid change on a grand scale can be achieved almost immediately.
Los Angeles has a glut of Chihuahuas while Denver has none. In our care, they could wait for months for a home. In Denver, they could be adopted in days. Rather than forcing those in Denver who want this breed to essentially have more “made,” at an exorbitant cost, courtesy of puppy mills, unscrupulous backyard breeders and the like, spcaLA, Denver Dumb Friends League and a philanthropist joined forces and flew 35 Chihuahuas from Los Angeles to Denver this past New Year’s Eve.
Imagine if this were done routinely. The supply of existing homeless pets would be relocated to where the demand existed, thus eradicating the market for those who would abuse animals for profit. We would be finding homes for existing pets while simultaneously drying up the need for unprincipled breeders to produce more.
Intelligently managing this would rapidly reduce the shelter populations and the euthanasia rates and satisfy our clients as they would receive the pet they desire. An ancillary success would be to ignore dodgy breeders out of business and perhaps force pet shops to fill their inventory with shelter pets. Finally, it would eliminate the need to spend resources dealing with poor puppy mill legislation drafted by clueless organizations that, even if perfect, would target one offender at a time.
Let us resolve together to do this. The CEOs of legitimate shelters across the country can communicate easily to assess supply and demand. Philanthropists can be individual, school groups, block associations, etc. that can fund the transfers. Together we can find every adoptable pet a good home— wherever that may be. Could this not be a truly great New Year’s resolution?
Madeline Bernstein
President
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
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Puppy love
[The following letter is a response to the article “Wheely Willy goes to dog heaven after touching thousands of lives,” Jan. 1, 2010]
As tears of loving recall moisten my cheeks, sharing times with Willy warm my soul. Deborah Turner, Willy’s mom and author of books about him, and Sue Ahrend, the books’ illustrator, visited us at the Lynwood school where I taught for over three decades. That was in 2002, when Willy was a dapper 16 years old. Deborah, Willy, and Sue spent an entire evening with us in our school auditorium filled to overflowing with students, parents, teachers, and the entire Lynwood School Board!
The PTA had voted to sponsor Willy’s visit and thereby purchase a set of books for each classroom. The standing-room-only crowd warmed easily to Willy, the most loving, charming, and endearing animal I have ever known. As Deborah related Willy’s history to the rapt school audience, several students chosen to hold him for 45 minute intervals, deferred to a shift change signaled by Willy’s slight squirm, as if to say, “next!” Willy and I became fast friends through this and several subsequent sharings.
That same year I took a group of students to meet Willy at Once Upon a Story, a Long Beach bookstore that captures every child’s imagination. While each child chose a book I had promised them, Willy scooted up and down the aisles, resting occasionally at the feet of each reading youngster. Deborah and Willy replicated this scenario annually at the Disabilities Fair in our Long Beach Aquarium. As Deborah read stories to visiting children, Willy both listened and greeted his always welcome friends.
“Inspiring” indeed defines Wheely Willy’s long life!
Janeice McConnell
Long Beach
