There is drama every day...

The cold of winter has become the chill of spring in our neighborhood. I think you can see the wisteria blossoms shivering before dawn – and I’m up shivering before dawn. Thank you, old dogs.
The mockingbird who usually fills the neighborhood with a song as intensely annoying as a car alarm is wearing a hoodie to stay warm. Was it too early to put away the winter socks? Were those penguins on the lawn? Here’s our daily report:
THE FACES IN SHELTERS: There are dogs like this in every shelter. Purebreds and mutts, they wait. There is no reprieve for many. It is the second visit to death row for some – perhaps economics severed the bond between human and animal after a successful adoption. Perhaps a human knew not his limitations for patience or overestimated his ability to love – and humans are never able to match the ability of a dog to love. Never.
Whatever the reason, animals wind up in shelters that kill them. And there are people who work to save those animals from the sting of the needle with the blue juice. They are noble people. They fight, they beg, they spend money they don’t have. They implore other people to join the battle.
Sometimes they win. Too frequently, they win only here and there, saving one cat out of six, one dog out of a dozen. Meanwhile, as the memories of unsaved faces are imprinted on the minds of rescuers and shelter staffers, cities and counties continue to buy euthanasia materials in bulk.
These are the faces of some dogs in the Collin County Animal Services Shelter in McKinney. They were from a dozen photos sent to us by DeDe Whitcombe, a volunteer with Mazie’s Mission who also walks the Collin County Animal Services Shelter in McKinney and attempts to get attention for the animals that wind up in that facility. There are many, many animals that get there. Some are owner-surrenders, some are dumped and found, some – like two recent litters of puppies, are simply “turned loose” alongside roads.
That little fellow is “287618 five-week-old baby male” – one of several nearly lookalike siblings.
The big dog who looks like he could play “Old Yeller” in a remake is 287057, known as Woofles, a Lab about 4 years old. Movie star looks.
Purebreds? Look at that Beagle. He’s Hercules, 287040, about 7 years old and kind of small for a Beagle, the shelter says. But he is “very sweet and howls like a sea lion when you walk away from him.”
The big girl with the big nose is Jessica, 287131, a year-old Anatolian Shepherd mix. She’s got company in the frame. They’re all waiting. What they’re waiting for is up to people.
Here is the way DeDe began her note about all these animals in the Collin County shelter. “Thanks to all the hard work of rescues, we only lost a few precious lives yesterday.” (To try to save the lives of these animals, call the Collin County Animal Services Shelter at 972-547-7292 or e-mail [email protected]. Or volunteer to be a foster home for a dog or cat – contact a rescue group. Make yourself available to save lives. You don’t need Hurricane Katrina or some other natural disaster to inspire you – there’s a daily disaster that goes almost unnoticed outside of the animal welfare world.
Weekly euthanasia (and sometimes more frequently performed) is not the shelter’s fault. This is the fault of people who don’t see the life of a dog or cat as having a higher priority than, well, just about anything else.
What’s the price of a carton of cigarettes? About the same as a low-cost spay or neuter that would keep you from having an unwanted load of puppies to dump on the side of a country road?
Of course, the sad thing is no amount of preaching or education can apparently correct the age-old human affliction: sorry behavior.
THE TANK SITUATION AND OTHER CASES:
--We spoke to Bedford Police Investigator Jennifer Bond this morning and she is continuing to try to find a good spot for Tank, the rescued and abused Pit Bull boy to go. You may recall his case: He and a little fluffy dog named Misty were abandoned on a balcony, left to starve. Misty has been adopted. Tank is still awaiting some help from a kind and understanding human – and Investigator Bond says that he has transformed from a terrified and unsocial starving dog to “just a great dog.” He actually gives some pretty good kisses, she says. And she is determined to make sure that this victim in a cruelty case does not survive only to be euthanized in a city shelter. To offer to help Tank find a good home. The Bedford shelter is at 1809 Reliance Parkway. Call 817-952-2191. Contact Investigator Bond at [email protected]  or call 817-952-2427. (We’re still working on getting a result in the Brittany Brown cruelty case – she’s the person accused of felony cruelty in the case of Tank and Misty.)
--We’ve gotten follow-ups on two Dallas County cruelty cases, thanks to Jonnie England, the Metroplex Animal Coalition’s Director of Animal Advocacy and Communications. She reports that Amanda Simmons, who let the cocker spaniel starve to death in a closet, entered a guilty plea and received a $1,500 fine and five years on probation. (No previous criminal record, so she was eligible for probation.) Jonnie says one of the conditions of probation is that “she stay away from animals—even animals belonging to family members or friends—during those 5 years.”
The case of Billy Whitaker was postponed – date to be determined. He’s the guy accused of throwing a dog against a wall, beating it and tossing it, still alive, into a trash bin – the dog died before a vet could help it. Mr. Whitaker is out on bond.
AND THEN THERE IS SOMEONE TRYING TO DO RIGHT: We first heard of this situation from Sydney Busch, our longtime tipster and veteran animal activist with Friends of the Animals at Cedar Creek Lake. (Friends runs the world’s most successful spay/neuter clinic in Gun Barrel City, Texas, as you probably know.)
She’d gotten a note from Patricia M. Tipton-McCrory who had seen the famous Friends “Pampered Pets” calendar and reached out for help. “I have a situation and am hoping you might be able to offer some guidance,” she wrote to Sydney. “My husband passed away a couple of months ago and due to his death I am going to be selling our property.” She lives between Kaufman and Canton, just off FM 429.
She has three dogs and two cats that need help finding new homes. “I really hate that I am having to look for homes for them but I will be selling my property in the near future and will not be able to take them with me,” she writes. “This has been a huge life changing experience for all of us, animals included. Fortunately, I have found a home for my goats.  I am not sure yet what I will be doing with the two cats that I also have.... I really do not want to take [the animals] to a shelter.”
The dogs are:
--Punk, a Catahoula/Aussie mix who may be deaf. “She was dumped in my yard and we have had her since.” She isn’t spayed and hasn’t been to a vet “due to lack of funds and/or time,” Patricia says. “She loves my 15-year-old son.”
--Rusty, a timid Red Bone Coonhound, came into the family with a Lab puppy named Rylee, who, now that they are grown, tries to dominate Rusty. Rusty “is very playful and loves to run” but he is a hazard to chickens and ducks.
-- Yellow Lab Rylee loves to play and he, too, will chase chickens and ducks. “I think he would prefer to be a lap dog more than anything,” she says.
The boys aren’t neutered.
To offer to help place these dogs, call 214-454-9276 or 972-932-2574 or e-mail [email protected].
A DOGGIES WONDERALAND K9 RESCUE REBOUND: We got a note from Miranda Fick about this dog Missy. As you may know, Doggies Wonderland, the Plano-based boarding facility also has a K-9 Rescue component. And Missy, says Miranda, “was actually one of the first dogs we rescued.
“Part of our mission is to help dogs [at peril] due to foreclosure.”
Here is Missy’s story as written by Miranda: “Missy was owner-surrendered directly to Doggie's Wonderland K9 Rescue back in December. Her story isn't as sad as most, and she's a happy healthy dog.  However, I believe Missy's story is all too common.  When dog leaves a shelter into a rescue or foster, they are often forgotten.  The battle many of us face is seeing that every time we save one, 10 come in their place -- making other dogs more urgent and the ones that have been saved are left in the dust. 
“Missy has been to almost every adoption event since December.  She is a beautiful American Bulldog/hound mix, about 1 and 1/2 years old, and has been patiently waiting for her forever home.  Missy gets to spend her day playing with the other dogs, but she needs a home to call her very own.
“Missy is a special girl.  She's smart and stubborn.  She has a personality of a hound and her nose is to the ground when she gets outside.  She's curious and knows what she wants and can be persistent in getting it.  She loves to lay in your lap and fall asleep, give kisses, and will let you dress her up in about anything you want! It breaks my heart seeing her passed over again and again.  She is safe with us, but needs a home to call of her very own.  Missy represents so many of the dogs who have spent months in rescues, fosters, and boarding.”
To ask about helping Missy, e-mail [email protected].
CONTEMPLATIONS: President Obama spoke on national TV at 6:30 p.m. Dallas time last night and that meant that he pre-empted (as we used to say in the old days of 3 channels) the “Wheel of Fortune” on Channel 11 (KTVT-TV), the CBS affiliate in Dallas/Fort Worth. As I was watching sitcoms a couple of hours later, I read a crawl on 11 that announced the evening’s edition of “Wheel” would be broadcast at 3:42 a.m. THREE-FORTY-TWO A.M. Not that I know much about the Wheel demographics, but I’m betting not many of those Wheel watchers are up at 3:42 a.m. and not many of them can set a TV recorder to catch that show. I slept through it, though apparently Inky the Cocker Spaniel did not and woke us when it was over. ... There is an American automobile commercial on TV these days in which the most remarkable wheeled vehicle is not a car, but a unicycle. A team of unicyclists roll past the featured car. The unicyclists look happy. ... Ah, the life of a guy who is pretending to be a writer – sip coffee, walk a dog, sip coffee, pet a cat, sip coffee, wonder where the day went. Wonder where the next dime is coming from – after a while, you quit wondering about the next dollar and just hope for the next dime. Ah, the good life. If only Inky, the Cocker Laureate of Texas, would agree to make personal appearances and read from his writings. Oh, he will? Why, just e-mail [email protected]  to arrange a reading.
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