CONTEMPLATIONS, RESOLUTIONS, CRITTERS & A GOOD 2025 FOR ANIMALS & ADVOCATES

EDITION OF MONDAY/TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30/31, 2024 [PetPowellPress] This is a look back that is inspired by living with animals and knowing animal people and watching the big hearts triumph in order to save animals threatened by the descipable predicament  labeled "unwanted."
You people are miracle workers. [Hey, y'all, I've just found a litter of kittens in my back yard... I'M KIDDING, I'M KIDDING! But if you've been in rescue longer than abut 20 minutes, you've got acquaintances and strangers who've opened a conversation that that sort of a sentence. Like they have no idea how dogs and cats get pregnant.That's my latest rescue: Hastings Streetboy. He's proudly neutered. Hint. Hint. ]
Some mornings I look at a big stack of emails about animals and ask myself, "Were there this many rescue groups and good-hearted animal advocates in Dallas/Fort Worth when I first typed an edition of Readlarrypowell.com? I think that was in the early 2000s...Maybe 2004 -- I've almost lost track of the passage of time ever since I quit getting a daily newspaper in 2004.
My computersaavyfunspouse Martha designed our first version of this pro-animal website way back then. We'll probably redesign it again if we ever get time.
We celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary on December 15. When we married, it was a merger of dogs and cats. Not long after, Martha left her position at The Formerly Big Paper Downtown and started PetPowell Pet-Sitting Service.
On the Saturday morning of her first "community business fair" she called me from her booth on the
parking lot at a Sam's in northern Duncanville and asked me, "Do you have time to come get a dog I just adopted?" Of course, I did. We already had our own pre-marriage dogs and cats, but Nickki was our first "Together Dog." [Martha always she she'd never have married me if her cat Lucy hadn't liked me.]
The parade of "unwanted" dogs and cats currently filling shelters and rescue groups in the Metrosprawl reminded me of the happy day we got Nickii. Both of us had always loved dogs and cats and, then, suddenly, because two wacky people got married, a wonderful little dog had a brand new, safe and appreciated life. She put up with other dogs and the cats for years and always knew that she had a special place in our joined-by-matrimony heart.
That's a photo of Nickki in her older fluffier era -- she was getting acquainted with Annie, one of a half-dozen puppies we rescued when we rescued her mom, the beautiful dog Calamity. That's her in the photo on our masthead above. Calamity was adopted by my little brother Garry and my sis-in-law Brenita and that loving dog adopted them right back!  That's a snapshot of the meeting when I introduced my baby brother Garry and Calamity at a many-years-ago Operation Kindness event. 
Martha and I kept Annie the puppy for her entire long life.  That photo on the lower left is Annie all grown up! Rowdy girl, at times.
She was one of many who learned to romp with other dogs and adore living with cats and also living with the
most difficult animals of all: humans.
There is a tender backstory regarding Nicki. Martha's booth for PetPowellPetsitting was near the Best Southwest Humane Society booth on the Sam's parking lot on the edge of northern Duncanville (as memory serves). In talking with the Best Southwest booth folks, Martha learned that Nicki had been difficult to place -- not because she was a bad or barky or bitey girl -- the right person just hadn't come along. So the rescue group had been moving her from shelter to shelter (co-conspirators in protecting this dog) and kept her from being euthanized. Martha declared she had just the place for Nicki and that's when I got the call that morning.
Why do I mention the story of Nicki? Because she is like so many other dogs in Dallas/Fort Worth and surrounding area. The rescuers and the shelter staffers know how wonderful the dogs and cats are, but there just aren't enough people opening their hearts and homes to learning how a previously unwanted dog or cat can be a wonderful addition to their lives.
Bless all of you hardworking animal people for being the connection between these dogs and cats and the humans who

love them.
THIS TIME OF A YEAR is generally regarded as a good time for contemplations -- perhaps those contemplations will help us build a better year -- not just a good 2025 for us, but for the people we love and dogs and cats and other critters, too. You don't have to adopt 'em all, just help 'em all avoid being labeled "unwanted."
Spread the word to good-hearted people. I'm sure we all know a few goodhearted people! Almost certain. I hereby resolve to be less negative in the new year....Honest. That's my Office Cat William Powell who's said he'll help me make a list of resolutions. In the background that's Martha on the brink of laughing at the cat's optimism. She knows me too well.
--- Offer animal protection resolutions by clicking on 'comment' below or by emailing [email protected]. Make the subject line read, "Get some help, Mr. Negative and layoff the ice cream in 2025." ---