Attack on the spca every pet owner should read

[ktinspired]

This is a rebuttal to a front page article in the St Pete Times.....

Original article Is SPCA Tampa Bay a no-kill shelter? Not really - St. Petersburg Times



Rebuttal long read but powerful

Taken from http://www.spcafl.org/

Where do the animals go?

The SPCA hides a terrible sin more horrific than your worst nightmares.
In the eyes of the public the SPCA is nothing more than a thriving
pet store where on any given day a family can go with the kids and
adopt a purring kitten or a tail-wagging dog. As you walk the freshly
painted kennels and the manicured grounds you see spotlessly clean
cages, full of healthy, happy animals all hoping for a chance at a
new home. The problem with this scene.... is that it's all a facade that
hides a terrible sin.

Where do these animals come from and how did they get there?
The answer will shock and disgust you.

They come in, everyday, from all parts of the county, the unwanted,
the abused, the neglected. The box of kittens no more than a few days
old, the owners never bothered to get the mother fixed. They will
need feeding every few hours but there's not enough volunteers to foster
them all.

And the animals keep coming, and coming, and coming.

The family dog of many years that's too old to make the move the new
job requires. The pit bull, trained from birth to be a champion who
lost the last round of fighting, or the cat who was sleeping in the
engine compartment, disfigured by the engines turning fan.

And they keep coming, and coming, and coming.

The medical department is actually more like an emergency triage unit.
Sick, diseased and injured animals are constantly dropped off, their
owners unable or unwilling to pay for proper treatment. On any given
day the cages are full of suffering and injured animals. Embedded
collars, parvo and heart worms are rampant. There is an emaciated dog
so thin you can see every bone. A worker is giving a cat a bath, it is so
infested with fleas and ticks that the water runs red with its blood.

And they keep coming, and coming, and coming.

At the SPCA there are ambulance drivers who also bring in animals. A
neighbor called, the family next door moved and left their dog tied to
a tree in the back yard. He's had no food or water for days. There is
another dog down the street that got hit by a car, the driver just
kept on going. He can't seem to walk but he's still alive. He's been
laying there for hours. The kids down the street poured gasoline on a
cat and set it on fire for a joke. Can someone help? Can you send
someone right away?

And they keep coming, and coming, and coming.

The SPCA also has animal cruelty investigators bringing in animals.
There is the "cat collector" with over 90 feral cats in her home. The
smell of cat urine was overwhelming, the litter boxes overflowed
months ago. Then there is the confiscations from the dog fighting
rings and the busted puppy mills. Dogs that have never been shown
compassion or seen the inside of a loving home.

And they keep coming, and coming, and coming.

Then there is the hurricane that hit Miami, or Georgia, or Mississippi.
There are hundreds of homeless animals that couldn't be evacuated.
They are standing on roof tops and cowering in the rubble, injured,
scared and hungry. They don't have collars or ID. The SPCA's DART team
rescues hundreds of these animals every year and brings them to the
shelter.

And they keep coming, and coming, and coming.

So where do the animals go? The animals that have been discarded by
our society. The abused, the sick, the injured, the diseased, the
unwanted, the feral? Where do they go? They all go, to the SPCA.
And it is there, and only there, that they will be welcomed, and with
open arms and unconditionally. And somehow... somehow... through the
dedication of those who work there, they will be able to heal,
rehabilitate and find homes for more that half of the animals that
they receive. And that is not a statistic, that is a miracle.

I am constantly amazed at Beth and Connie, who, after all these years
of seeing this horror, can still put a smile on their face, and go
before the public, and humbly ask people to adopt a shelter animal,
to please get their pets spayed or neutered in order to reduce
unwanted animals, or to ask for donations so that we can continue our
efforts for another month or two.

For more than 68 years the SPCA have kept hidden a sin so great and a
crime so horrific, that most people could never even imagine that it
even exists... and it is happening right under their noses and in
their very own back yards. It is the pain and suffering that our
society inflicts on helpless and voiceless animals.

Are there areas of the shelter that are kept from public view? Indeed
there are. But it's not because they don't want you to see what's
behind those closed doors. Its because you could not bare to see
what's behind those closed doors.

And for all horrors that they see, day after day after day, and for
all their efforts, they are portrayed as heartless killers.... But I
like to think of them as blessed saints.

To the writers and the editors of the St. Pete Times I can say only this.
The perspective and the words that appeared on the front page of your
newspaper will have devastating effects on the operational readiness
of the shelter. Public support will become outrage. Donations,
programs, food, medical supplies, volunteers and personnel will need
to be drastically reduced or eliminated. The question is, where will
the animals go then? Because even if we are forced to close our
doors, the animals will keep coming, and coming, and coming.

Perhaps that would make a good story for the front page of your paper.

For the Animals,

Farmer Mark
Saturday, August 15