The True Meaning of “Sheltering”
Once upon a time I had the good fortune to interview LeRoy Ellis, one of the early CEOs of the PA SPCA. He explained to me how he and Carl “Red” Canouse chose the location for the Danville Shelter. “Red”, of course, had become involved in sheltering stray dogs after rescuing three that were being used for target practice at the town dump. He then founded the first shelter in Columbia County on Honeysuckle Lane. On Sundays Veterinarian George Leighow and his wife Anna neutered the dogs and cats at no charge. I remember Canouse speaking before the Covered Bridges Kennel Club about the early days. He paused at one point and called out to some people sitting in the last row: “We were all poor then, weren’t we–poor as dirt.”
The next PA SPCA CEO I met was Eric Hendricks, who believed in the cheaper mass killing of unwanted animals and spoke in favor of the decompression chamber at a hearing held by Senators Helfrick and Corman in Danville. Looking back, perhaps that was the beginning of the end of the PA SPCA’s mission of compassion.
Life has changed since then for us all but I would like to believe that the desire to be compassionate is still alive and well and am optimistic that this quality is still a part of all of our lives. On the other hand, a magazine named BARK, the “dog culture magazine”, offered a recent news story that noted the increasing number of falls among senior citizens due to their pets–so while our cats and dogs should be inside and with us as companions, evidently they are a danger, too, lurking with affection and toys underfoot! Taking the negative stories that have recently appeared in the press even further, the economy (culture) has clearly had negative effects on pets as well. Not surprisingly, incidences of dog bites have increased in poor neighborhoods. This is no doubt due to hungry dogs that are either homeless or living in homes where dog owner tempers are stretched to the point of cruelty–battered pets, children, women and the elderly. Thus, it is impossible not to discuss pets when discussing culture today in America. Does the dog on the levee of Fargo sand bags remind you of Katrina?
To return to the Danville Shelter–when the economy was good, the Shelter thrived. Now that times are difficult for both two- and four-legged family members the spirit of compassion appears to have disappeared from the PA SPCA mission. It has forgotten that its first logo dog carried a knapsack symbolic of the homeless and his name was “Tramp”. Yet there was room for him–a haven–at the Shelter.
Last year when the PA SPCA joined “mission orange” and adopted no-kill community guidelines, Danville followed. Now dogs and cats need to be quickly adoptable, eliminating all strays. After all, a stray can’t tell the shelter that it has all its shots, what age it is, its training and background. How does a stray audition for an empty cage in the shelter? To be quickly adoptable, according to current Shelter guidelines, the dog cannot be black or over 50 pounds, or middle-aged and must be good with children and other pets, easily walked and have no bad habits or visible health problems. The Danville Shelter has closed its doors to irresponsible owners of un-trained dogs and continues to do nothing to help those pets seeking adoption that have behavior problems. According to a recent news story the Shelter feels that it is being treated like a “dump”, but the challenges in placing pets, and ones newly taken to the Shelter due to the family’s economic problems, are not new–we could see this coming.
Today this large, multi-shelter private Philadelphia-based organization is not just morally broke–it appears to have lost its mission, compassion, and leadership. It is offering one message at the present time–TAKE CATS. Its online newsletter calls for foster homes for kittens and cats –”PSPCA relies on the many dedicated foster volunteers who take nursing moms and abandoned babies home to provide them with round the clock attention,” writes Beth Ann Smith White. However, at our local shelter Roxanne Greiner is quoted as saying, “if the cat has a litter, run an ad offering them free for free” and also “cats are wild. They survive on their own.” Is there a pack leader in Philadelphia and do the rest of the pack know who it is? (The current CEO is reportedly on leave of absence.)
If the Danville shelter wants public funding, either at the county or municipal levels, it must accept local public oversight and control. We know how to live in hard times and we know that compassion is not, and should not be, a stranger.
Apr 05, 2009 | | Uncategorized