Friday morning my phone rings at 7:30. It’s my neighbor. She’s on her way to work and sees a dog running down a nearby busy street. She knows how much I “love helping animals” and she knew “for sure” I’d “want to know about the dog so I could try to catch it.”
She can’t stop because she’s on her way to work. Nevermind she’s the owner and can show up whenever she damn well pleases.
She can’t stop, but she’s SURE that I would want to get out there in the traffic at 7:30 a.m. in 40 degree weather because she knows how much I LOVE HELPING ANIMALS.
Oh my yes. Let me tell you.
Let me tell you how much I love fishing a litter of abandoned kittens out from under a rat-infested shed in the middle of a Texas summer. Or how much I love darting in and out of traffic trying to get to a terrified dog in the middle of the street before a car does. Or how much I love sitting in a car on a cold night, away from home for hours trying to trap starving cats and kittens so they won’t freeze to death. Or how much I love spending my own money for vet care. Or how much I love getting up in the middle of the night to bottle feed a litter of kittens. Or how much I love worrying about the animals I couldn’t help.
And especially — how much I love having my goddamn heart broken over and over because animal overpopulation and suffering caused by human irresponsibility and cruelty never ends. Never.
None of the people I know who “love helping animals” do it because they love it. Not one. They hate it as much as I do. They do it because they know no one else will.
p.s. — Please spay or neuter your pets — and other people’s, too, if you can get away with it.
