Community Focus: We need to speak out against animal cruelty

Picture yourself in this situation. You’ve just pulled up to your local garbage disposal site. You’re ready to unload whatever you brought with you. And there, amongst the foul smells and the many items of junk and debris, the things people didn’t want anymore, is a dog. But not just any dog — a very young, very small puppy. A puppy too young and too helpless to survive even a few days in an environment like that.

What do you do?

Fortunately, for the dog that would eventually be named Otis, that is the situation my father-in-law, Dick Slonaker found himself in last week at the dump at Beaver Creek Park. And fortunately for Otis, the story will have a happy ending, because unlike the person who left him there, Dick is an animal lover, he’s compassionate and humane, and above all else, he’s a really good person.

So, while all of us who know Dick, and who are dog lovers, too, were happy to see the outcome of last week’s encounter, the situation is still a sad one, an all too uncommon one and one that doesn’t get talked about enough.

Even I don’t speak out against animal cruelty enough, and I’m a proud animal lover, especially dogs. I have two wonderful Labrador retrievers, and they are like children to my wife, Amy, and I. So maybe it’s because I am an animal lover, a strong believer in wildlife conservation, and, at least I try to be, a compassionate person who respects all life, that I don’t give enough attention to animal cruelty.

Or, maybe it’s because I know and am around so many people like me. People like my mom, another avid dog and cat lover, or my Aunt Carol and Uncle Robert, who have spent the better part of their adult lives owning pets they rescued from animal shelters and out of cold winter nights on the street. In fact, pretty much anyone I’m related to are true animal lovers. The list of people I know who are compassionate toward animals is too long to mention, but they all know who they are.

But Otis’ story really got me thinking, and it should get the rest of us thinking too. Animal cruelty is an elephant in the room and it deserves more attention. And, while I know law enforcement agencies take animal cruelty very seriously, I think there needs to be more light shed on the subject and more stringent penalties against people who commit these terrible acts.

While laws and enforcement are one way to deal with animal cruelty, it seems to me there’s a much more simple solution. And, no, I’m not suggesting everyone that loves animals and owns pets needs to run out and become an alarmist or an extremist. But obviously, the person who left Otis to die at Beaver Creek Park, and others who commit terrible acts against animals all over the world every day and night, lack compassion. In my estimation, they lack soul and emotion and whatever else makes up a human’s ability to care for and care about animals.

To me, the simple solution is, if you are one of those people who lack that emotion and compassion for animals, then, please, just leave them alone. Don’t buy a dog or a cat, don’t buy a horse if you can’t properly care for it and feed it. Don’t purchase a snake or a lizard, or a monkey or even a hamster. Just leave these animals alone.

Trust me, if everybody who is eventually going to treat animals poorly just had enough sense to leave them alone, it would stand to reason that animal cruelty rates would drop immensely. Not to mention, there are plenty of compassionate people in this world, and I know a lot of them, who would take good care of animals currently being mistreated. There’s a lot of people that would love the opportunity to care for that dog or cat or horse or potbellied pig that isn’t getting the proper care right now, as I write this column. Because trust me, animal cruelty is indeed happening all over the world, right now, while I type these words.

Yes, there are plenty of alternatives to animal cruelty, like just not being cruel to animals to begin with. And while Otis’ story is going to turn out to be a happy one in the long run, there are way too many stories like his that won’t end that way.

And that’s a shame and more than what we’re doing right now needs to start being done.

(George Ferguson is sports editor of the Havre Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected].)