Where is the Line Between Caring and Killing?
After plying Ian with eggs and bagels, we drove out to Trisha’s place, home of her rescue, RARE (Rural Animal Rescue Effort). Disguised as a pretty, petite, energetic normal person, Trisha is a powerhouse who rescues animals all over western Tennessee, fighting for them on every level. She will not tolerate your nonsense and has no qualms with calling a spade, a spade.“I’m not really a human-person, I’m a dog-person,” she told me. Currently, she fosters thirty-five at her house (along with dozens of cats and kittens, and a few rabbits.Driving west with Trisha in the back seat, it was hard to keep up with her busy mind as she rattled off the situations we were headed for. Our first stop was the Huntingdon dog pound in Carroll County. She explained that she hoped we’d be able to get in but hadn’t gotten confirmation of that from the dog catchers she'd contacted. Dogcatcher is really what they are called. The county has two dogcatchers who make upwards of a thousand dollars a month. She checked her phone again. No response. “They don’t give a shit,” she said.This was clear when we arrived. The Huntingdon Animal Shelter is a small cement building surrounded by a tall chainlink fence with three strings of barbed wire on top. It is a desolate spot, one where you could easily set a murder scene for a horror movie.There was no sign indicating that dogs were kept there, just a warning sign cautioning that you are entering a firing range and will be prosecuted (shot?) for trespassing.
We ran out of time too soon, knowing that we still had the two and a half hour drive back to Laura’s. Trisha needed to get home to begin her four-hour evening feeding/cleaning. We gave Anne and Kim a few donations and promised to spread the word, but wished we could do more.
We’d hoped to stop in to see the three other city pounds nearby – all much like Huntingdon, Trisha assured me, but there wasn’t time.It is already time to head for home, but I wish I could stay. There are so many stories here. So much happening that seems impossible. I don’t think many people, at least people I know, would believe what is happening down here. I can’t imagine my little town tolerating Animal Control Officers who just kill dogs on a whim (one of the pounds around here Trisha told me just shoots the dogs with guns, doesn’t even bother with the $25 fee to take them to the vet). Why is it that this can happen here? Where is the outrage?I asked this question of Kim and she said, “People don’t care. It’s just a dog.”Those were the same words I heard a few months ago in South Carolina. Is there a line somewhere between north and south, like the Mason-Dixon line, where people stop caring about animals? Where animals become property, not pets? Where you only feed them garbage and don’t worry about exercise or enrichment? Where when you get tired of them, you dump them on a local rescue or take them to the pound and leave them to be euthanized?At the same time, it’s hard to imagine anyone doing the things that Kim and Anne and Trisha and Tabi and Amber do to save dogs. Why is this work left to them? They are soldiers in this battle against apathy and cruelty that should not be. That doesn’t have to be.But how do you make people care? Why do they look the other way when these dogs are abandoned in a locked, lonely, barbed-wire place all alone to starve to death, only to be eventually be dumped at a vet to be killed or worse yet, shot to death by the hands that should be caring for them?If I wasn’t here seeing it with my own eyes, running my hands over the bones of these dogs, looking into their desperate eyes, I wouldn’t believe it.But it’s happening. All over the place. I only spent three days here, saw just a tiny sliver. When I imagine all the other dogs, suffering worse with every mile I travel further into the rural places so many have forgotten, it feels unbearable. I want to do something, do more. These remarkable people I am meeting should not be left alone with this fight.While I know money cannot fix this problem, it can help the people who are trying to. If you’re moved to give something to Trisha’s work with RARE, you can visit her website or shop from her Amazon Wishlist.Anne and Kim do not have an Amazon Wishlist, but I encouraged them to create one (as if they have the time to do it!) and I’ll let you know if they do. Meanwhile, you can visit their website or find them on Facebook.We are headed home, traveling with two dogs who needed a ride north to their foster homes. We’ll make one quick stop at a small county shelter east of Nashville, just for another point of reference. There is still so much to say. The work here is far from done. Awareness is the first step. Someone has got to let these dogs out.Thanks for reading. Please spread the word.CaraYou can also follow us on Facebook or Instagram.
We’d hoped to stop in to see the three other city pounds nearby – all much like Huntingdon, Trisha assured me, but there wasn’t time.It is already time to head for home, but I wish I could stay. There are so many stories here. So much happening that seems impossible. I don’t think many people, at least people I know, would believe what is happening down here. I can’t imagine my little town tolerating Animal Control Officers who just kill dogs on a whim (one of the pounds around here Trisha told me just shoots the dogs with guns, doesn’t even bother with the $25 fee to take them to the vet). Why is it that this can happen here? Where is the outrage?I asked this question of Kim and she said, “People don’t care. It’s just a dog.”Those were the same words I heard a few months ago in South Carolina. Is there a line somewhere between north and south, like the Mason-Dixon line, where people stop caring about animals? Where animals become property, not pets? Where you only feed them garbage and don’t worry about exercise or enrichment? Where when you get tired of them, you dump them on a local rescue or take them to the pound and leave them to be euthanized?At the same time, it’s hard to imagine anyone doing the things that Kim and Anne and Trisha and Tabi and Amber do to save dogs. Why is this work left to them? They are soldiers in this battle against apathy and cruelty that should not be. That doesn’t have to be.But how do you make people care? Why do they look the other way when these dogs are abandoned in a locked, lonely, barbed-wire place all alone to starve to death, only to be eventually be dumped at a vet to be killed or worse yet, shot to death by the hands that should be caring for them?If I wasn’t here seeing it with my own eyes, running my hands over the bones of these dogs, looking into their desperate eyes, I wouldn’t believe it.But it’s happening. All over the place. I only spent three days here, saw just a tiny sliver. When I imagine all the other dogs, suffering worse with every mile I travel further into the rural places so many have forgotten, it feels unbearable. I want to do something, do more. These remarkable people I am meeting should not be left alone with this fight.While I know money cannot fix this problem, it can help the people who are trying to. If you’re moved to give something to Trisha’s work with RARE, you can visit her website or shop from her Amazon Wishlist.Anne and Kim do not have an Amazon Wishlist, but I encouraged them to create one (as if they have the time to do it!) and I’ll let you know if they do. Meanwhile, you can visit their website or find them on Facebook.We are headed home, traveling with two dogs who needed a ride north to their foster homes. We’ll make one quick stop at a small county shelter east of Nashville, just for another point of reference. There is still so much to say. The work here is far from done. Awareness is the first step. Someone has got to let these dogs out.Thanks for reading. Please spread the word.CaraYou can also follow us on Facebook or Instagram.
