Amanda Newman Verified

What beautiful prose...

My Beano, a terrier mix I dognapped from a hateful, abusive owner, has been at my side for 12 years.

Yes, he's mute, he farts a lot and he's beginning to lose his hair on his tail and noggin from old age, but he's the funniest and most delightful companion I could ever imagine.

He's my little illegal greeter at Club Dada, eager to jump into a booth with any stranger who'll have him and he's the best all around snuggle buddy I could have in the bed with me.

The found ones are the keepers, that is for sure.

1 month, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Jason Ezell Verified

What a great story! More people need to realize that the best dogs can be the ones that find you when you least expect it. Like Iva Lee found me at 3:00 AM in a conv. store parking lot. I cut out the middle man and got her straight off the the street so she didn't end up at the city pound off of 8th St. No kill shelters are wonderful but I feel certain that I saved Iva Lee from doggie death row. See Iva Lee's My Space at http://www.myspace.com/sochowler

1 month, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Rawlins Gilliland Verified

Who knew Iva Lee had her own MySpace page. Gotta love the modern world. Meanwhile, two people have written that they adopted dogs and one cat today from shelters, so we may not be doing 'God's work' but we can try one animal at a time. ~~~~~~~~~~

Couple of years back, (see text below) I wrote a commentary for KERA/NPR entitled 'Have Mercy' pegged to the torture death of the pit mix that was set afire and died in Dallas. A United Kingdom animal activist named Maria Daines saw the piece online and set part of the piece to music and recorded it and it became an underground 'hit' not only in England, but in Canada and France. The proceeds going to animal rescue, the cause she is dedicating her life to. Google her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

So the power of the internet can be fierce and do enormous good. Maria is already linked to our piece here, so somewhere someone might read the Pegasusian link and see Honey, Landy and Iva Lee and think, "My God. Those animals didn't have a chance...not a prayer...and fate intervened and look at those amazing faces now".

Seriously, see the joy in Honey's face, the proud determination and purpose in Iva Lee's and the unbelievably muscular and powerful beauty in Landy's photo. I rest my case. Please, take a look at the links to nearby animal shelters and rescue efforts across our Metro area. There is some soul waiting for you. Don't underestimate all that you stand to gain when you save a creature simply because you can.

PS: When I gave up finding anyone to take 'Honey' and kept her rather than let her go to the shelter, I was flat broke. We're talking merely 3 1/2 years ago. $145,000 in medical bills, no money coming in since I had a horrible accident. Bad luck and terrible circumstance. I had to borrow the money from neighbors to put Honey on IV when she was diagnosed with Parvo, which is 7-10 times fatal. But after I made the sacrifice, I became stronger, and together we created the happiest time in my life. That would be now.

Commentary: Have Mercy By Rawlins Gilliland, KERA 90.1 Commentator

DALLAS, TX (2006-05-11)

I once heard a saying: "You can tell a lot about a country by the way they treat their animals." With the dreadful case of Mercy, the pit bull mix who was stabbed and set afire, this quote seems timely.

Funny how we Americans need to put a name and a face on topical problems to make them become poster child "real": like Rodney King, Mathew Shepherd, Rock Hudson or Anita Hill. Now Mercy comes to personify the plight of abused, neglected or unwanted dogs. But like everything these days, Mercy's case is not without irony, including symbolic ritual.

What truly saddens me here, beyond the obvious is this; had a healthy Mercy been taken to almost any Metroplex animal shelter, she would have likely been euthanized because she was the least desirable commodity in our trendy metropolis: a mixed breed large dog. Last year in area shelters, over twenty thousand dogs and cats were killed because no one saw them or wanted them. And a disproportionate number looked like Mercy, before she was tortured to death.

Meanwhile, Dallasites are on waiting lists with upscale and low rent puppy mills alike to purchase preferred breeds. There's even dog chic; when Paris Hilton was "wearing" her Chihuahua, one Dallas mother bought her daughter an identical dog. It was later dropped at a shelter when the daughter left for college.

I'm constantly asked, "What kind is your dog". When I joke, "God only knows", people invariably say, "Mixed breeds are the best." They tell me how indeterminate origin mutts are healthier, have better immune systems. Yet they only have so-called "pure breeds", explaining they want specific "traits".

What traits, I wonder: loyalty, kindness, sweetness, great company?

My huge happy handsome hound was the victim of still another prevalent abuse. She was the traditional ethnic baby gift, given to families who, once puppies are no longer babies, trade in their aging pups for newborns. This revolving door "eternal puppy' problem at the SPCA is an ongoing matter-of-fact norm in many lower socio-economic households - white, brown and black.

There as elsewhere, there is stereotypical breed status. I can drive you through neighborhoods where pit bulls and Rottweilers run loose and breed freely. The result was Mercy. Ignorant resistance to spay or neuter animals remains endemic while homeless animals scavenge area parks, or if found or caught, overwhelm under-funded shelters. Others suffer terrible terminal diseases without shots.

But abuse has many faces. I recently called 311 about a Mercy look-alike tied to a pole in the blazing sun without water. This was intentional; to teach that dog to become deadly, like a growling gun. There is also unwitting cruelty afoot: a housebound Border collie or Dalmatian, never allowed to run, constantly punished for being "hyper".

It's past time to address our out-of-control animal emergency. While many big hearted Metroplex residents attended a memorial for Mercy, there are any number of dogs dying today who would have died to be your loving friend.

If Mercy - that poor sweet dog Mercy - touched your heart, why not become her guardian angel by rescuing an otherwise doomed angel in her name?

Rawlins Gilliland is National Endowment Poet and writer from Dallas.

© Copyright 2008, KERA

1 month, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

James Scott Verified

Operation Kindness is a great no-kill animal shelter.

Also, Animal Rescue Klub is another great shelter that has a thrift store you can donate to/purchase from (tax deductible) to help raise funds for their cause.

Both are local.

1 month, 1 week ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Rawlins Gilliland Verified

I know the Forney Street location is still open because I take them newspapers for the stalls (aka cages). The Forney Street shelter has always been a sort of step child in this system,...off the beaten path although it is close to I-30 and Buckner, (Take Buckner loop 12 exit going east on R.L. Thornton I-30 east, go right about a 1/2 mile on Buckner south to Forney Rd...then left on Forney Rd. and follow the signs.

Please give them a shot. That's where one of the dogs I write about in the above article came from and where I have seen many wonderful animals that I desperately wanted but alas.... a huge dog and two inside toms and a feral cat community (20 strays) on my property that I feed to the tune of $70 per month./... I'm maxed out.

1 month ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )