Mandy

Mandy died today.  Mandy was an old Jack Russell mix who, until today, lived out the last days of a mostly miserable life here at GARD.  She arrived here with her last litter of puppies, one litter too many as far as her body as well as her welcome in her former abode was concerned.  After the puppies were gone, she took up refuge in my dad’s office which is generally a little quieter and calmer that the rest of the house.  Lil and I have shared, albeit grudgingly sometimes, this space with numerous other dogs who, for whatever reason, need a bit more security or solitude and we’ve shared many a bowl of popcorn with Miss Mandy.  It’s sad to see her go and sadder still to know that this last year was probably the only happy year in her life but at least we could give her that much.
I wanted to tell you about Mandy because, first of all, it is a way of remembering her but mostly because her sad story is one we see far too often, a used-up dog abandoned after a life of neglect and/or exploitation.  There are two major groups that fit this profile, a breeder dog who is no longer of any value to her keeper and is thus discarded and an old dawg that just keeps having litter upon litter until her people have had enough and decide to get rid of her in whichever manner they find convenient.  They come here to spend their last days, weeks or months and at least get to sample life with a family that cares about them.  Too little too late but better late than never.
I cannot, for the life of me, understand why her people did not just get her spayed if they didn’t want her to have any more puppies.  Could it possibly be that they begrudged her this small expense in return for the joy and laughter that she was capable of infusing into their family?  What about the breeder?  I don’t begrudge anyone breeding a dog for the puppies as long as they do it in a responsible manner in spite of the fact that we have way more dogs than we have homes for them.  This is, after all, a free country but the key word here is responsible and to just discard this dog when she is of no further use is anything but responsible.  At the risk of offending some readers, I’ll be very frank here.  How, in a part of the country where people are very open and proud of their Christian beliefs and values, can people be so callous and cold-hearted to another living creature?  I’m no bible scholar (heck, I can’t even read) but I’m positive that when God gave man dominion over all the animals both domestic and wild, he also charged man with the responsibility of exercising good stewardship over them as well.  Even though I cannot understand how people can harbour attitudes that lead to such callous treatment, I’m not condemning them for it.  I believe that mostly people do things the way they do because that’s the way mom and dad did it and that’s the way granny and grandpa did it and it fits in well with the existing social norm.
There is, however, a better way.  Times have changed and so have attitudes toward this stewardship.  To a large degree, this starts with spaying/neutering your pet.  This fosters an attitude of caring and responsibility.  If everyone did it, it would be the social norm and your neighbor wouldn’t look at you like some sort of “bunny hugger” for taking care of your pet in a responsible manner.  This doesn’t happen overnight though or without a great deal of effort.  Prior to founding GARD, my mom, dad and grandma had a lot of experience with Green Mountain Animal Defenders (http://www.greenmountainanimaldefenders.org/ ) in Vermont and were acutely aware of the changes that they were able to facilitate in that part of the country.  Dad says it took literally decades for peoples attitudes to change but they did change.  Nowadays, it’s a completely different and better world there as far as animals are concerned and nobody thinks you’re an oddball for taking your dog or cat to the vet for shots or to be spayed or neutered.  The great part of this is that it’s also cost-effective.  “Round here, we support our county animal control agencies with taxpayer-supplied budgets in the hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to round up, shoot, trap and kill animals that are the product of irresponsible management.  It would make far better fiscal and, more importantly, moral sense to spend the money doing the right thing. 
If you’re reading this, you’re probably an animal lover so I would challenge you to look into what could be a reality here in Georgia.  The link I included is a good place to start but GMAD is not unique and a simple search will lead you to many many others who have learned that practicing good stewardship is not only the right thing to do but it is a better use of their tax dollars.  Contact your legislators and give them a little push.  Georgia just finally did away with gassing but not without being pushed.  Twenty years from now our kids will look back and wonder how we could possibly have maintained that brutal practice for a long as we did.  Doing the right thing will have become the social norm.  Mandy’s gone and we’ll miss her and her antics but we sure would love never to have another dog have to come here at the end of his or her life to finally experience for a few brief weeks or months what it was to have a life worth living.