New friends might not know this, but for many years I ran a very large no-kill animal sanctuary. We used to pull dogs from all over the United States and find them homes. Many places in this country still have amazingly high kill rates. We targeted shelters that were over 90% kill and tried to help them see that lives could be saved.
Some of these places didn’t care at all. Some of these places cared very much, but were helpless for many reasons…or there would be a small group of people doing everything they could to save these lives. Some of these people drove 22 hours straight to get dogs to us, in places that were 97-98% kill. It’s hard to believe that there are places like that still existing in this country but there are. Many of them. More than you would believe. Some making no effort at all to find homes for animals, basically just serving as a killing center. Some don’t even hold your lost pet for more than 24 hours before killing them.
I am tempted to go into stories of such places, there are so many. There are tales of horror that I still lose sleep over, and there are beautiful tales of people who did their best, and struggled daily to save lives, in a system that was terribly, horribly, and almost irreparably broken.
Ernie found himself in one such place. Continue reading…
Earlier this year, on June 10, 2018, we lost a dog that was very precious to me.
It’s been 16 years since that awful day. Sixteen years. It’s such a long time, and yet it seems like yesterday. It’s amazing now to meet people that don’t remember it. They were too young, or weren’t even born. That really is difficult to believe, because to me it is the biggest, most significant event – probably in my entire life.
What exactly does the phrase mean? I always wonder when I hear it. I guess it means all of those things, and yet to those of us that were in some way involved – either peripherally or in actuality – it’s nonsense. None of us will ever forget a single, solitary, moment. Not one second of that horrible time. It’s etched into our brains, into our memories, it is cut into our skin and into the fiber of our being. No one who was there will ever forget. No one who even watched it on TV will likely ever “forget’ and certainly no one that sat huddled for days awaiting some final word about a loved one…will ever “forget”. I both hate those slogans and sayings…and I love and respect them. It’s quite the conflict of emotions.
I would like to say something here for all my canine friends. Never, ever, ever, ever, allow your dog to be taken away by an ACO (animal control officer).
I first thought about becoming a beekeeper after reading an article about how for the first time this year, the almond growers in California (who provide 80% of the world’s almonds) were struggling to find enough bees to pollinate the almond trees.
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