Hello friends, welcome to Rough Life.
It is officially one week since our last transport and I am so proud to say neither Jessica,
Becky, nor I have pulled any animals all week.
The doghouse is completely empty.
I'm actually going there tomorrow to spend all day deep cleaning it while peanut is at
the vet getting spayed.
But I'm actually going on a week long vacation in a few days and my mother, Becky, is leaving
the same day as I am too to go on her own vacation.
So we're all trying really hard not to pull anything because Jessica will be the one that
has to take care of everyone that we already have in our foster care right now, plus anything
we pull before then.
Oh, and then Jessica leaves the day I get back from vacation to go on her own vacation.
We are apparently taking full advantage of this five week break.
But believe it or not, today's episode was actually requested by a fan.
That is so weird to say.
Lauren from Oregon found our podcast somehow and reached out to me on Instagram asking
me to do an episode about the kinds of changes and reforms I think we need in the south.
And when I first started thinking about what I was going to say, I was like, wow, I really,
I really don't have much to say.
And then I couldn't stop coming up with ideas.
So I have two takes on this.
One is what I would change if I could go back in time and make it where these laws were
always in place, and two is what could actually realistically be done.
So number one, obviously, I would love a law where you can't keep your animals outside.
I fullheartedly believe all animals belong in the house.
But imposing that law now would only hurt the rescue world.
So many people are okay with keeping stray dogs and taking care of them because they
just hang out in their carport or in their yard.
If it became a law that they had to keep them inside, they would just take them to shelters
and rescuers in the area or just dump them.
For most people in the south, they don't love their dog.
It's kind of like having a bird feeder in your yard.
You put food out there for the birds.
If they eat it, they eat it.
If they eat from someone else's bird feeder, that's fine too.
If you see the same bird for a week straight and then don't see it for a few days, you're
not going to go looking for it.
You're going to assume it flew off and it'll come back if it wants to.
That's how the majority of people view dogs in the south.
So imposing that law now would just cause mass euthanasia across the state because shelters
and rescuers wouldn't be able to keep up.
We say all the time, we can't rescue our way out of this problem.
We're going to have to spay and neuter our way out.
So I would love to see a law put into place to force people to spay and neuter their dogs.
But again, if it's going to cost them money, they'll just surrender them or dump them somewhere.
But let's say even if there was a grant and spay and neuter procedures could be done at
no cost to the owners, one of the biggest hurdles isn't the cost.
It's actually physically taking them.
A lot of elderly people don't mind taking care of the dogs that wander up.
And honestly, they would probably be okay with paying for the spay and neuter, but they
can't physically pick up and load an 80 pound dog that's never been in a car before, never
been on a leash and take it to the vet.
Okay, so let's say they found someone that would take the dog to the vet for them because
as rescuers, we would so much rather do that for you than have to re-home your dog.
Even still, when that dog comes back later that day after having major surgery, they
need a safe and dry place to heal for the next seven to 10 days before they go back
and get their stitches taken out.
The vast majority of people aren't able to provide that.
I have heard countless times people talking about getting their dogs spayed, bringing
it home and never seeing it again, or bringing it home and it getting run over the next day.
These dogs come back still partially sedated, not fully awake yet, and they get attacked
by coyotes or they get hit by cars or they just wander off and get lost.
And we won't even get into all the infections because this episode would last for hours.
So now this isn't just free spaying and neutering, this is free spaying and neutering, someone
to pick up and drop off your dog, and a spot at the vet to board it for a week until it
can be returned.
The government is not going to pay for that when it's so cheap to just euthanize.
So what can actually realistically be done?
I don't know.
I do think one very easy solution to a lot of problems is just actually enforcing the
laws we already have.
The law says that you have to provide food, water, and shelter to your animals.
I do think we need to take it a step further and clarify the quality of those things.
Right now you could have a bucket of lime green slimy water for your dog and that would
count as water.
I recently talked to one of my friends who's a former police officer and he was saying
most of the time police officers won't pursue animal neglect charges because it's so much
paperwork.
It's easier to just say, will you give your animals to this rescue and we'll just drop
everything?
And I'm not sure what the answer to that is.
I don't know if it's possible to hire animal rescuers who will fill out the paperwork
for them because I know they'll do it for free and they'll absolutely get it done.
But I don't know if the paperwork has to be filled out by a police officer and I don't
know how tedious the paperwork process is either.
Could that be simplified to make it more likely to be done?
Or are they not doing it because they know the offender is just barely going to get a
slap on the wrist and it's not even worth it?
That's something that absolutely needs to change and it seems like it's starting to
already.
Once people start realizing that there's actually a real possibility of going to prison for
mistreating their animals, I think that would create a huge change.
Right now you pretty much know that nothing's going to happen to you.
You might pay a small fine and you might have to give up your animals but that's all.
There was actually an update on a case a few towns over because it was the two year anniversary
last week.
So two years ago there was a child under the age of 12 who purposely tied an electrical
cord around a dog's neck and lit him on fire.
Yeah, it burned almost every inch of his face.
The dog, named Buddy, was a stray in the neighborhood that everyone just kind of left food out for
and looked after.
He didn't have a home.
He was found by one of the neighbors when he was wandering dazed and in shock, she said,
with his face still smoking.
He was rushed to Mississippi State University's vet school where he spent the next 10 months
undergoing numerous surgeries, procedures, and skin grafts.
Buddy survived and was adopted by his lead veterinarian but because the child was under
the age of 13, no charges could be pressed, despite it being a felony crime.
What's quite possibly even more shocking is that even if he was old enough to be charged,
this only carries a maximum of three years in prison.
Three years knowingly torturing a living animal and you only get three years.
This is a totally separate note, but I love true crime and there's something that they
talk about in the true crime world called the McDonald Triad.
It lists three signs that indicate whether someone will grow up to be a violent killer
or even a serial killer.
One is wetting the bed, two is setting fires, and three is animal abuse.
I don't think those signs are taken seriously enough.
Because this child was a minor, I don't know what happened to him, but I sincerely hope
and pray that they take into account the fact that he has two of the three triad signs and
they get him professional psychiatric help.
This case actually brought to light how much is wrong with our legal system right now and
they created Buddy's Law which requires any underage juvenile that abuses or tortures
an animal be required to undergo a mental evaluation.
Which is a great first step, but we do not need to stop there.
I can't remember where I was going with all that.
Oh, harsher punishments.
Yes.
Okay.
If we neglect or abuse an animal, Mississippi should absolutely impose harsher consequences
than what we have right now.
Or even at the bare minimum, actually start enforcing the punishments that we have set
in place right now.
Going in a different direction though, I think something that would be very easy to implement
but have a huge impact on the health of our rescue animals is requiring all animals to
be up to date on vaccines and heartworm prevention.
Again, if it's going to cost money, people aren't going to do it.
So this would have to be something that the government does for free or partners with
veterinarians to create some grants.
It would be a huge help to rescuers and shelters if we knew the animals were already up to
date on vaccines when we got them and it would drastically cut down the parvo cases we see
which cost an absolute fortune to treat.
We're even starting to see a rise in distemper cases after not having any cases for over
30 years.
If all of these animals were immune, we could possibly even eradicate some of these diseases.
And heartworm treatment is quite possibly one of the most expensive expenses in the animal
world.
Is that right?
Expensive expenses?
I don't know, you know what I mean.
It's so frustrating that heartworm prevention is so cheap, but people just refuse to give
it to their dogs.
The treatment can cost upwards of $1,000 depending on how big the dog is and how severe the worm
load is.
One of the main reasons adult dogs don't get accepted into rescues is because of their
heartworm status.
They can't afford to treat it.
If we could find a way to eradicate that or even just minimize it, that would help shelters
and rescues out in a huge way.
In the perfect world, there are so many laws I would want to put into place.
But I hope people up north realize it's not as easy as just our lawmakers don't care.
Which they don't, but that's not the only problem.
It's also that this is such a difficult situation to navigate because no one really cares about
their dogs.
And shelters and rescuers are already barely able to keep our heads above water now.
If a new law was put into place, the dogs would be the ones to suffer from it.
So what can you do from up north to help us?
Foster, foster, foster.
I say this all the time.
We can only send as many animals as we have fosters for.
If we have 1000 fosters for this next transport, you better believe there will be 1000 animals
headed their way to you.
Foster a dog, foster a puppy, tell your friends to foster, tell your neighbors to foster.
If you can't foster, make a donation to a rescue to help cover boarding fees.
We have to board so many animals that aren't safe where they are so that they'll still
be here and alive when transport day comes.
And even things as small as commenting on and sharing rescue posts on Facebook, they're
such a huge help.
Any rescue, not just mine.
Even just commenting an emoji boosts the post so more people end up seeing it.
These don't need to be long drawn, thought out comments, although I do love reading those.
Just one word or one emoji helps more than people realize.
Okay, I'm gonna get off my soapbox now.
Sorry, Lauren from Oregon, if this wasn't what you had in mind.
I wish it was as easy as just electing the right people to change the laws, but it's
so much more difficult than that.
Let me know if y'all have something you want to hear about next week.
Thanks for listening.
It's a rough life, but someone's gotta do it.