by Sandy Lurins

The Pet Advocate is a community forum where we explore the legal and social issues around people and pets living harmoniously. If you would like to suggest a topic for The Pet Advocate or make your own contribution, please contact us at editors@fetchthepaper.com. Please note, the opinions expressed in The Pet Advocate are those of the author, and not necessarily those of FETCH. We welcome your responses to the opinions expressed here.

"I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time, I can only feed one person at a time. Just one, just one… So you begin—I begin. I picked up one person—maybe if I didn’t pick up that one person, I wouldn’t have picked up forty-two thousand.

The whole work is only a drop in the ocean. But if I didn’t put that drop in, the ocean would be one drop less. Same thing for you, same thing in your family, same thing in the community where you live. Just begin…one, one, one." -- Mother Teresa

After reading the article on Cope (FETCH, January 2006) the representative of a well-known North Bay rescue organization wrote me to express that she was "upset" with the coverage of Cope’s story. According to her email, she feels FETCH should not have given such prominent coverage to the efforts going into saving one dog, when the money and efforts that have been spent on Cope, in her opinion, would be better used to the save the lives of "many more adoptable animals."

It’s easy for our hearts to go out to sweet victims of circumstance. The shelters are full of dogs and cats who find themselves homeless through no fault of their own.

But what about the ones who "blew it" in some way? Who decides? And what are their lives worth?

Our communities benefit from having wonderful, mostly well-funded shelters and rescue groups that take in thousands of animals each year, then successfully place them in new homes where they have a chance to flourish. In situations where aggression, health problems, behavior or other issues mean a given animal’s chance for success is very low, these groups have policies that guide the people involved, sometimes leading to a decision to put down the animal. Always, many factors must be weighed: chance for success, potential liability, resources available. It’s not an easy decision.

In Cope’s case, he was lucky. Initially, he had only Dian to believe in him, and through her efforts he now has an extended support system helping to provide for his care, training, and socialization.

Where do we draw the line on saving one dog or cat? And how much responsibility should we take for a dog whose problems are likely due to spending most of his life tethered, trapped at the end of a chain by humans?

Well, I opened this conversation on the FETCH web log (http://blog.fetchthepaper.com) and received many thoughtful responses. I’d like to share excerpts here, then point you to some information on the dangers of tethering. This all-too-common practice in urban and rural areas alike is commonly recognized as detrimental to dogs. Not only does it isolate and make them vulnerable, it often leads to aggression and inappropriate understanding of boundaries.

Speaking from the heart

I’ll let FETCH readers speak for themselves on this topic:

Like so much of life, this does not seem to be a black or white issue. I have trouble with labeling anything as "worthy" versus "unworthy," or "adoptable" versus "unadoptable"… Such labels do nothing to address the underlying problems of WHY an animal is in the particular situation it is in; all it does is create a conflict about a surface issue, in the here and now. I thought the article on Cope… expressed the anguish of having to make decisions like these. This is real life, folks, and it ain’t anything but a big shade of gray. –-Diana Elrod

It is important to give every animal a fair chance of adoption into the right home. Tremendous care must be taken to distinguish between the redeemable and the genuinely lost causes. It is very difficult to make that distinction when the animal is in an environment he or she perceives as frightening or threatening, so the danger is that lives get sacrificed, wasted, when they really could be saved.

Every life if sacred. If a life really must be terminated, the decision to do so must be the right decision or a terrible wrong will be done. In most cases, people are to blame for animals ending up at risk of losing their lives. People, therefore, bear the responsibility to ensure that lives are not wasted. Maryann D. Blanchard

This is NOT just a story about ONE DOG. Cope’s story is representative of literally thousands of dogs and cats being put down every day, who, with time and patience, and perhaps a change in their environment, could go on and lead very enjoyable lives, at same time giving many others their devoted love…If we put down every human who injured other humans, where would we be??? –––Helen Scott

I think it is more than a bit self-centered to suggest we only focus on the "good ones." Am I to understand that the dogs who were the most mistreated are to be given the least consideration? That if a dog touches your heart, and awakens an ardent desire to help that you should pause, weigh the chance of success, and walk away if it would be "easier" to help another dog?

I have been told that there are ongoing studies to discover how so many dogs recover from abuse and trauma and lead happy lives, while humans seldom, if ever, completely recover. So, perhaps these abused dogs are more important, at least to human progress, than has been previously thought. –––Sandra Estrada

In an ideal world, the breeder of Cope would have been a responsible breeder, [taking him] back when the owners could no longer care for him. In an ideal world, Cope never would have been tied up for even a day. But this is not an ideal world and there are simply too many animals without good homes. The "who decides" question goes way back to "Why do we allow so many animals to be born in the first place, knowing there are no homes for them?" Those helping Cope are doing the right thing. Perhaps his plight will move others to step up to the plate and do something—be it for Cope or another animal in need. –-Barbara Makris

Dogs deserve better

But let’s get back to the issue of tethering. This is a significant issue and one that we should discuss. We enact legislation against aggressive dogs, but forget that a dog that has been tethered is far more likely to develop aggressive behavior.

Don’t you think it’s time we asked our local legislators to enact laws to protect dogs from tethering rather than focusing so much attention on the symptoms of this silent abuse? Let’s demand laws that mandate adequate food, clean water, and dry shelter before we enact breed-specific legislation against so-called vicious breeds. Many dogs have a propensity for aggression when raised in isolation, if tethered, or are themselves abused.

Please learn more about this important topic. Start by educating yourself at the following web sites: Dogs Deserve Better (www.dogsdeservebetter. com); Unchain Your Dog (www.unchainyourdog. org) and Humane Society of the United States (www.hsus.org/ace/11865).

Then just begin: One, one, one.