Oh The Frustration!

After thinking about how cold these dogs were all night, I received an email from one of our fosters. She could not stand the thought of these freezing dogs on the street either. I called PJ to see if she wanted to go pull a couple of dogs from the streets. I spoke to two fosters and all three of us agreed that we would take a dog. So exciting! I knew which dogs I wanted to pull. It is unprecedented that we would be able to take a whopping three dogs in one day. Sylvester, above is one of them. I do not have a picture of the other two that we wanted to take, but they are super cute. A lot of times the dogs will not be out in the middle of the day. It is typically their time to hunker down and hide from all of the crazies on the streets. We were surprised to see all three of these dogs today, in the middle of the day. I also have to say that we do not make a habit of going to East St. Louis any later than 8:00 in the morning, because we, like the dogs, know when the crazies are out. We got Sherlock in the car (super fluffy cute black dog). His collar was too tight, but I thought I would fix that once we got moving. We were getting ready to grab the other two when a man came running around the corner hollaring "Let that dog out of that car! I told you." He proceded to call the cops, which I am unsure what the cops would have done since he does not give those dogs food, water or shelter. I do not know how he can claim them as his own. Since PJ goes to that area every single day, we try to cause as little trouble as possible. This guy claims ownership of these dogs, and we have to leave them, for PJ's safety. So we let the dog out of the car. I did not get a chance to losen his collar, which just kills me. He is probably going to chain the dogs up somewhere so that we cannot get to them now.

I just wish there was a way to make it better for these dogs. Why do we live in a society that allows people to 'keep' dogs when they do not care for them? It should be illegal. I want to change laws. It was Mahatma Ghandi who said, "A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." I do believe that those weakest members are the animals and children of our society. I also believe that our society is failing at this. I believe that it comes down to education. It is also, as PJ said today on the ride home, a power struggle. I can see that too. What other possessions does that man have besides the dogs whom he believes to own. Society really does not give him anything, so why would he think that he needs to give the dogs anything. I don't know. I am kind of on a soapbox, but I just wish there was a solution to this horrendous problem. Thanks for listening and if you have any ideas of how to make this situation different, I am all ears.
We can't catch this guy. He will not even come near us, but I love this picture. He was totally posing for the camera. He stayed like that for me for at least 45 seconds.