I just don't understand.

Before I start on my morning, I will give you a piece of good news. I will end with good news too, but in between is going to be quite sad. As you can see above, Lawrence is looking wonderful. PJ treated him for his mange, so he is bloody no more. He has stopped itching and his fur is even growing back. Isn't that wonderful!

We have been told that we can take this little lady. She has the cutest personality and is so pretty with that blue eye. The only problem is that we don't have the money to pull anymore dogs right now. Not to mention the fact that we don't have a foster for her right now. Maybe she would be good for the Loosen the Leash program. I am calling PJ right now. Ok, she is called. Keep your fingers crossed that it will work out for this girl.

This poor buddy has an eye problem. Actually all of the dogs in this pack have an eye problem. And ironically, this is Martin's pack.

This is a new face for PJ. What a sweet face it is. He just wants to be loved. He so would love to come home with us.

Here he is again, visiting me in my window. I love this dog.

This is Hector's mom. It is also Velma, Simon and Simone's mama. We cannot catch her.

And now for the sadness. Today, for the first time, riding with PJ I saw two dead dogs dumped on the side of the road. PJ has seen these plenty of times, but luckily it does not happen often enough for me to have run into one yet. The worst part about this one dog is that he was missing his ears. We can only assume that he was being used as a bate dog. This poor baby's last hours of life were more horrid than we can imagine. And then the people who caused this pain to happen, had no more decency than to dump him on the side of the road. I barely have words for how angry this makes me. I don't understand the society we live in that this kind of stuff happens. This has to be changed.

Jamie Case (the new GPG administrator) and I spent the last two days at a fundraising seminar, learning how to get money for the rescue. This sparked a lot of ideas in us for the rescue. The way I see it is that we can feed and vet and love these dogs in East St. Louis as much as we want to, but without changing the minds and educating the folks who live there about compassion and responsible care for living creatures, nothing will change. We could be given a donation of a million dollars and pull all of the dogs off of the streets. It would do no good. There would be a hundred dogs running around, same as before because few people keep their dogs in their homes. No one spays or neuters. Some horrible people fight the dogs, and when the dogs are no longer of use to them, they dump them. We have to change mindsets. I believe that this starts with younger generations. At the point that our rescue is financially right now it is impossible for us to start new programs, but boy, do I have some ideas. I would like to go into areas where the children are at risk and living with stray dogs in their back yards. We could have a program where these children intern with a veterinarian for a few days. Teach the kids to write grants, form relationships with the folks who are going to donate the money. Have the kids go into their community and find out how their neighbors feel about having all of these stray dogs running around their neighborhoods and publish a magazine to be distributed in the neighborhood. The kids in the program will be taught life skills that they can grow up with and use. Compassion for the animals will come with the education and exposure they will be given.

We are only a few people 100% active in this rescue. We need more people to be involved in what we do. We will be having a meeting sometime in April to talk about how you can help us implement these ideas. Without your help, we are nothing. We are only putting a band-aid on the problem by saving and feeding the dogs. Lets put a stop to it.

I leave you with the cuteness: