LETTER: 'Helping' dogs may actually be a hindrance
By Contributor
Dear Editor,
I’ve been seeing a large number of “kind people” picking up “lost pets” and posting on social media. It’s a bit disturbing to me and others that people are so quick to grab the animal and take it home to keep safe until owners are located.
Last fall one of our dogs ran out our front door and down the street and in the time it took for me to slip on a pair of flip flops and walk about a block to retrieve him, he was ” gone”. My husband came home just then and someone told him I was down the street getting one of our dogs. He suggested perhaps the dog was back home already ( the dog usually didn’t run that far any other time he got out) so my husband drove ahead and pulled into a driveway and, low and behold, there was my dog, already tied up to the emergency brake handle inside of a car with maybe a foot of rope. With the windows rolled up. My little dog wasn’t gone more than two minutes and already picked up and tied up.
And then today I saw a post that triggered this memory. Some lady from Castlegar was in Robson driving on Broadwater Road about the 3800-3900 block ,across from the mill just before the dam. She saw a little dog on the side of the road and picked it up, and took it home. To Castlegar. I’ve had dogs all my 40 years and I’ve never seen a dog not find his way home. I’ve seen many stories of dogs and cats finding their way home hundreds of miles.
My point is, perhaps someone needs to say, don’t jump the gun if you see and animal without its human!?!
