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Randy, thank you for this Journal Entry. You speak for so many that are lost, alone, hungry, thirsty, sick and sick at heart. Years ago, when I first moved to Madison County, there was a pack of feral dogs roaming the countryside. If memory serves me correctly, there were eleven in the pack, led by an Airedale/Mastiff mix. Some of the dogs were "dumps," but others had been born without benefit of a kind human hand, fresh water when they're thirsty or good food when the first hunger pangs stirred. At that time (early to mid 1980s), farmers just shot feral dogs in order to protect their own families, pets and livestock. I believe the farmers that retold this story to me in various forms said the pack had finally "died out" from "lead poisoning." Not a one of them was proud of having to shoot what, in other circumstances, would have been someone's pet dog. Not one of them wanted to do this lethal form of control, but no one could catch the dogs, and the dogs were wreaking havoc throughout the area. My point is: If you know someone who is considering dumping their pet, please, share this with them and tell them that taking the dog to the animal shelter is the second best thing they can do for the dog, if they really care about it. The best thing is to spay/neuter and consider the dog to be part of the family, not something that can be discarded and left standing in the middle of a country road, totally ignorant that some vehicles won't avoid a collision, not knowing how to get a drink of fresh water or a good meal. The saddest of all are those who are, through no fault of their own, "in the family way." If the owner does not spay/neuter, puppies (or in the case of cats, kittens) are bound to happen sooner or later, and probably repeatedly. How is that humane, to turn pets into breeding machines? Answer: It isn't. Our dog warden / deputy sheriff is a doglover, catlover and friend. This is hard for him, too, knowing that euthanasia awaits some of those animals he handles. I donated fifty dollars to my local shelter at a recent fundraiser. It is my hope that it was enough to spay/neuter at least one animal and save the suffering.

I have to agree with Randy on this. There is more and more animals found out in the country side with no collars but you can see where there was one once. Just this past week, our dog warden picked up over 10 dogs, none with collars and all outside of town on country roads.

The problem is this dogs are social. So they head to the nearest house they find but most folks are not inviting them to stay.

One of these dogs you could tell he had been away from folks just long enough to question if he wanted to trust again. After a bag of treats, the dog warden was able to get him into the back of the truck. But once at the shelter, there was no getting the dog out of that cage. All I can say is I am glad the cage was really strong metal.

Yet what folks don't realize is what Randy wrote. Dumped animals having babies in the wild makes it a wild animal. It is no longer Rover and Lady. It is so sad.

And because of all of this dumping, we need stricter spay/neuter laws so if the animals are dumped and we can not catch them, they can not have those babies which will make it worse.