Patch Blog: Changing Los Angeles--We Need Better Animal Services in Highland Park

A friend of mine was innocently--innocently I say!--sitting at when a frantic pair of terrified Pomeranians flew past as fast as their little legs could carry them. The team of little dogs was obviously lost, and in great distress. Naturally, as a doggie-centric person, she scooped them up.

She took them home where her own dog, the well-behaved Mikey, is used to welcoming other people’s dogs into his domain. She called everyone in her local network of dog lovers. She put up signs for what were clearly someone’s well cared-for, yet unaltered pets.

Response? Crickets.

They had no collars, no chips, and no signs went up looking for them. No one in her vast network of dog mavens heard of anyone longing for a lost pair of Poms. After a few days of looking, she took them to a shelter where most owners would naturally look. Five days later, and $250 lighter to get them altered, as the shelter requires, they were sent to a trusted rescue home in Laguna where a client was waiting to adopt them as a bonded pair.

There are mysteries here.

Why would someone--who obviously cared for this well-fed, well-groomed dog-duo--not alter them? Unlicensed breeding? How can someone value, feed, and care for an animal, and not bother to tag it? Did someone move, shove them out the door and drive away? Did they belong to someone unable to look for them? And when lost a pet is found, someone made the effort to find you, spent money feeding, and cleaning up after your pet. Thanks for finding my dog, ‘bye. 

How is it that Highland Park, chockablock with animal lovers, has not developed local animal support organizations, as have so many other areas of Los Angeles: Silverlake, Glendale, Pasadena, and South Pas, West Hollywood has three. What do they have we do not?

Organization.

We could have an Animal Services Advocacy Coalition in Highland Park tomorrow. With a group, no one person shoulders the entire burden. Once you organize, anything is possible. It is not complicated or hard to do. Talk to your friends. Make a little effort to team up with your neighbors, and fellow dog walkers. As soon as you get together, it begins. You already know the problems: we have shelters full of a doomed population of unwanted kittens,  chihuahuas and pit-bulls. We need low cost spay and neuter clinics, catch and alter training programs for feral cats, education for children, education, education and education.

Find and align with the hundreds of organizations in Los Angeles who do not operate in Highland Park only because there does not seem to be a call for them, or enough organized support.

Smile at your beautiful cat, ruffle your dear dog’s head, get busy.