'Orphans of the night' get a home
Schroeder woman provides for abandoned pets
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Properly trained, a man can be dog's best friend.
- Corey Ford
If dumping trash on the roadsides out in rural Victoria County is a misdemeanor crime, and it is, then I think dumping dogs or cats should be a felony.
And folks, it's happening all the time.
Just ask Jo McKissack, who is feeding a whole kennel of discarded dogs and cats that have been dumped from vehicles near her home in Schroeder.
"People may have good intentions. They may be thinking they're doing the humane thing," she says, giving them a lot more credit than I would. "They can't take care of the animals for whatever reason. They're so cute at first, and maybe a kids says, 'Ooh, can I have it?' But after a while it's not as cute, or maybe it poops inside, and so they think someone out here will take care of it."
Jo leaves large pans of water out for the animals, and feeds them what she can, but it's a strain.
"My boss gave me a 50-pound bag of dog food and a case of canned food, so that has helped, but now I've got a bony, pregnant female, not even a year old, who's about to have another litter."
Jo realizes the animals are only doing what comes naturally, but she says humans have no excuse for the explosion in animal numbers. "There are ways to have animals spayed and neutered at no cost. Some shelters will do it, and some vets do it."
It's gotten so bad, Jo says, that an older couple down the road has 25 feral cats hanging around their house.
After being dumped, as punishment for just being alive, animals end up at Jo's, and she becomes their adoptive mother. She has taken over the feeding of three feral cats - "two of them are males, thank God" - and four dogs, also shy of humans. "I try to catch them, so I can get them taken care of, but they're afraid and they run," Jo says.
And can you blame them?
Imagine you're one of these refugees, suddenly pushed from a vehicle that takes off and leaves you in the scary surroundings of a strange landscape. You had trusted that human as a friend and kindly master, but now, as the noise of the engine fades away, only the frightening rustle of leaves and the sound of a few birds are there to keep you company. You sit there in the middle of the red dirt road, your keen nose picking up strange animal smells that make the place even more frightening.
Still, after the initial shock wears off, you must concentrate on the first order of survival - food and water.
And that's how these poor animals end up at the homes of charitable people like Jo McKissack. She simply can't let them go hungry.
Truthfully, I weep when I think of each and every one of these little friends, because they did nothing to deserve this callous abandonment.
Once, in fact, they lovingly licked the hand that now has pushed them away.
The county has an animal control department which works out of the Victoria Regional Airport, and County Judge Don Pozzi says they will respond to situations such as loose animals causing problems for people.
"But we are limited in our ordinance-making power, having only the authority that the Legislature gives us," the judge says. And, as for leash laws or some laws governing the restraint of animals, such as those in the city, the county has not been given any authority, Pozzi says. Still, he says the county's animal control can be reached at 578-3564, and if Jo or other of these caretakers want to call him personally, he'll do all he can for them.
Jo says she understands that the city's small animal control force has its hands full and cannot take on the county problem.
And so, these orphans of the road grow in numbers, never understanding why they were suddenly so unwanted, and what they did to be so unloved except for the kindness of a few strangers.
Jim Bishop is a senior editor for the Advocate. Leave him a message at 361-574-1210 or jbishop@vicad.com or comment on this column at www.VictoriaAdvocate.com
