Twelve Days

Twelve days until my flight, but I have only five days to prepare. I’m leaving my home for the last time on Wednesday the 14th and driving to Alabama to pick up @martiawilson. She and I are happy little chatterboxes lately, messaging each other more than we have in years and getting ready for our big adventure. One of these days I will have to write about Martia and how our friendship began. It is truly an epic tale, involving visions and missions and Choctaw and Mississippi and Pearls of Great Price. But that day is not today; it will have to wait until I’m a little less tired.

The top photo up there? Yes, that’s really the sign in front of my property. You can call that number and buy it if you want. LOL I will miss this place. But I will not miss many of the people who live here.

A few days ago I blogged about a State Police officer whose spark of life and engaging conversation made me nostalgic about leaving. Today, I have to show you the more likely experience one might have in this armpit of a county.

I have my Blazer advertised for sale, right? Very cheap asking price--basically what I could get if I sold it for scrap metal. One person has looked at it already, and I feel like he’ll buy it. He’s supposed to message me tomorrow about picking it up. But in the interim, another fellow asked about it...and then the following exchange happened. Yes, this is real. I really said that to him. (Blue is me)

For those who may not immediatly understand the significance of that exchange, let’s just say that as the Director of a 501c3 animal rescue in one of the highest kill regions of the U.S., I’ve been banned from nearly every social media group in my community because I take such a hard stand against backyard breeders. Someone propagating the most frequently euthanized breed in U.S. shelters is on my blackest of black list. He’s lucky I blocked him rather than continued the exchange.

It’s not that I have a problem with pitbulls. In fact, I agree with one commenter on my Facebook page:

It's been demonstrated that pit bulls have one of the best temperaments of all breeds, but their bites are powerful and they don't let go (not the most powerful, by the way). If people were different, they'd have the reputation as a top family dog in the role of guard dog. The kind of dog you'd trust to protect your family if someone kicks in your door in the middle of the night. More responsible people would want to have a pit bull, and actually keep and care for them.

Instead, people with big chips on their shoulders buy them to cosplay as hardasses. That, and the whole dog fight BS. They're trained to be unstable, backyard bred for the worst traits, mixed in with the rest of the population turning rescue and adoption into a game of minesweeper, and you get loose canon outliers attacking people and making the news. Because of the actions of certain people, pit bulls have become the monster under the bed, and when people discard them, no one wants to risk giving them a second chance. They end up being the most killed breed in shelters, rescues can't afford to take them, and no one wants to risk putting their kid around a dog like that when they can't know their full history.

It also amazes me that you have a chance encounter like this just as you're about to leave. --@witchguard

The problem is the basic economics principle of supply and demand. If supply exceeds the demand by such a large margin that product is systematically destroyed on a daily basis, then there’s a common sense problem with the equation.

“But ah sale awl mah puppez. They’s plenny of deemand.”

Right. Sure there’s demand, for cute little squishy-faced pups that weigh about ten pounds. Let that little one reach eighty pounds with no training because it’s lived its whole life on a chain, or somebody has to move and the new landlord won’t allow pitbulls, or somebody has a baby, or somebody is allergic, or somebody is just too sorry to keep their end of the deal, and bam...into the kill shelter it goes, alongside the dozen or so other pitbulls on death row because no rescue will take them. I’m just so sick of that whole revolving door. I realize that you can’t legislate morality and you sure can’t make it illegal to be stupid. But there are ways to end this atrocity, if only officials, community leaders, and “no-kill” shelters around the country would step up and take their jobs seriously. I certainly do my part trying to educate the public. Why can't they?

Enough of that. I already had to take an extra blood pressure pill tonight. I sure don’t need another one. I can sum the rest of my thoughts up in one sentence: if someone truly loves the pitbull type, then how about loving the ones on shelter kill lists and helping get them adopted instead of breeding more just to shove a few bucks in their wallet? Spaying and neutering works wonders for pet population control. It even works with pitbulls. Go figure.

Other than this one last (I hope) hoorah with an unsuspecting backyard breeder, I had a decent day. And lookey! I have a nice, new, large rolling suitcase to check at the counter.

I am going to stuff it full of everything I can possibly take with me, and then I’m going to stuff a smaller rolling version of the same case full of everything that doesn’t fit in the big one, and I’m going to check it, too. Both are already paid for. Then I’m going to roll my precious little totally legit ESA dog Paige into the cabin in her own roll-y case, where she’ll take her first plane ride up in the clouds. Call me crazy--and maybe I am--but she’s been glancing up at the sky more these days. I think she’s just as ready to go as I am.

Other Posts in this Series (because this one won't make sense if you haven't read the other ones)

Forty Days
Thirty-Nine Days
Thirty-Eight Days
Thirty-Seven Days
Thirty-Six Days
Thirty-Five Days
Thirty-Three Days
Thirty-Two Days
Thirty-One Days
Thirty Days
Twenty-Seven Days
Twenty-Six Days
Twenty-Five Days
Twenty-Three Days
Twenty Days
Eighteen Days
Seventeen Days
Fifteen Days
Fourteen Days