Abandoned animal problems multiply— no pun intended

I started something with the column I wrote last week about the dog left behind when its owners were displaced by a foreclosure.

Turns out that abandoned animals are an epidemic in Panola County for whatever reasons including foreclosures.

Turns out also that animal abandonment is a form of animal cruelty, punishable — as are other forms of animal cruelty in Mississippi — as a misdemeanor crime.

The three fuzzy pups in the photo on the facing page were found abandoned one week ago on the side of Viney Creek Road in a small box they’ve since outgrown. The guy who found them brought them home to his wife who is caring for them, hoping that someone will find them as irresistible as they would be to her if she had not already reached her max quota of animal adoptions.

She won’t be identified here. She worries that if some people find out that she has done this, they will just start leaving animals in front of her house and she’ll be overrun. It’s that bad.

Animals — mainly dogs and cats — are being abandoned with increasing frequency everywhere in the county. People take dogs out of town and let them go, thinking the dog will have a good chance to “find a home in the country.”

People also bring their unwanted animals to town and abandon them, thinking they are likely to find someone who wants them.

Doesn’t work either way.

“Puppies are being thrown out left and right,” my friend said.

Panola County has already sent 600 dogs to Lafayette County’s animal shelter this year where 80 percent will be euthanized. The average daily cost per animal is $15 per day she said.

“Lafayette County is paying Panola County’s way,” she added.

What’s apparently missing in Panola County is sufficient numbers of people who accept the responsibilities that go along with animal ownership. Too many people allow their dogs (and damncats) to remain unneutered, bearing one litter after the next with no regard for what happens to the puppies and kittens.

“And the mama dog that had this litter could have another in eight months,” she said.

Members of the Panola County Humane Society have been telling us about this for years, offering reduced price pet neutering, assisting with animal adoptions and lobbying city and county leaders to build an adequate shelter for stray and abandoned animals.

What must happen is that other people in Batesville and Panola County — who also hate to see animals abused and mistreated — must lend their support to what the Panola County Humane Society is trying to do. They must insist that elected officials in the city and county work together to build and operate an adequate animal shelter.

It’s going to cost. It’s not going to be universally popular. It’s even going take statesmanship — even in an issue as seemingly mundane as an animal shelter — to do what’s right in the face of potential political fallout.