Published: November 12, 2007 11:36 am            

You don’t have to distort truth to help pets

Learning As I go

Remember a few years ago when people opposed to the sale of alcohol in Pulaski County displayed mangled cars along U.S. 27 to make the point that drunk driving kills?

Wow. That was a powerful, emotional statement.

But there was one problem.

The cars on display hadn’t been involved in alcohol-related crashes.

Maybe the cars were there for “illustrative” purposes. But that just didn’t cut it for some people — who argued that the roadside political propaganda was flat out dishonest ... misleading at best.

The alcohol controversy has died down, and the latest topic to raise eyebrows has been the conditions at the local animal shelter. ... Wait. Am I having deja vu?

In the eight years I’ve hung around this newsroom, complaints about the animal shelter have surfaced on several occasions.

There was that mean old dog catcher, Jimmy Wilson, who didn’t care about animals, and didn’t care if they ever got adopted.

I followed Mr. Wilson around for an afternoon, and quickly learned that he didn’t have a mean bone in his body. And as he shed tears as he spoke to me about his weekly task of putting animals down, I knew that he truly did care.

Then there was County Judge-executive Darrell BeShears, who also didn’t care about animals and who turned a blind eye to the conditions at the shelter.

I spoke to Mr. BeShears. I left with the impression that it wasn’t that he didn’t care, but that he was very limited in what he could do.

Election time rolled around last year, and the Humane Society (basically disguised as PAW PAC — the People for Animal Welfare Political Action Committee) growled and snapped until they finally got their way. They talked a car salesman/gospel singer named Barty Bullock into pledging to fix the problems at the animal shelter — and the promise won him the county judge’s election.

A year has passed, and now the very people who got Bullock elected are complaining that he, too, doesn’t care about animals and isn’t doing enough to improve the conditions at the animal shelter.

These are the individuals who promised to help Bullock improve the shelter. Instead, they are publishing brochures revealing the horrid conditions there.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Allow me to clear something up for those who think reporter Susan Wheel-don was trying to stir up trouble by writing an article about the aforementioned broch-ures. I shoulder the blame for this one.

I was in a restaurant earlier this week, saw a brochure, and took it with me — much like any other Pulaski County citizen would do. I was puzzled by the information I read, and I was curious about the photographs. As I wondered aloud about these things in the newsroom, the issue became an article.

The story idea came about much in the same way most story ideas are born in our newsroom. Questions existed, and a reporter got answers. Susan is currently assigned to cover the goings-on in the county. Otherwise, I would have done the article myself.

I was puzzled by some of the statements in the brochure because they did not coincide with some of the things I thought I knew to be true about the animal shelter.

The validity of the photographs? That was just a hunch on my part. The skeptical reporter in me trumped the emotional part of me. I had a hard time believing that those pictures came from our local animal shelter.

As it turns out, many statements made in the brochure are either incorrect or blown out of proportion. And of the six pictures in the brochure, only one was taken at our local shelter.

The Humane Society’s Bill Lippert says the pictures are merely illustrations, and that “a dog is a dog.”

If the pictures in the brochure were meant to be illustrations, that should have been clearly stated. Just as displaying a wrecked vehicle and implying that the crash was caused by drunk driving is misleading — displaying pictures of dead or otherwise pathetic-looking animals and implying that those animals are meeting their fates in the Pulaski County Animal Shelter is also not wise.

Take the dog with the injured nose, for example. What if I feel sorry for that dog, and want to adopt it?

Oh, I can’t, you say? Why? Has it already found a home?

That dog actually has never been in our local animal shelter, you say? And, besides, the holes in the fences at the local shelter are too small for a dog of that size to push its nose through?

Well, silly me. I thought that since the photo has a caption under it saying, “How long must I push my nose through the fence before you will rescue me?” both the dog and the fence actually existed at the local animal shelter. Clearly, it was my mistake.

“Illustrations” and misleading statements should not be used in brochures because it ruins the integrity of organizations that publish them.

What if our newspaper ran an article about a scuffle between a couple of inmates at our local detention center, but published a photograph of a prison riot in California? After all, a jail is a jail, right?

No. This would be irresponsible journalism, and the credibility of our newspaper would be badly damaged, if not destroyed.

The local Humane Society calls the piece of propaganda an “educational brochure.” I only see it as an attempt to make the local animal shelter look bad.

Quotes such as “... animals that suffer the misfortune of ending up in the Pulaski County facility,” “... animals are killed for lack of space, so we are told,” “... the Pulaski County shelter offers no compassionate, well-trained, forward-thinking director,” and “... our community deserves better,” — are combative, not educational.

The local Humane Society is NOT trying to help the animal shelter. It is attempting to destroy the shelter by distorting the truth. The Humane Society has taken the focus off the animals and has put the spotlight on its political agenda — which, ironically, is precisely what the entity accused the former county administration of doing.

If members of the Humane Society are truly interested in helping the animals, they should spend their time doing just that — instead of formulating ways to tear down the local shelter, which appears to be doing the best it can under the current circumstances.

Pulaski Countians, please, take the time to educate yourselves before you allow organizations of any type — especially those with ties to politics — to tug at your heartstrings with emotional propaganda.

If you are an animal lover, there are plenty of ways to show that you care without signing a petition. Adopt an animal. Spay or neuter your own pets. Volunteer at the shelter.

I can only hope that members of the local Humane Society will learn to use their time as wisely.

        

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