Tomorrow's euthanasia list at Coweta County Animal Control

A lot of people may wonder what good it will do to have a No-Kill Shelter. I don't want to say "if" we get a shelter, I prefer to say "when" we get one. Right now at Coweta County and over a hundred other government run facilities across Georgia, there are literally thousands of animals waiting. Waiting for owners who will never come back, waiting for the right adopter to come along, waiting for a rescue group to take pity on them and save them, waiting....to die.

Tomorrow in our little county facility, there are TWELVE hearts that are scheduled to stop beating. You can call it euthanasia, or whatever you want, but the bottom line is TWELVE lives will end tomorrow. Then more on Friday, then more next Wednesday, next Friday and so on, ad nauseum.

Of those twelve lives - they have been classified this way: 5 are sick (therefore they must be euthanized), 4 are on the list due to their breed identification (pitbulls or pit mixes...therefore they must be euthanized), 1 has been classified as Aggressive (and must therefore be euthanized), and 1 has been classified as wild (and therefore must be euthanized). Only one little cat has been classified as healthy, adoptable, but there too long.....and must therefore be euthanized. Does it bother anyone else that 91% of the animals on this "list" are classified as unhealthy, untreatable or unadoptable? Doesn't that seem like an extraordinarily high percentage? I've lived in this county since 1994, and have worked in the veterinary field since 2001 and can literally count on two hands the number of truly vicious, aggressive animals I have encountered - including those at animal control facilities.

I have a cat named Cameo. Cammie came to me after she was abandoned at a boarding facility. She was so mean that the staff had to wear leather welding gloves to change her litter box and food. She bit me the first day I met her. Yet there was something about her that just broke my heart. Maybe it was so sad to me that her owner had ditched her after 11 years, or maybe it was just that look of utter fear and confusion in her eyes. Either way...I just couldn't let her die. I brought her home and here I am ten years later with a 21 year old cat who is sweet, affectionate and brings joy to me every day as she greets me when I get home. This was a so called "wild" cat, an "aggressive" cat who couldn't be handled and was literally plucked from the brink of death.

I once rescued a dog classified as a "bite case". She came into the shelter VERY pregnant...in fact she was in labor. Apparently, in labor and in distress, she had bitten someone who tried to move her. Thus, she became a "rescue only" bite case. We rescued her and her EIGHT beautiful 6 day old puppies. If we had not taken her, she would have been euthanized along with those precious little newborns.

So I guess this is what bothers me most by these classifications. How many of them are truly vicious, aggressive, or wild? How many of them are really just confused, scared, hurt? Animals don't have words to tell us, "Stop! I don't like that, or I'm scared!" Animals only have snarls, hisses, growls and barks to warn us away when they are frightened or injured. They rely on us, as the "superior beings" to exercise good judgment in interpreting these natural reactions.

So this my friends is why we WILL have a No-Kill Shelter in Newnan. This is why we must fight for them and create a no-kill community. They didn't ask to be born, and they don't deserve to die simply because they end up on a "list".