Animal Abandonment Essay

The world is in a bad place. We can all agree on this, right? The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is literally an island made of trash, is an example. Then there’s also the fact that World War III could be about to start because Donald Trump assassinated the Iranian leader. Just, if you don’t believe me, read some news from any news site you like. If it were me though, I’d go to any site but FOX News.

One thing that is bad about the world is the fact that about 18,000 animals are being abandoned and killed each day. The total number of pets that enter shelters each year is approximately 6.5 million, according to ASPCA(‘Pet Statistics’). Now, what could you do to stop this? First, let’s look at what some other people are doing to help prevent this.

Who is Working Against Animal Abandonment?

Okay, so first, I must put this one thing out. The official term for these people is ‘Activists’. The main group of activists that I’ll be looking at today is teen activists. One of the most notable teen activists I’ll be looking at is Faye Carey, but there are others, like Miguel Ángel Palacios, Cole Bodelson, Thomas Ponce, Lou Wegner, and Sai Vignesh.

Faye Carey is an activist who takes abandoned dogs and puts them up for adoption on a Facebook page called ‘Animal Rehome Waikato’. Her story is that she went to Animal Control and saw a puppy in the pound. By the end of her stay at Animal Control, the puppy was still there. ‘… I felt really sorry for him.’(Newshub ‘Teenage girl is dogs’ best friend’ 2017) Faye said. She then set up the Facebook page mentioned above to help rehome dogs she finds in the pound. The first dog she put up for adoption on Animal Rehome Waikato was the dog that she first saw in the pound. ‘…I advertised him on TradeMe and he got a lot of interest and he went to a lovely home in Auckland.’(Newshub ‘Teenage girl is dogs’ best friend’ 2017)

Of course, I mentioned other teen activists. Miguel Ángel Palacios, Cole Bodelson, Thomas Ponce, Lou Wegner, and Sai Vignesh. Let’s look at Miguel Ángel Palacios, shall we?

The TL;DR of what Miguel Ángel Palacios did is that, when an animal abuser was trying to attack a dog, he protected the dog with his life. And the animal abuser ended up taking Miguel’s life because the abuser had a gun. He died protecting a dog (Katherine ‘Young Animal Activist Dies Defending Dog from Animal Abuser’ 2014). (Will expand on this later. Not a note to the reader, but to self. Which is why I’ve put it in red font colour.)

Now, there are others, but the main one I want to talk about is Sarah Jones, simply because I like cats, and she’s helping save stray cats. But first, a TL;DR of the others:

Cole Bodelson and his friends saved Luna, a blind dog who’d been shot four times and left to die(Melanie ‘Teen Boys Save Abandoned Dog Left to Die’ 2014). Thomas Ponce created Lobby for Animals, a website that helps you take action on animal rights.(“Lobby for Animals”) Lou Wegner formed the society Kids Against Animal Cruelty, which, funnily enough, also has it’s own Facebook page. Here it is: KAAC Facebook Page. Sai Vignesh started building the largest animal shelter in Chennai in March 2019.(R ‘Meet the teen activist who is building one of Chennai’s biggest animal shelters’ 2019)

Sarah Jones. The cat activist who I’m really excited to talk about. She lives(lived? I don’t know. This article was published in 2017, and it doesn’t specify her age, and if she became old enough to move out in the past 2-3 years, then she won’t live where the article says she lives anymore) in Utah, and is using the Trap-Neuter-Return(TNR) method to help homeless cats in her city(either in Ogden or SLC, the article doesn’t specify), and don’t worry, the TNR method is humane, as it humanely traps the cats, then allows Sarah(or any other person using the TNR method) to neuter/spay, microchip, ear tag, and vaccinate the cats, and then the user of the TNR method releases the cat back to where they found the cat. Anyways, Sarah’s been doing this for at least 2 years, and according to ASPCA’s page on Pet Statistics(ASPCA ‘Pet Statistics’), if 1.6 million cats enter shelters nationwide, then we can divide 1.6 million by 50 to get 32,000, which I’m going to be using for an approximation for how many cats enter shelters in Utah. And since there are 54 cities in Utah, we can calculate that approximately 592 cats enter shelters per city in Utah per year. If Sarah’s been doing the TNR method for every homeless cat in her city, then she’s saved between 1,184 and 1776 cats(and yes, I did forget the comma in 1,776 on purpose. American Revolution, y’all!) each year. That’s a lot of cats to save! Can we get a round of applause for Sarah for saving so many cats?!*audience clapping and cheering noises* Now that’s what I call activism!(For the entire paragraph: Kirkpatrick “Teen Committed to Helping Local Stray Cats” 2017)

Now, you’ve heard me ramble on about all sorts of activists, but you might be wondering what activism even is. Now let’s answer that question, shall we?

What Even is Activism?

To some, this would be a fairly simple question to answer, like answering 2+2. To others, it could be as hard as answering a problem that goes something like this:0200×2(x)dx. Or their difficult problem to solve could go something along the lines of this:(496m/s2Cos(ARCr)+2rSin(2-ARCr)Cos)2+(496m/s2Sin(ARCr)+2rSin(2-ARCr)Sin)2. That last one’s terrifying, right? Anyways, here’s the answer you’re looking for: In most dictionaries(Some don’t have this word in them), the word ‘Activism’ is defined as a doctrine or practise that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue(“Definition of ACTIVISM”, Merriam-Webster.com). Others might define it as the use of direct and noticeable action to achieve a result, usually a political or social one(Cambridge Dictionary). Colloquially though, it can be easily described as someone doing something for the greater good of the world. Now that you know about Activism, how about you learn about what you can do to help animals across the world. No, you don’t need to go, as I’ll be talking about this in the next chapter.

What can I do to help?

If you care about helping animals around the globe, you can read this chapter. If not, first off, what kind of sick person are you, not caring about animals that are homeless? And secondly, you can just skip to the next chapter.

The easiest thing to do to support animal cruelty prevention, which I’ll be calling ACP for this chapter, would be to donate to various non-profit organisations, such as ASPCA, Best Friends, MEOW Cat Rescue(yay!), OK Save a Dog, Shadow Cat Rescue, 4 Paws for Ability, and there are a bunch more. If you want a comprehensive list of more organisations you can donate to, visit this website.

If you aren’t feeling that lazy and want to actually do something, then maybe you can take some of the activists mentioned in Chapter 2 as a role model and do some of the stuff that they’re doing. I’m talking about Sarah Jones, Lou Wegner, Thomas Ponce, Cole Bodelson, and even some activists that weren’t mentioned in this book yet: Douglas Adams, for one(yes, he was an animal rights advocate), Paul, Linda and Stella McCartney, Peggy Oki, and there’s a bunch more. To view more, view this page on animal rights advocates. Or, you could just find stray cats, dogs and other animals and bring them into shelters to help them get better.

Conclusion

Well, that was a fun trip, wasn’t it? Learning about the millions of animals abandoned every year? Well, what if I told you that in China, the Jiashan country, I believe, eats cats and dogs. Cook ‘em just like turkeys and chickens and eat the cats and dogs. Ghastly, isn’t it?

Aside from that horror show that is the Jiashan country of China, and the aforementioned things in the Introduction(Trump, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, etc.), this has been a pretty wholesome essay, hasn’t it? Let’s take a break to cool down and look at cute images of your favourite animal. Here’s an image of a cat if you’re a cat person, an image of a dog if you’re a dog person, an image of a bird if you’re a bird person, an image of a lizard if you’re a lizard person, an image of a fish if you’re a fish person,

Wow, I didn’t think that I could ‘kill’ myself in this essay, but here we are. We’re all lucky I have a basket full of backup ‘me’s.

Anyways, what we learned today was that there is a lot of things happening to our pets and an equal amount of ways that you can help either treat or prevent these things. We learned about how our pets are being abandoned, and how some people are taking action to address these issues, and what activism even is.

Now that you’re armed with all of this information, how about you go out into the world and apply some of your knowledge to help the pets around the world who are homeless, dying or being abused? You’ll not only likely make yourself feel better, but you’ll be doing the world a service by doing so. So go help some pets!

Bibliography

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