I am sure that many of you saw the dramatic news article in
the Tribune this morning that if we do not find homes for the animals in the
bulging Bahamas Humane Society perfectly healthy and sweet dogs, cats, puppies
and kittens will have to be killed because there is no more room for us to
house them. This was no exaggeration.This situation has been worsening for
weeks as the economy fails to improve and more and more people are forced to
surrender their friends because of lack of funds to feed them. This is what
happened yesterday, we reached “boiling point”. I just could not let this
happen on my watch, at least not without a major fight on our part.
I contacted most of our media and I have to say, hats off to
the Tribune, who jumped right in and wrote a wonderful piece, front page and
inside front with tons of pictures, channel 12 did a report last night
too…Thank you Tribune and channel 12, we are awaiting the other media to follow
suit hopefully!
Today was exciting and the Bahamas Humane Society Staff rose to
the occasion, answering a phone that was ringing off the wall, checking out
medically adoptable dogs and cats, doing house checks, showing the animals to
prospective owners, and doing adoption paper work… A fantastic days work, and
we hope that tomorrow will be even busier.
The Bahamas Humane Society waived the adoption fees and the
animals were free to suitable homes… today we sent 12 dogs, 9 puppies, 9 cats
and 5 kittens to good homes. This is a wonderful START…we had this morning 39
dogs, 52 puppies, and 80 cats and kittens waiting for homes… WOW, you say…so
the 35 heartbeats who have homes tonight have made a dent but still it’s just a
dent…That still leaves 139…no you say; I’ve done the math, it’s actually
136…Sorry three more puppies were brought in and surrendered just minutes after
Mrs. Gibson (Kenyatta’s Mom) walked out with her two new puppies…Mrs. Gibson
was my first phone call this morning at 8:15, God bless her!
So today was a good day, but we still have almost 150
heartbeats looking for homes, small, big, furry, sleek, black, white, brown,
ginger, feline and canine… if you have the space in your heart and yard, please
consider homing just one of these guys who by no fault of their own are left
alone in a concrete shelter tonight to see what cards fate deals them. There is
no doubt about it if we do not home more animals in a hurry we will soon have
to start putting perfectly healthy, happy, sweet animals to death. Rough
wording, but, face it, friends, it’s the truth…
We plan to continue to adopt out for free as long as this crisis
exists… We also plan to try and put some kind of food bank into operation to
help people who just can’t afford to feed their pets so that they are not
compelled to surrender them. We have to figure out the logistics of it.
Lightbourn Trading Co. is being very helpful and cooperative, please think of
them when shopping because they are so good to the BHS, and donate a lot of food
supplies to us and sponsor our Family Fun Day every year!
I know, I can actually see you opening this email and thinking
"%$#@ here she goes again !"… I really wish I did not have to keep
asking everybody to help. I know I send my emails to all the same people
always…that is because you are the people I know… I understand if you can’t
adopt or help or send money, really I do….I ask you to forward this to as many
people you can possibly think of, they may just want to adopt, and that would
be bliss…
Please forgive me for always appealing to your kind and generous
sides…God Bless you for putting up with me and always being there for the
animals of this wonderful country.
