This Place is Going to the Dogs

I like pets as much as the next guy, but the fact that pet issues have dwarfed other government issues ranging from educating our kids to the way we use and protect our vital resources highlights the limited nature of most people's involvement in their community.

Again, don't read this as me being ”anti-pet.“ I can see the hate mail now. Remember, I'm the guy who writes the column every week trying to get one of our homeless animals adopted (by the way, Billy has a new home). It's just that I've lived in this area for 11 years now and the two issues that I have seen gather the most civic response were related to pets.

The first time was when the city of Sarasota toyed with an ordinance that would not allow dogs to be served food next to people at Sarasota eateries. Pet lovers stormed City Hall and protested with a zealotry I had never seen. Never mind local issues – Katherine Harris, the 18,000 + under-vote in Jennings/Buchanan, the 2000 presidential election debacle – none of them began to compare.

Since moving to Manatee County a few years back, last month's budget protests over what was thought to be slashed funding to the animal services department and their adoption program was the most heat I've seen on a local issue. Again, I like to see it anytime people are engaged with their government representation, but it kind of blows my mind how passionate of an issue animal rights can be, while the horrendously unhealthy food we feed our kids through the school lunch program barely raises an eyebrow.

Even gulf drilling does not get people in this area as hot under the collar as the idea that pet overpopulation might end in an animal being humanely put to sleep (once more, I support the no-kill policy... just making a point). You can bring up Hands Across the Sand, but look what it took to organize such interest in saving our beaches. Isn't the ocean a living, breathing thing, and isn't it essential to our way of life and even our survival?

I guess what it says to me is that while I've long thought that most people are just too overworked, over-commuted, overstressed and overwhelmed – that they come home from a 10-hour day and a fight with traffic and just want to mentally masturbate in front of a television screen to American Idol or The Apprentice too much to be civic-minded and involved – I'm wrong. It turns out they do have the passion and energy, it's just that they don't care about most of the other things – the things that my inclinations tell me are the most important – nearly as much as pets.

I apologize to a single reader if this seems elitist or unsympathetic to their relationship with their animal, but I truly believe that we are facing a watershed moment in human history and indeed, the American way of life. And what's more, as your determination proved on the two pet issues I mentioned, the power of your voice, especially when organized, really can cause change.

So please, keep coming out for the dogs – just consider putting the same intensity behind the trees, the water, the soil and the children that remain a quarter of our population, yet 100 percent of our future. If we work hard toward making the changes we so desperately need to make human life sustainable for centuries to come, I promise – the dogs will be be better off too.