2 good shelter stories

A couple last thoughts about animal shelters . . . for now, anyway.

First is an update on the “McDonald’s boxer” that Valerie Noble and I tried to save on July 15. Soon after she reached the Trenton Animal Shelter, the word was she’d go to a boxer rescue group. But then it got even better: when Valerie phoned to learn whether that had happened, she was told the boxer had been adopted! A woman who came in to register saw the dog and that was it. “Our” boxer left with a new collar, going to a new home.

Next is an excerpt from a haunting-but-(ultimately) happy book that Bobbie, the great children’s librarian at Labyrinth, introduced me to:

“. . . Most Friday afternoons on his way home from school, in that time before the weekend when lonely people realize just how lonely they are, George visited the dog shelter. And he always seemed to end up by the last cage in the last aisle . . . where the dogs no one wanted went for a final week before their journey to heaven. George felt at home there. In the dark gloom, he found a place where everything seemed lonelier than he was. . . .”

George finds a dog in that last cage, the two immediately relate, and . . . ! Plus, a kindly shelter manager plays a part in the story.

The book, which Bobbie and I agreed has a horrible title, is The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness. It was written and illustrated (beautifully) by a Brit, Colin Thompson, who is reportedly color blind. (Kane/Miller Book Publishers, Inc., La Jolla, CA, c. 2008)

A lovely gift for a child, the book suggests there are friends out there in the world and people and animals need one another.
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