To the editor:
I would like to take this opportunity to defend The Central Aroostook Humane Society and Chris Robinson who I think were criticized unfairly in a letter to the editor in the August 19th edition. I have had a positive experience with the shelter and I’m sure many people have had good experiences with the shelter but it is unfortunate that it always seems people who have issues end up writing letters to the editor. I don’t have any axe to grind, I just have a story to tell about our dog Sadie who was a shelter dog.
Sadie is a lovable and friendly black lab/Rottweiler mix that we met at the CAHS three years ago. Because of a problem she had with minor incontinence she had gone to a family and ended up back at the shelter. My husband and I wanted to give Sadie a chance and we took her into our home on a trial basis, worked with the board and with the manager of the shelter and their vet to resolve Sadie’s problem and now Sadie is our dog. The board agreed to help Sadie get a permanent home and the fact they were willing to go to bat for one dog who needed a home and had a problem tells me something and should tell other people who read this something.
I know Chris and I know she is a lady I trust explicitly with Sadie. She is our dog sitter and I have recommended her to many people and I will continue to do so. I have been to her house and know that she has many kitties who have been left on her doorstep and I know very well that Chris is not a kitty hater. (I would not hesitate to adopt a kitty from the shelter and would do so but my husband is allergic to cats.)
All I can say about the decisions the board make is the fact I do not work with the shelter animals day in and day out and I may not know all the facts involved in any decision.
An outdoor cat area might seem like a humane thing but there are factors involved in it that might not make it feasible or even advisable. What a person may see as “excuses” may be valid reasons.
I myself think it’s much more humane to have a cat warm and fed in a cage than outdoors being run over by cars, taunted by cruel people, chased by foxes and other predators and starving and freezing. In these uncertain economic times I think we are fortunate to have a shelter at all and I don’t see any evidence that the cats in the shelter are suffering unduly.
I have only one question for the writer of the letter. How is withholding financial support for the shelter supposed to help the animals he is supposedly trying to benefit? It’s a rhetorical question. I don’t expect an answer. But just give it a little thought OK? It’s up to him where his money goes but as my grandmother used to say don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.
Easton
