Dogs Born in Perry County Have Problems
The Perry County 8
Click here for the background story on a homeless mutt named Lucy that had a litter of 8 puppies under a back porch in Perry County.
**
The problem for animals born in Perry County is that they live in one of the poorest, meanest places in Tennessee. In the words of one woman residing in the county seat of Linden, “there’s an underlying meanness thick enough to chew on.”
One of the reasons folks are pissed off is because they’re broke. In 2009, the economic situation got so bad that our government invested federal stimulus money in the area’s rebirth, and it helped, but the employment rate still doubles the national average.
Another hurdle for stray animals in Perry County is that their home has the lowest population density in the state, totaling a sparse nineteen people per square mile. That means lots and lots of wilderness filled with heaps of predators – think coyotes, black vultures, bears, and hunters.
A remote area inhabited with poor, peeved folks has yielded an animal overpopulation epidemic. Over and over again, dogs like Lucy – pregnant, penniless, and speechless – are ditched on secluded roads, left to figure life out on their own.
For a long time, I held a lot of know-it-all, self-righteous anger towards people that committed such crimes, thinking they were despicable, but I was humbled pretty quick when I learned that sometimes dumping animals is a necessity and not a desire.
A while back, trying to understand why people abandon animals so frequently in my own struggling Middle Tennessee county, I had a few beers with a neighbor’s girlfriend, a woman named Betty D. that confessed to dropping off a litter of kittens on a country road. When I asked her why, she vehemently defended herself, saying that she had recently lost her job as a cook at the Springfield Middle School and was having trouble feeding her four kids, let alone seven kittens. Besides, it hadn’t been her cat to begin with and wandered uninvited onto her rented property. Lastly, she had proclaimed, cigarette hanging from her mouth, callused finger waving in the air, she had tried to take the kittens to the Robertson County Animal Control, but the shelter didn’t have room.
I’m not defending animal abuse of any kind, but I couldn’t really argue with Betty. If it comes to feeding children or feeding stray animals, the answer is clear. Plus, when there’s no place to safely surrender cats and dogs, particularly the ones that arrive pregnant, what are a poor family’s options? I have a feeling the same situation is going on in Perry County.
Right now, the Perry County Humane Society is fighting just to keep their heat on and might have to close the doors, which means Lucy and the Perry County 8 could have ended up surviving in the wilderness or euthanized if it hadn’t been for a handful of rock stars: thank you so much Wayne and Pamela Thing, Geoff Reed, Danita F., and as always, ICHBA.
P.S. If you have an extra 5 bucks and want to donate to a worthy cause, why not help the Perry County Shelter keep their heater running this winter? Click here for more information.