Why animals matter when humans are in peril

One of the statements I most hate to hear is "why are you worried about cats when there are people who need help," or "why don't you spend your efforts on children in need, rather than cats." Above and beyond a belief that animals also suffer and deserve consideration, it is because of this:

Kind humans care, and kind humans need help, when they find a suffering animal. They need to be able to hand that animal to an animal person, so that they can get on with their business of helping people. The kind of man who is going to search all day and all night for a person trapped beneath the rubble of a tornado that has utterly destroyed half of a city, is not going to pass by a kitten--a tiny live thing in a field of death. And while one or two kittens might be taken home and named Twister, all the kittens, cats, injured and lost dogs, iguanas, parrots, and other displaced pets suddenly wandering with no place to go...need a place to go.

In Joplin, that is the Joplin Humane Society Animal Adoption & Resource Center. If you are on Facebook you can find them here,  and you will see a community that is coming together to help the Society, and the other shelters and rescue groups who will be providing a safe place for the animals brought to them by residents and emergency personnel.

In every community there is a shelter that would need to step forward if hell struck your own home town tomorrow. If you stepped out of a pile of rubble, with everything in your life gone, and the first thing you found was your dead neighbor's beloved cat wandering aimlessly, you should be able to pick up that cat, cry over it, and hand her to someone who will keep her safe, so you aren't faced with the dilemma of trying to keep that animal safe, or worse--be forced to walk away to leave that one spark of life to possibly die alone after surviving such destruction.

Please help Joplin Humane if you can, and better yet, please look to your own local shelters. Remember the shelter you have in your community is the shelter your community builds. One day that shelter may need to be there for you...the way the Animal Adoption & Resource Center is there now, in an unimaginable role, for the PEOPLE of Joplin, Missouri.


Flickr photos, Lost/Found Tornado Pets in Joplin
Facebook, Lost/Found Tornado Pets in Joplin