Closing Argument

Two years ago, I wrote a poem about a severely neglected dog who howls pitifully at his 24/7 confinement in a kennel cage. Whenever I have called animal Services here in town, the response was always the same: "there is nothing we can do as long as the animal is housed and fed adequately.Sorry." So, two years into this torment, I tried again, and this time I actually convinced Animal Services to look into the case. I told them I thought it illogical to require animal shelters to exercise their animals an hour every 24 hours, but yet citizens owning dogs are not required to provide the same basic decency to another sentient being. They finally agreed to look into it and sure enough ,the same day, I got a call from one of their field officers that he had found the house in question, but that a neighbor had said they took good care of the dogs as far as feeding and shelter goes, so, again by law there was nothing he could do. But, on a small ray of hope, he would leave a tag saying he had responded to a call about concerns for the animal's welfare due to repeated and excessive barking and howling. It at least  opens the possibility that the owners might consider spending some time with their very lonely, confined animal. The concern and law in the world of animal rights seem very bogus to me in this regard. Animal Legal Defense had a successful campaign to free Tony, the tiger from a years long confinement in a cage at a truck stop. Leonardo Di Caprio even got involved, it was a wonderful thing, I sent a donation, signed the petition, and the tiger now can look forward to an eventual decent life at a wildlife reserve. But what about the dog on Mazama? Sometimes I can hear two dogs howling in there, what a pitiful thing. What about the thousands and thousands of dogs confined like the hapless creatures just a few houses away from my house? I sent a letter to the Executive Director of Animal Legal Defense Fund, Stephen Wells, asking for a response about this concern, but I never got an answer. If a well known animal rights group put their shoulders against this issue, maybe something eventually could be moved forward towards a change in legislation. It  might mean the end of a living death for thousands of animals in this country alone.