We Have Been Busy.

The steady stream of unwanted and unloved continue to flow daily into the shelters, human and animal.. Yes I have gone back to helping at Sally's.  I had promised my wife I really was retired, but volunteers are in short supply. The children and the animals are most tragic, they are caught in a web not of their own making.
Sometimes it feels we should build them a shuttle from Sac to Reno, back and forth . Snow in Reno, so they will come down here and then migrate back up there to panhandle & prostitue.
C'mon Chap, I say to myself, where are you going with this ? Hard to write stuff, from one of my collegues in Reno. He oversees the Tent City  on a rotation basis.  Recently NHS had a big thing about getting food for the homeless peoples pets, took a mobile vaccination clinic, they thought they had found a whold new market for their unadoptables.  Anyone could see the trouble brewing there, except the Nevada Humane Society.
About 3 days after one of the larger campaigns to get their name in the paper, the City of Reno swooped in with an ordinance banning pets at Tent City.  According to my friend there had been an incident a fews weeks prior that had ended up with a man stabbing his girlfriends pitbull to death during a domestic dispute.  He doesn't know if Animal Control was called, but nothing was done.  It left a bad taste in the mouths of the social workers, but the homeless took it in stride and went on.   What was to follow was horrific.  In a separate unrelated incident a man high on narcotics decided his sleeping dog had something hidden in her stomach. He sliced the poor thing from vulva to throat and entrails were everywhere.  Animal Control said it was a police issue. I think it's animal cruelty on more than one count. Putting these dogs in these dangerous living conditions is inhumane, don't kid yourself.  On many occasions while working at the 4th street shelter store a homeless person would try to tie a dog up out front.  When asked where they got the dog it was always given to them by the Humane Society in a free promotion.  They were promised food and free shots.   Pets make great begging tools and are conversation starters.  I had observed many of the pets were very old and small.  I think maybe the owners brought them into be put to sleep, and because that would ruin their numbers, they gave them away instead to live with the bums by the river. 
We have our animal abuse down here, it's everywhere, but giving animals to homeless people is not done here and should not be permitted anywhere...
Remember the reason for the Season, our Savior, Christ the Lord,
Chap