Community Service

There are some new readers of our journal, so we thought we would mention that we aren't named Jan's Funny Farm because we're funny, although we often think we are. But because Jan used to go around muttering that she felt like she was living in a nuthouse. We have no idea how she could equate us to nuts. We three canines do eat nuts, but we're not squirrels.

So why didn't she name this journal Jan's Nuthouse? We have no idea!

Why are we bringing this up now? To remind everyone that life is not always funny, and thus some of our entries will be funny, some will be sad, some informative, and some might make you teary.

Do you remember the story of the woman who dumped a large number of house cats and kittens in a park in winter and the judge sentenced her to spend a night in the same park to learn a lesson. Despite that, she would never be able understand the totality of what those cats, unused to being on their own or hunting for their own food, went through.

In this vein, we heard Jan telling a story yesterday. It's a true one but we won't tell who told her because we haven't asked his permission. We could call and ask him ourselves, but we don't think he has any dogs or cats as articulate as we are, so he wouldn't understand us.

Recently, when a man was judged guilty of animal abuse, the judge asked the Animal Control officer what he thought would be an appropriate community service sentence.

Our Texan friend Mark says some local judges sentence "perps to work at PALS." This is a good idea. Make them work with animals and, hopefully, they will learn to respect living creatures.

But this ACO said he thought the abuser should work at the shelter and have to hold the animals while they were being put down. The "perp" lasted one day and never returned.

Hopefully, he learned something about the value of life in that one day. We think this is a fitting punishment for the circumstances and it would be nice to hear of more judges implementing this style of sentencing. Kudos for the ACO suggesting it and to the judge for granting it.