Letter to the Editor, Tuesday August 2, 2016

Please help the animals

Before I begin my tirade, I wish to say that I am not speaking in any way for the SPCA. I am just an individual member of this community of Northland.

Every Saturday I help out at the SPCA, literally scraping up puppy poo, wiping kitten's eyes and loving up some very abused animals. I'm one of an incredible team of people who cannot understand 'humans' who abandon and abuse animals.

Talking to people in our community, I have noticed an attitude that seems quite strong up here. There seems to be an attitude of entitlement out there. "Hey I can have as many children, puppies, whatever I want and you can't stop me. Even if I don't have a job, and can't support them, it's my right!"

And so schmucks like me spend our weekends scraping up their entitlement and looking into the eyes of these beautiful, innocent animals, wishing and hoping for change. How will it change? I know those kinds of people don't read editorials like this one.

A beautiful dog came in with puppies this week. The sweetest nature, emaciated body, full of fleas, ribs protruding. It's my first sight of a starved dog, and it moved me.

The SPCA is an incredible organisation, working in quite difficult conditions, but it's the people that need to speak out. So as one of the people in our community, I'm saying, as an individual, speak out Kaitaia, Ahipara. You have one of the worst animal records. Get your animals spayed, and if you can't afford that, you can always surrender them to the SPCA. If you have feral cats they have humane traps too, or if you love animals and want to help, become a volunteer.

We're coming up to kitten season soon. Already there's been a dumping of kittens in a black rubbish bag at the dump. This has got to stop. Will you help?

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED