How You Can Help!

Please tell others Mercy's Story!!

Report animal cruelty, neglect, and abuse to the appropriate agencies - police,
ASPCA, Humane Society, etc.  Follow up - make sure something is being done.

Volunteer at local shelters and rescue agencies.

Donate money, time, pet food, blankets, toys, leashes, collars, kitty litter, etc.,
to local and national groups that help animals in need.

Promote spaying and neutering of companion animals.

Adopt  companion animals from shelters, rescue organizations and city pounds.
 Don't buy from pet stores!!  If you must have a pure-bred puppy, do your
research, know your breeder, visit them, meet their dogs.  (see our GOOD
BREEDER page for more info).

Raise money by selling items on eBay, or holding a garage sale and donating
the funds to your favorite rescue organization.

Sponsor a dog at Just A Touch Rescue.   Click here to learn about our Best
Friends Program.

Respect all living things.  The animals we share this wonderful planet with
deserve our respect, love, and care.  Each and every creature on this earth is
unique and special, and each and every creature makes a difference in the
world.  We are the stewards of this planet, and it is our responsibility to make
sure each creature we share this world with gets the respect they deserve.

Recognize that "pets and people" are good for each other!
Click here to read Mercy's story at Operation Kindness and follow the trial of the person who tortured her.  
KERA Unlimited
Public TV and Radio for North Texas
Dallas

Commentary: Have Mercy
By Rawlins Gilliland, KERA 90.1 Commentator

DALLAS, TX (2006-05-11)

I once heard a saying: "You can tell a lot about a country by the way they
treat their animals." With the dreadful case of Mercy, the pit bull mix
who was stabbed and set afire, this quote seems timely.

Funny how we Americans need to put a name and a face on topical
problems to make them become poster child "real": like Rodney King,
Mathew Shepherd, Rock Hudson or Anita Hill. Now Mercy comes to
personify the plight of abused, neglected or unwanted dogs. But like
everything these days, Mercy's case is not without irony, including
symbolic ritual.

What truly saddens me here, beyond the obvious is this; had a healthy
Mercy been taken to almost any Metroplex animal shelter, she would
have likely been euthanized because she was the least desirable
commodity in our trendy metropolis: a mixed breed large dog. Last year
in area shelters, over twenty thousand dogs and cats were killed
because no one saw them or wanted them. And a disproportionate
number looked like Mercy, before she was tortured to death.

Meanwhile, Dallasites are on waiting lists with upscale and low rent
puppy mills alike to purchase preferred breeds. There's even dog chic;
when Paris Hilton was "wearing" her Chihuahua, one Dallas mother
bought her daughter an identical dog. It was later dropped at a shelter
when the daughter left for college.

I'm constantly asked, "What kind is your dog". When I joke, "God only
knows", people invariably say, "Mixed breeds are the best." They tell me
how indeterminate origin mutts are healthier, have better immune
systems. Yet they only have so-called "pure breeds", explaining they
want specific "traits".

What traits, I wonder: loyalty, kindness, sweetness, great company?

My huge happy handsome hound was the victim of still another
prevalent abuse. She was the traditional ethnic baby gift, given to
families who, once puppies are no longer babies, trade in their aging
pups for newborns. This revolving door "eternal puppy' problem at the
SPCA is an ongoing matter-of-fact norm in many lower socio-economic
households - white, brown and black.

There as elsewhere, there is stereotypical breed status. I can drive you
through neighborhoods where pit bulls and Rottweilers run loose and
breed freely. The result was Mercy. Ignorant resistance to spay or
neuter animals remains endemic while homeless animals scavenge
area parks, or if found or caught, overwhelm under-funded shelters.
Others suffer terrible terminal diseases without shots.

But abuse has many faces. I recently called 311 about a Mercy
look-alike tied to a pole in the blazing sun without water. This was
intentional; to teach that dog to become deadly, like a growling gun.
There is also unwitting cruelty afoot: a housebound Border collie or
Dalmatian, never allowed to run, constantly punished for being "hyper".

It's past time to address our out-of-control animal emergency. While
many big hearted Metroplex residents attended a memorial for Mercy,
there are any number of dogs dying today who would have died to be
your loving friend.

If Mercy - that poor sweet dog Mercy - touched your heart, why not
become her guardian angel by rescuing an otherwise doomed angel
in her name?

Rawlins Gilliland is a writer from Dallas