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It was a foggy night in my home town, and i was on my way to work. As i got out of my truck my heart stopped for a moment. Before me were two dogs, one a medium size, the other smaller like a chiwawa. Both were painfully skinny, and had not eaten in days it would have seemed. Of coarse the thought of rabies was the first to enter my head. What if? But my fears were calmed by the wagging of their tales, as if they were so happy to have found a human. I extended my arm to them and petted both their heads offering some human comfort. But i was unsettled by their bloated stomachs . Into the store i went grabbing a bag of combos from the shelf to give them. I payed the clerk and as i walked out the door my heart dropped and broke into pieces. The smaller of the two dogs had just been hit by a car and its body lay motionless on the paved road, the person who hit it didn't even stop. As i grabbed it and brought it to the sidewalk, it moved, still alive but barely. I watched this dog die, as i pet its head, unable to do anything. Then it was gone. At least it suffering had ended i thought to myself. No longer needing to bear the cold of winter and an empty stomach, struggling to keep warm and scrounging for food. Its suffering had ended. But another dog remained, so i cracked open the bag of combos and watched as the dog devoured it. When i was done it looked up at me hoping for more but i had no more. I flipped open my phone to call animal control, as i did a car horn sounded and the dog ran off into the fog. Hopefully the food i gave it will help for another night, hopefully it will make it through the fog and not end up like its partner, lifeless. Both these dogs were very people friendly and both these dogs had collars, which means both these dogs had owners. So how do we stop animal homelessness. We stop bad pet owners. Owners that leave their dogs unsupervised, owners that abandon them and discard them. Owners that shouldn't have them in the first place. Their are times tho where a dog gets out. But its people like you and me, who pass that dog and don't give it a second thaught that contribute to the problem. So i say to you, if you see a dog on the street, do not pass it by, but do not approach it, call animal control, get that dog off the streets, you may reunite it with its owner but at the very least you will save its life.

Learn more about this author, Daryl Lott.
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