Shortly after I adopted Maybelle I saw a horrible story in the news. A woman named “Peanut Kirby” who ran an animal shelter in Georgia was accused of taking donation money for a “Lucky Dogs” program under false pretenses. She told donors that their money would save a dog and then she would send the donor pictures of the dogs being adopted. But really she was putting the dogs down and using the money to feed her gambling habit. This story would have been bad enough, but the organization — Boggs Mountain Shelter — sounded familiar. I went and looked at Maybelle’s paperwork and sure enough there it was. My dog had been sent from Boggs Mountain to the Connecticut Humane Society.

I’ve followed the case over the past couple of years and this week Peanut was found guilty. I’m glad to see justice being served, but I also hope that this case has brought attention to the larger problem.

Boggs represented itself as the only no-kill shelter for hundreds of miles around. People drove from far and wide to leave their beloved pets there. Highly adoptable dogs that wound up in high-kill shelters were sent there as well. Some of them made it out, in large part thanks to transports that brought them up north.

But the underlying, less sensational problem is the cavalier attitude toward pet overpopulation. Why are the shelters so overrun in the first place? Because people don’t get their pets spayed and neutered! Even my Maybelle has had more than one litter of puppies. As far as I can tell from her paperwork she was pregnant when she came into the shelter. My neighbor’s dog also came from the South, and also seems to have had some puppies.

Money flooded into Boggs to help the remaining dogs and keep the shelter alive. I can only hope some of that money is going toward prevention.

And now for another cute dog pic!