Biography: We are delighted to welcome Jessica Lensbower as our featured Voice For Animals contributor. Jessica, a PAVFA Volunteer and member of our Outreach Committee, lives in Biglerville, PA, with her husband, Justin, and their two rescue dogs, Rufus & Daphne, and three rescue cats, Squints, Chloe, & Griffin. We are grateful to Jessica for her tireless commitment to helping animals. 

An Easy Opportunity to Become a Hero – Please Adopt, Don’t Shop

Our nation’s cats and dogs are being killed in shelters every day just because they can’t find a home (as if they know how or are given the chance to go around and ask for one) fast enough due to overwhelming numbers of cats and dogs being tossed into these cold cages and kennels. Some by people who promised to love them. But the situation isn’t hopeless.  There are people giving everything they have to try to save our friends but there simply aren’t enough, we need more people to understand the impact they are having on homeless pets when they buy from people who are breeding to make some extra cash off the backs of dogs.

This isn’t being written to judge for I wonder whether these people are aware of the sentence they deliver to our friends in shelters when they shop instead of adopting. Maybe they have fallen prey to the stereotype’s breeders want you to believe in order to buy, such as: You can’t find a good family dog in a shelter, or, only ugly, mean dogs are in shelters. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Our dogs Tuna, Rufie and Daphne want me to tell you their stories so you can help others like them.

The first dog my husband and I adopted started as a foster because the shelter was reaching out for help due to receiving an influx of animals from a horrible cruelty case. We didn’t know what to expect, but we just knew we wanted to help. Yes, we‘ll take a dog in, whichever one you want to send with us. They decided to give us a dog with the name “Tuna.” She was severely underweight, malnourished, with a heart problem due to the conditions she was being kept in. They thought she was maybe 5 or 6 years old and not sure of the breed but a Jack Russell Terrier mix possibly. We took her little body in our arms, gave her some food, which wore her out, and she slept between my husband and me that night. And then every night for the rest of her precious life, because we adopted her after the judge in her case thankfully ruled that her original owners could not have her back. We were blessed with her love and loyal companionship for nine short but wonderful years.

When I knew time was getting short with Tuna, I promised her that in her honor I would adopt another dog in need. Sadly, there are no shortages of dogs in need in this country/world. I checked out Petfinder.com and came across a little guy who had been found hiding under someone’s shed in Georgia. No one claimed him and he found himself in search of a home. His eyebrows were the first thing that caught my eye because his big eyes are brown and the fur around his eyes is black, but his eyebrows are tan. I couldn’t really see his eyes, but when I finally could I was smitten. This little boy has given us so much joy in seeing the joy he has in a home where he has a full little belly and some toys he can play with. And also, he is a pretty hilarious little guy.

A few years later (2024), I saw an article that shelters in our country were struggling with an influx of dogs. We wanted to help, so we went back to petfinder.com and came across a dog who was expected to be blind after her owners kicked her into the streets of Texas, in desperate need of eye surgery and leg surgery. Do you know that there are kind souls out there who rode on a plane with her, gave her a warm blanket, and comforted her to get her to a special rescue for blind dogs? This blind dog rescue gave our sweet Daphne to her foster mom, who already had 9 (NINE!) Blind/deaf dogs. This foster mom (saint) works a full-time and part-time job in addition to her devotion to caring for very needy dogs. Oh! She takes in cats, too. The rescue informed us that many of the dogs they take in come from breeders. Breeders try to make money by selling dogs – lots of dogs, dog after dog; they don’t care about the dogs, just the money they can bring in. They told me horror stories of pups being killed if they don’t sell them. What world do we live in where this is okay, I ask.

Shelter workers and foster/rescue workers are heroes. They see all too often how our friends are being exploited and/or disposed of like yesterday’s garbage. Yet, they continue the fight to do right for them. They need our help, and it is so easy to make the decision to adopt. The hard decision is which of those precious/pleading faces to choose. You can be a hero to any of them and all of them at the same time, even by just choosing one. Because when you do, you are standing up for our best friends who have been cast aside in most cases through no fault of their own. Our loving adopted companions are proof that these animals just need humans to say yes to opening their door for a loving place to call home- the rewards are priceless.

Please adopt, don’t shop. – Jessica Lensbower

This blog is printed here with permission from its author, Jessica Lensbower