Inspired By Odin Roark’s Recent Poem

About A Dog Tied To A Tree For Four Years,

And By The Dogs That I Meet, Like This One,

Who At First Sight, Usually Bring Me To Tears

“To insult someone,

We call him ‘an animal,’

But calling him ‘a human’

Might be the greater insult.”

          Isaac Asimov

This poor dog is only one of too many

That are being found in America today

This is how modern mankind treats them

We find more and more like him, every day

They are all around us, in these United States

They are abandoned, in our rural areas and cities

And these domesticated dogs have no hunting skills

So they starve out on our streets, but we have little pity

America’s animal shelters, are all now overflowing with them

And most of America’s discarded canines are now put to sleep

Some of us attempt to save them, from our modern day apathy

But those that do, when we find them, at man's cruelty, now weep

The dying emaciated canine pictured above, is one of the few lucky ones

He was taken to an animal hospital, instead of to the killroom at the pound

After several months of tender loving care, he is once again, a happy dog

But I sadly know that by tomorrow, another one just like him, will be found

“To insult someone,

We call him ‘an animal,’

But calling him ‘a human’

Might be the greater insult.”

©October 2013, Mr. Ed