Like rabbits, animal shelters suffer from public misconceptions. Inaccurate stereotypes of the filthy pound and evil dog-catcher are pervasive. For the sake of the rabbits waiting at shelters, I'd like to dispel a few myths. Whatever their shortcomings, shelters are trying to respond to a disaster not of their own making. Sad things happen at shelters.
Animals die there, of course.
Equally depressing is the unending stream of humans who stand at the front counter and dispose of those animals. On bad days the shelter seems to me a place where criminals drop off their victims to be incarcerated and in some cases killed. But the shelter is not a prison. In many cases, the first loving hands an animal meets are those of her caretakers at the shelter. Shelter from the street, from cruel or negligent or simply ignorant humans-it's less than they deserve, but it's the most society is willing to give.