Senior dog dumped with an obligatory small bag of dog food (Photos)

Houston, Texas - A pit bull mix - who has since been dubbed "Pappy" because of his advanced age - was dumped on or around September 26th by his owners "at the gates of Harris County." Source

According to the neighbors who reside in the area this senior now calls home, Pappy's owners also left a small bag of dog food. A very charitable gesture, right? After all, doesn't dumping ones pet, along with food that would hopefully last a couple of days make it somehow less egregious?

To most animal-lovers, the answer would be an emphatic "no." It is not okay to dump your pet on the street to fend for himself or herself under any circumstance, even with pet food and/or supplies, simply because the animal became an "inconvenience." Dogs are domesticated animals due to human intervention. A domesticated animal that becomes someone's pet makes that someone forever responsible for that pet's health and welfare.

Since our laws are generally a reflection of society's norms and values, all 50 states have recognized this obligation. Although the severity of the offense of pet abandonment varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, it is nonetheless illegal.

Sadly, pet abandonment is still a prevalent phenomenon across this nation. Most of the pets I've rescued and adopted were from the streets. Gary, the one depicted in the slideshow, is my most recent street rescue. Whether people who abandon their pets understand the seriousness of their actions is unclear. To animal lovers, dumping pets is very serious from the pet's point of view.

Like the poem shown in the slideshow, Pappy continues to sit and wait in the exact spot where he was dumped. In vain, he awaits his humans to come back for him, which experience tells us will not happen. His survival and well-being depends on the compassion of the animal rescue community. Unless he is rescued, what little time he has left on this earth will be quite harsh, and may even be cut short.

Anyone who can help rescue Pappy is asked to call (832) 538-3699. The facebook post describes the elderly and intact pit bull mix as a "gentleman" that looks as if he "had a hard life." He is also described as "shy but no aggression."

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