Those of us who love animals will find the following story by Kenneth Petrini of the Philadelphia Examiner of special interest. And you can get involved by having dinner at Louie's Restaurant on 31st Street in Allentown. Louie B. has teamed up with Peacable Kingdom with a special fundraiser. From January 24 through January 28, Louie will donate 20% of your check (excluding alcohol, tax and tips) to Peacable Kingdom "to help save puppy mill rescues and homeless cats." You need the flyer to participate, but if you tell him that you heard about this offer on the news he will honor the donation.  

Surrounded by a dozen or more of the four-footed friends he is striving to help, Lehigh County Commissioner Glenn Eckhart held a news conference on Jan. 23 to announce the introduction of a resolution aimed at ensuring that there is “a competitive alternative to the Lehigh County Humane Society.” Eckhart made the announcement in the Whitehall Township home of Peaceable Kingdom, a no-kill animal shelter.

Eckhart was the one who started the attack on LCHS last year. As Eckhart explained, early last year, the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners considered a routine resolution to provide matching funds in the amount of $22,500 to the Lehigh County Humane Society, a non-profit agency that is not associated directly with the county. Passage seemed likely with the only issue being Eckhart’s request that the contract for animal control services contain language concerning painless euthanasia.

When the bill returned at the next meeting for final passage, Commissioner Dean Browning expressed alarm at a nearly $2 million “rainy day reserve” at LCHS. Gloria Hamm provided bi-partisan opposition when she expressed concern over the lack of transparency by LCHS as to the disposition of the several thousand animals they take in each year.

LCHS continues to refuse to say how many thousands of animals they kill in a year. They even refuse to respond to requests from townships that contracted with them to make an accounting of strays that were picked up. Lynn Township supervisor David Najarian has filed an open records request noting that LCHS is performing a government function. LCHS has refused to comply and claims it is private. Najarian, a legal bulldog when you tell him no, is pursuing the appeal.

Last year, the county funding was denied. “We decided it wasn’t in the interest of Lehigh County to be funding animal control,” Eckhart explained. There is little doubt that if LCHS would be honest about the number of animals destroyed that private contributions would dry up. I again ask anyone who loves animals to contribute somewhere else until LCHS makes its records transparent.

There are many worthy shelters, perhaps none more so than PK which jumped in with both feet when Eckhart and others looked for an alternative to LCHS.

With LCHS trying to make up its lost funding and then some, PK was able to secure contracts for animal care services with 10 municipalities and has one or two more pending, giving it a large geographic footprint in the county. In a departure from LCHS practice, PK only charges the municipalities for stray dogs.

Feral cats are taken in under a trap, neuter and return program where they are released back into the wild. Liz Jones explains that the cats are much less likely to roam at that point as they are no longer “looking for action.”

The efforts of PK were dealt a setback in December when the state denied their application to be certified as an animal shelter which could take in strays. As a result, PK would need to contact the dog warden to take away and place any animal brought to it by law enforcement officials which could not be quickly returned to the owner.

One of the grounds mentioned by the Department of Agriculture in denying PK’s application was the presence of another shelter, the LCHS, in the county. For Eckhart, the monopoly is whay he is trying to avoid as he exclaimed “It is important in Lehigh County to have competition.”

As a result, Eckhart drafted the resolution as a way of “asking the state to reconsider Peaceable Kingdom as an animal control shelter.”

“This is not just for Peaceable Kingdom,” Eckhart said. “It is the fact that there is competition.”

“Peaceable Kingdom is the only alternative that will step up and provide animal control services,” Eckhart noted. Although noting “it is always nice when people think nice of you,” Jones also called for an effort beyond PK at the press conference. She said the state’s animal control law “is starting to fray and decay.”

The PK executive director wants reform in the animal control law similar to the recent reforms concerning puppy mills. PK received and placed several dogs after recent seizures from breeders. Ironically, the success of PK in finding foster and permanent homes for dogs worked against it in the application with the state. The state’s denial letter noted the small number of dogs on hand each time they inspected and questioned if PK could handle higher volume.

Last year, PK found homes for over 1,000 animals and another 1,500 were handled under the TNR program for cats. Jones noted that “as the human population increased, so did the animal population.” She declared “There is a need for more than one shelter.”

Jones also noted that PK is continuing to look for a suitable permanent home. She continued to lobby Eckhart for use of the former juvenile detention facility in South Whitehall Township. If it was up to Glenn, he’d make the space available. Maybe County Executive Don Cunningham, who has been so kind to Pip the Mouse would step up and provide space for the cats and dogs of the county. Heck, with all the extra space available in the courthouse they could let PK relocate there. C’mon Don, what better use for that Juvenile Detention Facility? What better way to serve the animal lovers in our county?

In a perfect world, the customers of LCHS, the remaining cities and townships, would be the ones looking for a larger permanent home for PK, a non-profit where even the workers are not seeking to profit. Animal control by those who care for animals is the most humane way to go. The PK model will work and can work on a larger scale if the funds and facilities are made available.

A little humor from Shoeboxblog.com.

I heard some news about further cutbacks at The Morning Call. HR has laid off or let go of six positions in the pressroom in the last year. Sources also say there is now only one press run at night instead of two, which they say limits production. If there's a problem with the press, a shutdown means the papers will be late getting to the street, leading to more subscribers canceling the paper, on and on, ad infinitum. It's a vicious cycle.

I know the Bible says that if our brother sins against us, we are to forgive him.

“So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him; and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, and says, I repent,' you must forgive him."

[Of course, the apostles were aghast. Who among them had that much faith?] Luke 17:3-6

I agree with the apostles. I’ve always had a problem with the patient and forgiving thing.  But if you look closely at these verses you see that there are at least two “if statements.” If he sins, if he repents, then you forgive him. But what if he doesn’t repent? What if someone professing to be your friend continually uses words that he or she knows are offensive to you, what should you do? Get mad? That’s what I used to do. Now I just hang up the phone. If I have told this friend on numerous occasions that by using those words he or she was hurting me and disrespecting me, and he or she continues to use those words anyway, how many times should I sit back and smile placidly as if it doesn’t bother me? As I said, I’ve never been very good at the patient and forgiving thing.

I really don’t know how I could be any clearer about this. My belief in God is the core value in my life. I believe in God. I believe Jesus is who He said He is. I believe that God is good, all the time. I believe my God can kick your god’s butt. And my faith is not in man but in the Creator of the Universe. Sound crazy? You betcha. After all, half the world thought Jesus was a schizophrenic nutcase.

The end of the story is this: Jesus answered the apostles, saying, "If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamore tree: ‘Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.”

Again I say, who among us has that much faith?

It all comes down to a matter of respect, the respect of one human being for another. The commandment was to "love one another," but it's so easy for me to find fault instead. It's not "holier than thou" for me to admit I am a Christian—it's a public "out-of-the-closet" admission. It doesn't make me good, it doesn't mean I'm better than anyone else because I'm not on either account, it just means it's a part of who I am. Can you respect that?

Bill and I shot our first footage at Pennhurst State School and Hospital this weekend, through the kindness of site co-owner Jim Barnes. This shot is of the interior of Assembly Hall, the auditorium where Pennhurst residents once watched movies and plays and performed in talent shows. As you can see, the movie screen has been vandalized and the organ and pew benches overturned and smashed. Trash, including empty beer bottles, attests to the fact that the campus is now a favorite nighttime party spot.

It's more than a shame to see this kind of senseless vandalism—it's shocking. What would make a person want to break into a historic building, especially one with such a tragic past, and destroy things? What sickness would make you that criminally insensible? Have we as a society become so callous that this kind of activity is considered to be "fun?" I shudder to think.

The Pennhurst Preservation & Memorial Association is working to create a memorial and museum honoring the thousands of men, women and children with developmental disabilities who spent their lives segregated from rest of society on this Spring City campus. Visit their Web site to learn more about one of America's most shameful moments. Our treatment of those members of society deemed "different" is a brutal reminder that institutions like this one should never be allowed to recur.

I'm finally at the thesis portion of my master's degree program at Rosemont College (yayyyy!!!) which will be a 30-minute video documentary about the Pennhurst State School and Hospital in Spring City, Pennsylvania. I will be working with Bill Crumlic of crumlicmedia.com a video documentary producer in New York City. 

If anyone out there has any information about Pennhurst that they would be willing to share, please contact me at: betty@bettycauler.com. Stay tuned for more updates and a link to the Web site.