By Staff
If you are like most people in the area, and you've been watching the local television stations religiously, keeping track of our next hurricane to possibly hit us, which is hurricane Ivan. In watching these news programs you probably also heard about a puppy shooting a man from one of our nearby towns. If you haven't seen it on one of these local stations, or heard it from the street, then we would guess you have seen it on CNN Headline News, or on Good Morning America.
However if not, let us take a quick moment to recap. As one of our front-page stories tells, a Walnut Hill man was shot in the wrist by a puppy. According to reports, the man was shooting the puppy and others after not being able to give the dogs away. While wrestling with the puppies, one of the dog's paws hit the trigger and fired the weapon hitting the man in the wrist.
"The shot heard around the world," could easily describe the publicity that this story is attracting. According to Florida law enforcement officials, Court TV and the National Enquirer among many others have contacted their offices looking for story information.
First thoughts are, this guy surely got what he deserved, but our second thoughts are how many cases of animal cruelty are we not hearing about. Those cases that occur and retribution is not distributed accordingly. Listening to the remarks of a neighbor we were shocked to hear them say that basically, "what else was the man supposed to do." This type of thinking is wrong and inhumane. Acting out on these thoughts is against the law as this particular individually is finding out.
We would encourage each of you to contact your animal shelter if you have animals that are in need of a home or contact the local law enforcement if you know of any forms of animal cruelty.
Also, we would like to take this time to remind you of a service the Atmore Advance has had in place for quite awhile and will continue. Contact the Atmore Advance classified department by calling 251-368-2123. We will be glad to run a classified ad for you listing that you have an animal that is "free to a good home" or that you have "found" an animal. The service is free as long as you are giving the animal away and will run between two to four weeks. If you give the animal away before the ad expires all we ask is that you call us to cancel the classified ad.
We want to help, and we hope this does.