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Pet column: Caring, comforting and acting together

Dawn Armstrong
Special to the Tribune

Following the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, we hold loved ones, including our animals, a bit closer a bit longer. Roxie the big black lab has lost her human partner, teacher and hero Victoria Soto, becoming an icon for affected companion animals. Shocked and numb, humans once again face questions and soul searching about violence and prevention. Why must the innocent suffer and die?

Virtually from its beginnings, animal welfare has championed the two most helpless members of society: children and animals. The American Humane Association sheltered children as well as animals into the 20th century. The list of animal protection bills introduced into the 2012 California State Legislature, with comment on those that passed, failed, and one which was vetoed, was going to be the subject of this week’s column. It was to be a look at the values today’s citizens hold and how hard it is to get representation through the political process. Instead, here are words to read again with resolve that – with unified perseverance, education and compassion – we will effect consensus and action to protect the ones we love.

“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be,” J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye



“The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater,” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart,” Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl



“Bless the Beasts and the Children”

(Lyrics by Barry De Vorzon and Perry L. Botkin)

Bless the beasts and the children

For in this world they have no voice

They have no choice

Bless the beasts and the children

For the world can never be

The world they see

Light their way

When the darkness surrounds them

Give them love

Let it shine all around them

Bless the beasts and the children

Give them shelter from a storm

Keep them safe

Keep them warm-

– Provided by the Lake Tahoe Humane Society and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to help “Keep Tahoe Kind.” Dawn Armstrong is the executive director.


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