A pet is not a toy

This is a timely reminder that giving a pet as a Christmas present is not necessarily a good idea. In Spain, the number of abandoned animals increases geometrically during the first three months of the year. A pet, of whatever kind, is a living creature needing love, care and the attention appropriate for its species. If it is not an integral part of a family, it will suffer. And then, the cutest baby turns into a teenager and later into a wrinkly, all stages needing expensive veterinary services ...Watch this space for items on abandoned animals, or pets looking for a new home, over the next couple of months.
(Photo by photopostsblog.com)
We were sent this poem by Simon Armitage via Facebook (thanks, Sharon):

put dogs on the list
of difficult things to lose. Those dogs ditched
on the North York Moors or the Sussex Downs
or hurled like bags of sand from rented cars>
have followed their noses to market towns
and bounced like balls into their owners' arms.
I heard one story of a dog that swam
to the English coast from the Isle of Man,
and a dog that carried eggs and bacon
and a morning paper from the village
surfaced umpteen leagues and two years later,
bacon eaten but the eggs unbroken,
newsprint dry as tinder, to the letter.
A dog might wander the width of the map
to bury its head in its owner's lap,
crawl the last mile to dab a bleeding paw
against its own front door. To die at home,
a dog might walk its four legs to the bone.
You can take off the tag and the collar
but a dog wears one coat and one colour.
A dog got rid of--that's a dog for life.
No dog howls like a dog kicked out at night.
Try looking a dog like that in the eye.