Local News
There is a homeless man (who goes by the name of ‘Bones’) who is essentially a fixture on Rice St. in St. Paul. Apparently St. Paul animal welfare agents took away his dog because dog owners are required to provide shelter for their dogs. But what if the dog owner is homeless? No exceptions… in other words, people care more about this guy’s dog than they care about him. (Not that he’s all that keen for someone to “do something” for him; as the St. Paul Pioneer Press article put it, “He’s homeless and seems to prefer it that way.”)
Okay. The Pioneer Press article mentions an incident a few years ago when they found a litter of puppies frozen to the sidewalk from one of his previous dogs. Yes, that’s not a pleasant image. But the fact that the dog wasn’t spayed leads me to believe that it was a homeless dog before it met up with Bones. And now people keep giving the guy spayed dogs and the animal welfare officers still keep taking them away from him.
Of course, the same people agitating to take this guy’s dog away because of the cruel Minnesota winters were probably the same people agitating for bringing wolves back to Minnesota. Don’t get me wrong, I like having wolves back in Minnesota, but what are wolves? Dogs without shelter!
This is exactly the kind of self-righteous nonsense I’ve come to expect from middle class liberals in Minnesota. They follow the rules and their moral convictions blindly without regard to social or human costs. Like so: Humans are animals, basically. Dogs are animals. So what’s the moral difference between dogs and people? We need to protect dogs! Get them off the street! People? Bah, they’re just dogs, who cares?
How do we get to the point where we care more about a homeless dog than a homeless person?
If the man refuses help, well, maybe as a community we’re not offering the help he needs. At the very least, I think those animal welfare officers need to look at the principle Jesus illustrated when speaking to the Pharisees. When the Pharisees demanded observance of their man-made religious laws, Jesus replied that the Sabbath was created for man, not man for the Sabbath. It is (or should be) the same way with our laws. Laws are (or should be) created for the people, not to control the people.
At least the front-line police officers understand the situation. Again, from the Pioneer Press article:
St. Paul police officer Jim Decowski, who worked the Rice Street area for years, said Bones poses no threat to the dog or anyone else. Someone will be at the hearing to represent Bones’ interests, Decowski vowed, and he will try to presuade Bones to show up himself. But working within the system is not Bones’ style.
“His world is different from yours and mine, obviously,” Decowski said.
Decowski said the constant struggle over Bones’ dogs is really a proxy fight over the man himself. Some new business owners in the area don’t want him there, and getting rid of the dog is one way to push the man away, Decowski said.
“The bottom line is, he’s been here longer than anyone else.”