Laurence is in charge of the refuge of
Beauregard, in the Nièvre. The refuge of Beauregard
publishes a regular newsletter for its members. The
editorial written by Laurence in the June 2001 issue is
especially touching and, above all, it describes with
incredible accuracy the feelings that everyone in contact
with abandoned animals ends up experiencing. We have
therefore decided to publish this "plea for
adoption" below, to enlighten all those who wonder
about adoption. Do read it: there's nothing tragic about it,
but it does describe in simple sentences what every adopter
can confirm.
One Voice is an association that works to have understood
and recognized the rights of animals to respect, freedom,
and life. It carries out numerous activities and protests
and denounces, among other things, the lucrative and immoral
trade practised by some at the expense of domestic animals.
The tract presented here (with the kind authorization of One
Voice) explains this in detail.
I should like once again to denounce the
truism, still too widespread, that would have it that,
to be attached to someone, an animal must be raised by
that person. A good part of my life dedicated to
rescuing abandoned dogs and cats, to sheltering them,
caring for them and finding homes for them, leads me to
challenge to this view. Not only are dogs and cats taken
in as adults not less disciplined or less faithful than
those we have raised, but often the contrary is true.
The puppy and the kitten, whose awkwardness and
sweetness leave us defenceless before their first
pranks, very quickly reveal themselves to be real
monsters. True, they know only the one home and master!
But an infallible instinct enables them to realize to
what extent the masters are vulnerable. Having won every
possible indulgence, they can quickly become real
stubborn tyrants, on the model of spoiled children -
while the animal taken in after having been lost or
abandoned very quickly exhibits an anxious attachment.
In order truly to understand this behaviour, one would
have to observe the cats who let themselves die of
boredom in our refuges and those who obstinately survive
in the streets and vacant lots.
One would have to observe the lost dogs, looking
furtitve, tail tucked between their legs, who follow a
late passerby from afar or, on the contrary, move away
fearfully; and who wander around the same neighbourhood
for days and days, without eating, sometimes without
drinking, or who rapidly cover tens of kilometres
looking for their masters.
One must imagine the panic of these animals, who are
used to a master and a home, tirelessly seeking this
master and this home, chased away by some, until the day
when they are either knocked down, or taken in hand by a
compassionate person, or taken to the pound where they
start to serve a sentence whose meaning they don't
understand.
For the abandoned animal, the process is the same. He
finds himself suddenly shifted from his familiar setting
and behind the bars of a cage, where he sees, sometime
for years, unknown faces, people whose scent is not that
of his master. And into this solitude, this desolation,
comes a hand whose touch is soothing. And this new scent
of a new person becomes the scent of delivrance.
From that moment, it's not the master, it's the saviour,
it's the god whom one can't bear to see leaving, whose
absence plunges one again into despair.
This moving experience I've had not ten times, but
twenty times, a hundred times, a thousand times. That is
why I am positive in my assertion.
I invite you to experience this sort of thing, those of
you who read these words, for your own happiness and the
happiness of the animal you will save from misfortune.
Refuge
de Beauregard - Route de Bourgogne 58000 Saint-Eloi Open Tuesday to
Saturday from 10h00 to 12h00 and from 14h00 to 17h30
Closed Sunday, Monday and holidays - 03 86 61 30 60
