Puppies and kittens at WalMart.

Just about every time I drive into the parking lot at WalMart, there is someone out on the grassy lawns under the trees with a crate filled with either puppies or kittens. I do my best not to look. One little look-see too many, and you are bound to go over and take a closer look, and then the next step is to pick your favorite cute little kitten or puppy. How do you walk away from those little eyes staring up at you from behind the wire bars of a crate?

As I pulled into WalMart this morning, there was yet another person selling (or giving away) puppies. Before I could avert my eyes, I saw three black puppies in a good-sized crate. My husband and I have agreed that we're not going to get another dog. Not now. Maybe not ever. Too hard to get pet-sitters out in the country. Too tied-down with a dog. Too much work with a puppy. All sorts of too-this and too-that excuses and reasons.

Into WalMart I went, not looking left or right, just straight ahead at the doors. An hour later, out I came with a cart-full of groceries. Didn't even think about the puppies. Actually, I had forgotten all about them. Into the car went the groceries.... into the cart-holder went the shopping cart. Then I turned to walk back to my car and there was that crate of puppies. Only there was just one puppy in the crate. One black puppy, facing me, with its little eyes locked right on me. Sitting there, quietly, its tail barely moving, but that puppy was absolutely looking straight at me.

I'm sorry. We can't get another dog now. We're not ready. I am not ready. Someone else will take you home.

I got into my car and put my sunglasses on, thinking they would block-out the puppy eyes that I knew were looking at me. When I pulled out of the parking spot, I went the wrong way up the aisle just so I wouldn't have to drive close to the spot where that puppy-crate was sitting under the tree.

Why do people let their dogs and cats have puppies and kittens if they're not prepared to keep the puppies and kittens?! And let's face it-- who one earth can honestly keep a litter of puppies and/or kittens in the first place?! Why on earth can't all pet-owners do the right thing?!?!?!

The right thing: Get your pets spayed/neutered! Selling puppies or giving away kittens in the WalMart parking lots isn't exactly the right thing to do, damn it!! You don't know the people who are buying or taking those puppies and kittens, damn it! You may be giving those babies to idiots who will abuse them or neglect them, damn it! And we have seen with our own eyes the abuse and neglect that puppies and kittens can go through... and in the down-country parts of this state, with the "survival of the fittest" mantra, abandoned puppies and drowned kittens don't raise many country-eyebrows, damn it!

Of course, all I keep thinking about is that one little black puppy in that crate. But it's just not the time. If it were, I wouldn't have been thinking about the work it takes to raise a puppy. I wouldn't have been worried about the lack of pet-sitters up here. If it had been the right time and the right puppy, I would have walked over to that crate, opened it up, scooped that little puppy up into my arms and said "How much?" to the damn fool who was standing by the crate.

Do The Powers That Be at WalMart know that their parking lots are turning into puppy mills and kitten factories?

Give me a blessed break. And I hope some kind and loving person came along and took that last little puppy home.... to a good home, damn it.