“No, no, you silly dog, it’s ‘I before E, except after Milk Bones”…” No, not really. What it really was was a visit to the Michigan Humane Society’s Summer Tails camp, held at the Detroit Center for Animal Care, one of my favorite places on planet Earth.
Here are two campers, Iain and Byron, and two stalwart MHS staffers.
I was there to talk about straydog, and writing about animals, and how what we write can not only express our feelings and views on how animals should be treated (with kindness, compassion, as companions), but share those views with others, people in different countries, in different times (we discussed both Black Beauty and Beautiful Joe), and together make a real and lasting difference in the lives of animals, and people, we may never see or know.
I love my job.
August 22, 2008 at 12:58 pm |
What a wonderful experience for the campers *and* for you. I’ve never heard of Beautiful Joe, but plan on reading it now.
August 22, 2008 at 7:08 pm |
There’s a sequel, too, called Beautiful Joe’s Paradise. . . Both were written by Margaret Marshall Saunders (byline: Marshall Saunders), who was an early crusader for animals’ rights and a feminist as well. Beautiful Joe was first published in 1893, and its message is timeless. A lot of people I meet in my MHS volunteering had read Beautiful Joe as a kid.