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OPINIONS
Voice of the people
Shelter gave dog sub-standard care
One recent Thursday, my dog Boomer ran out the door. Unable to find him, I called the Huntington-Cabell-Wayne Animal Control Shelter on Friday and Saturday. On Monday, I took his color photo, date of disappearance and vicinity to the shelter. The staff checked the adoptable animals and said he was not there.
Tuesday, barred from entering a dark, foul-smelling room for unadoptable animals, my mom was told that Boomer was not at the shelter. Forty-five minutes later, the shelter called, just discovering that Boomer, car-stricken and unable to walk, had been there five nights. On plastic, he was released to my sister through a back door. Scalded from urine, bruised and swollen, he had received no veterinary care. He was euthanized the following Thanksgiving having a severe spinal fracture, severed spinal cord and paralyzed back legs.
Per my vet, the shelter is required to keep an animal five days, presumably so the owner may claim it. Aside from running an ad, posting flyers and searching the South Side, I contacted the shelter four times. How is the intent of this five-day rule being met when the shelter can't identify a dog by photo and loses animals in back rooms? How humane is it to let a dog that cannot walk lay in urine for five days, without painkillers? Why doesn't adoption staff check the back room or records of injured, "unadoptable" animals brought in? Why doesn't the shelter post injured animals, date and location detained in the newspaper?
A woman called me the day after I found Boomer to ensure that I knew where he had been taken. Most owners will find out if the shelter had their pet, even if it isn't discovered within five days and it's too late.
Erica Cheetham
Huntington
Just give Snyder a chance to succeed
I would like to know why your new sports writer thinks that he is qualified to fire football coaches for Marshall University. We pay big money for a president and a very good athletic director to make these decisions. It makes me sick to read the crap that this guy writes about a good man such as Mark Snyder and the coaches. He is doing his best to dig out of the mess with the NCAA that the last group of coaches got us into. It has taken about two years to do this. Snyder is one of our ex-players, and a good one at that.
We have a few fans who fit in the same category as this writer who wouldn't know how to put on a helmet but think they can coach well from the stands.
I have sat through many years watching games at Fairfield Stadium and the new Edwards Stadium. I didn't miss a game at home or away the first 15 years of my retirement and enjoyed every game. I am too worn out now to attend the games, but I am still a Marshall fan.
Give Mark Snyder a chance; he will bring us back to our winning ways.
Robert M. Waugh
Huntington
Coal contributes much good to W.Va.
This is in response to a letter in Voice of the People on Nov. 21.
The writer attempts to minimize the impact of coal mining in West Virginia by writing that "less than 8 percent of the state's work force is attributable to coal mining."
He is wrong. The state's coal industry and its nearly 50,000 workers contributed billions of dollars to the West Virginia economy in 2007. Severance taxes alone generated by coal production and distributed to the counties were estimated at $418 million in 2007.
When the writer says, "nothing makes the economy go around like jobs," he must be referring to the coal industry. While other industries in the state and across the nation are laying off workers due to the economy, the West Virginia coal industry is in a hiring mode, seeking hard-working people without previous mining experience for good-paying jobs and excellent benefits.
I don't disagree that renewable energy has a role to play in our nation's energy mix. But the idea that West Virginia will be left behind the rest of the nation in progress and development because "coal equals West Virginia" is ludicrous.
Despite the constant anti-coal rhetoric espoused by the greenies, our nation will only achieve energy independence when clean coal technology becomes commercially viable. That's where our focus should be.
Chris Kirkendall
Huntington
