When people dump unwanted pets beside a deserted county road, what do they really think will happen to them?
Will some nice person pick them up and find homes for them or take them to the local animal shelter where they at least have a chance of adoption and survival? That's the best-case scenario.
But, more likely, the animals could be hit by passing cars, attacked by larger animals or eventually starve to death. In any of those cases, it's a cruel end to a life that should never have existed in the first place. It's a cruel fate that could have easily been avoided. It's a cruel fate that Nacogdoches resident Jamie Shelton takes action on to change.
Over the past six years, Shelton has rescued more than 30 animals in Nacogdoches County.
More recently, Shelton rescued six puppies, at the same time and location, from a county road.
"When I saw the tip of one of the puppy's tails, I thought 'oh on, not again,'" Shelton said.
Shelton stopped her car in the middle of the road and saw a puppy sitting by a bowl on the side of the road.
What happened next shocked her.
"I got out to get the puppy and six of them came out," she said. "I knew I had to do something about this."
Shelton, who always keeps a crate in the back of her vehicle to pick up strays, knew the kennel was not big enough to hold all six puppies.
The next morning, armed with the right supplies, Shelton went back to the same spot where she had her first encounter with the puppies and rescued them.
"I picked up all six of them and turned them in at the animal shelter," she said. "I did what I thought was right. I did my part to make sure this problem doesn't continue."
The dog and cat overpopulation problem in Nacogdoches County goes back to the fact that a lot of pet owners, for whatever reason, refuse to spay or neuter their animals, Shelton said.
"People won't spay and neuter, and they continue to throw them (animals) out," she said. "The only way to stop this problem is to spay and neuter."
Shelton spends "countless hours" on county roads rescuing animals, she said.
"I use county roads to get everywhere," she said. "Two or three times a week, I see strays on the side of the road, and nobody cares.
"It takes a lot of time to get them to come to you. If they have been abandoned for a long time, they get that 'stray mentality.'"
As a child growing up, Shelton said she watched her parents rescuing animals.
"My parents always did it," she said. "It's the right thing to do.
"It's heartbreaking to see their little faces. Many of them are still looking for the owners who dumped them on the side of the road."
When Shelton first started rescuing animals, she thought she could save every one of them. But now, she knows there is a chance that the animals could be euthanized, she said.
"It's impossible to save them all," Shelton said. "Euthanasia is less painful than them starving or being smashed by a car."
