Disposable Pets? It's my blog and I'll cry if I want to.

t It's not like I have a million converts anyway. I willing to preach to those who will listen. So, brothers and sisters. Raise your hands. Say Amen.

I made a trip to our local San Mateo County Animal Adoption Center over the weekend. What did I find there? No, not Jesus. Not the everlasting light. I found a bunch of Chihuahua and Pit Bull-mix dogs. There were more Chihuahua mix dogs than pits, but Lord help me, I thought we discussed this before. Why haven't you folks seen the light?

Spay and Neuter! Say it again. Spay and Neuter! Amen!

I really shouldn't complain about you folks who are willing to take on the care of a pit bull, if you'd only keep your dogs in your yards.

I saw a young woman at the adoption center--ogling the pit bulls. Holy ghost. She was short, maybe 105 pounds, and I was praying, "Lordy, I hope she doesn't have kids. I hope she can control that dog. I hope it doesn't eat her liver."

I don't get it. San Mateo County, just south of San Francisco, is a fairly rational and in some environs, extremely affluent. We've got Hillsborough, Woodside, Los Altos Hills, and Palo Alto and Stanford University. There's folks here with more money than God. Yet the pound is full of the same dang dogs you could find in a pound in Podunk. Pits and Chihuahuas.

Dogs are a commitment, okay. Chihuahuas are cute when they're puppies, and cute in general, but yes, they begin to yap, whine, pee on your couch and crap on the carpet just like any other dog. So what do we do? Put 'em up for adoption.

And pit bulls? There's a commitment for you. I saw some dogs at the pound that could eat a ten year-old and come back for a toddler or two for dessert. These dogs are the linebackers of the animal world. Again, God bless you folks that take them on, but I just wish I thought most adopters of pit bulls were as smart as their dogs. I've got pretty good fences, and a lot of area for a dog to roam at my place, and I wouldn't expect I could keep the neighborhood safe from one of those brutes.

Am I preaching to the choir? Not likely. I have suffered the wrath of the dog lovers. There's this escalating level of unreasonableness amongst dog people. One guy thinks he should be able to walk his dog without of leash. Another guy thinks his dog should run the neighborhood. There's people who will swear their dogs never get out except the time when they rush out the front door after the kids selling candy for school. (Okay, there may be some rationale for this.) Never, ever can you have a rational discussion with a dog person who feels he or she is just letting his dog be a dog. If the dog eats some kid's face, like a pit bull did in Oakland to some poor boy, damn it, the kid must have been annoying the animal. He should've ran faster.

Despite this attitude of equating dogs roaming the neighborhood with apple pie and America, we still think nothing of dropping our pets at the pound when we tire of them. Ah, well, I suppose it's better than putting them in a sack and dropping them in the river.