When I worked as a reporter I wrote about all kinds of inhumanities that people deliver upon other people. I have written about serial killers, baby killers, crack-n-smack-addled bank robbers with AIDS. But never did I receive the amount of feedback that came after I wrote a story about when authorities took a plethora of domestic animals from a man’s home. The guy had started an animal rescue shelter but could no longer take care of these animals and his entire home and an empty house on his premises were full of cats, dogs, chickens and all the wonderful matter they leave behind. The story hit a nerve and led to a local philanthropist starting a new animal rescue shelter.
What that says is people care deeply about animals. Sometimes you wouldn’t think so with the way some people treat them. But animals arouse a lot of passion among our populace. Just one more example of that is the story I have satirized a bit over the last couple of days concerning Vivi the missing whippet.
Checking my blog stats for yesterday I saw that I had 89 visitors, which is quite a few for this site. Looking at the origins of these visitors, including what searches they made on Google or elsewhere that landed them on EFD, I saw that 32 of those 89 visitors had been searching for news about Vivi. There was one visitor from Vestsjalland, Taastrup, Denmark, another from the LA County Sheriff’s Office, and those from just about wherever else.
I point this out because I think that it is an interesting phenomenon and shows that any newspaper editor or TV news supervisor who thinks animal stories are without value should perhaps be in another business.
P.S. The search for Vivi enters Day 3. A nation holds its breath.