I will admit, I’m not the biggest fan of the TV ads that show the faces of abused and neglected animals paired with songs intended to tug at your emotions.

If you have a television, you know what I’m talking about. The most recent features the Elton John classic, “Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word.”

I’m not exactly sure why I don’t like the ads; maybe it just seems a bit gimmicky to me. But I agree that there are issues people need to be made aware of, and perhaps this is the only way that you can grab some people’s attention.

I do hope that some people who have abused animals have seen the ads. I hope they cause them to lose sleep until they make peace with God over what they have done. For the rest of us, perhaps we should ask ourselves, “What can I do to help animals where I live?”

It might sound like a song on repeat, but I believe the best thing people can do is have their pets spayed or neutered, as soon as possible. I cannot tell you how many times animals (sometimes strays, many times pets) have been struck by vehicles in my neighborhood. In some cases, people just didn’t watch their pets. In other cases, they allowed their pets to become strays and didn’t take any action.

There are also a countless number of stray dogs and cats in my area. Some of them may be pets, but I have no way of knowing because most of them don’t have any identification.

I have also witnessed animals being neglected. I truly believe that in some cases, this is unintentional. People want pets but they aren’t willing to take the time to see that they are properly cared for. Or, maybe they are simply uneducated on how to care for them. But that’s still no excuse.

It’s not the animals’ fault. They live in a world that doesn’t have room for them.

I believe the biggest reason people are so passionate and outspoken about animals is because the animals have no voice. It always makes me angry when people say things like, “There are so many problems with humans we should be worried about.” Yes, it’s worse to abuse a child. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the problems that concern animals.

There are plenty of people to make the world a better place for animals if they will just be responsible pet owners or responsible neighbors.

Please do your part to help control the pet population.