Follow the yellow brick road to see the wizard … to find your forever home … if only I had a brain … if only I had the heart … if only I had the courage not to allow so many to be killed-dumped rather than be adopted into a forever home.

Since last January I have saved over 800 lives in the feral, homeless cat community through the simple act of spayIng-neutering with the great help of the clinic in Thomasville who only charges me $35 for each one via the South Georgia Low-Cost Spay-Neuter Clinic. The existing kittens since January unless I had not gotten to them too late were trapped, socialized and put into a no-kill facility after a 6-hour drive to get them there. All have been adopted to date — spayed-neutered before leaving the facility.

Unfortunately last week after that 6 hour trek, the sad news of no room for them to be adopted out hit like a ton of bricks because after following the yellow brick road to see the wizard to find a forever home was never suppose to end.

The other options are not acceptable to me, like taking them someplace to be killed if they are not adopted or to simply dump them somewhere to starve or get eaten by a predator or hit by a car like the four 3-week-old kittens that were dumped in the woods with no mother to care for them in the rain all day.

Wicked witches do exist. Ask poor Toto.

The Land of Oz and the wizard hiding behind the curtain once exposed told the lion he already had the courage, the scarecrow he already had a brain, the tin man that he had already had a heart to find those forever homes for them and all Dorothy had to do was click her ruby red slippers and repeat “There is no place like Home.”

So Bette and her brother Davis and Bridgett and her sister Gidget came all the way back with me still looking for their forever home. Even “NO KILL” facilities run out of room due to pet over-population — which is why it is so imperative to spay and neuter your pet.

“Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus” — so don’t forget to leave out the chocolate chip cookies and milk along with the cat-kitten-puppy-dog food with a warm blanket for them to sleep in until you wake up tomorrow for them to only love you for giving them a safe, warm loving forever home because “There is no place like home.”

Helene Gomulka

Moultrie