by Ruth Steinberger
Holly Lytle, a Tulsa-based animal advocate whose desire to help dogs that are living in dismal, dire circumstances, is the recently named Oklahoma representative for Dogs Deserve Better, a nationwide organization dedicated to eradicating the practice of chaining and penning dogs.
Dogs Deserve Better (DDB) was founded nine years ago by Tamira Ci Thayne to assist chained dogs through intervention, education and legislation and now has representatives in 38 states.
The national organization recently purchased the Virginia mansion formerly owned by convicted dog fighter Michael Vick.
The 16-acre estate will become the Good Newz Rehab Center for Chained and Penned Dogs.
Lytle says volunteering with DDB is her way “to make the biggest difference” for dogs.
“Basically, I was looking at getting into rescue, but through DDB, I realized that was the way I could have the greatest impact.
“If I rescue one dog, it helps that one dog. If a dog-owner releases a chained dog, he may go get another (dog which will be chained).
Our goal is not to have one dog simply replace the last one.
“By working with (the people in) homes with chained dogs to get them off the chain, into the home, and on walks, I can break a cycle at that home. Hopefully forever.
“When it comes to chained dogs, there is nowhere for the concerned people to turn to get help for them.
Unless there are laws specifically against chaining, if a chained dog has food, water and some type of shelter, people who are concerned about a dog are left to watch them suffer.
(There are no state or local regulations against chaining or penning dogs. Oklahoma cruelty statutes minimally require food, water, shelter.) “A dog house is not shelter. In the summer a dog house in the sun is hotter than the ambient air temperature outside,” she explains.
“Our goal is not to take the dog from the home. Our goal is to educate the people and to improve the life of the dog that is there.” Lytle helps people with needs that stretch beyond a lack of money for fencing. Food and funds for spays or neuters are tops on her wish list. She explains that taking the dog (to rescue) is a last resort.
She visits homes in impoverished communities to educate pet owners and bring them the resources needed to give the pets a better quality of life.
Sometimes that’s dog food, sometimes it’s a spay or neuter, and sometimes it’s more.
“Some of the owners truly care about their dogs, but are uneducated about pet care or simply don’t have the resources to do more.” Regardless of how the owners feel about their dogs, Lytle calls it a “disconnect” that enables people to live inside a home while a dependent animal is chained outside in extreme weather, often hungry and always in filth.
“Chaining and penning are prison sentences. There is a lack of socialization, they’re mentally and physically deprived and literally, every single chained dog I’ve worked with has had a filthy doghouse.
“The so-called shelter is horrid. They freeze in the winter; they suffer in the summer and they are at the prey of bigger dogs and even people who may steal them to use for fighting bait.” And Lytle points out that the outcome is not only an unnatural and unhappy life for the dog, but it’s a safety issue for the owners and the neighbors as well.
Chained dogs become territorial; they become aggressive about their limited piece of dirt and are three times more likely to bite than a dog not on a chain.
“Why would a person subject their dog to this,” Lytle comments.
Breaking this cycle of chaining and penning is the goal. “There are times you go to the home and the kids aren’t in school properly and things are in disarray and at other times it is people who were just dealt a rough hand in life and they need some help.”
Lytle is the lead technician at Spay Oklahoma South clinic in Bixby and, additionally, she works with rural, mobile spay/neuter clinics.
She says that if people would responsibly spay and neuter their animals, most of those she assists would not have become a chained dog.
“The (people in) homes I work with didn’t go to a shelter and get a dog; they didn’t go buy a dog.
They found one and took it home and it went on a chain. It really all comes down to the numbers.” In the meantime, Lytle will continue working to improve the welfare of those dogs whose lives have fallen between the cracks and who are victims of a very lonely lifestyle.
Many communities across the country have enacted or are considering city regulations or legislation to prevent dogs from spending their lives on chains.
Lytle says an education drive to move this issue forward in Oklahoma is long overdue, adding that even an ordinance which limits the number of hours a dog can be chained would be a starting place.
But, until that initiative gets underway, she’ll keep spreading the word that dogs which are a part of a family are safer and happier and that placing a dog on a chain is never a compassionate thing to do.
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