Humane Society President Promoting Book In Md.
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- It's the nation's largest animal protection organization, and Tuesday the president of the Humane Society of the United States is visiting Baltimore.
Ron Matz has more on a man on a mission with a passion to help our four-legged friends.
Wayne Pacelle is touring the newly remodeled Maryland SPCA. Big changes are happening all around.
"We love the new Maryland SPCA. The Morton Gorn Center for Animal Adoptions is really the centerpiece. It's really made everything so much more comfortable for the animals. They have much more space," said Aileen Gabbey, Executive Director of the Maryland SPCA.
Pacelle's loved animals since he was a kid. Now he's president of the Humane Society of the United States. His new book is "The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them."
"I loved animals when I was a kid and as I travel all over the country and all over the world I realize we have an instinctive bond. We have some moral intuition when it comes to doing the right thing for our fellow creatures," said Pacelle. "We have all these expressions of the human animal bond and yet also in this same society we have all this cruelty, including dog fighting and puppy mills. I try to disentangle what's going on, these set of contradictions in society, so much love yet also so much cruelty and callousness."
Right now, there's an animal crisis with nearly four million dogs and cats euthanized in America every year.
"We've got a tragedy of 3.5 to 4 million dogs and cats euthanized every year in America. We're better than this, we can figure out a way to adopt ourselves out of this crisis and also to spay and neuter our animals, so we don't contribute to the surplus populations," said Pacelle. "Shelters are the best place to get an animal, and you also save a life. So you have a double bottom line benefit. You get a great dog and you do something good for society."
J.J. is 5 years old and he's up for adoption.
"The Maryland SPCA has a lot of animals in need of homes. We're always looking for good homes for them. Shelters are a great place to get a pet. They often just need a second chance. Going to a shelter like the Maryland SPCA really helps an animal," said Gabbey.
The Humane Society recently rescued some dogs from the flooding in Mississippi, which is part of the mission of this Maryland-based organization.
"When a tornado strikes or there's flooding, the people are in jeopardy, but so are the animals. They're all tied together. We go in and provide emergency sheltering, we help with animal rescue, we transport animals out of these communities for adoption. We've been in seven states in just the last couple of weeks," said Pacelle.
If you're interested in adopting J.J., click here.
Wayne Pacelle will be signing his new book Tuesday night at the Barnes & Noble at the Inner Harbor at 7 p.m.
