Dogs need blankets for winter months

To the editor:

I volunteer at the local animal shelters, Watauga County Animal Control and the Humane Society. I want to share with the community at large the urgent need for dog blankets at the Watauga County Animal Control shelter facility. These dogs and puppies have no kennel beds and have to lie on concrete floors.

The floors are cold in the summertime and this time of year is even worse on the pets that wait to be adopted or put down. Please donate any old clean blankets (holes and stains are okay) to the county shelter right away to help make the time spent in the shelter more humane for these dogs and puppies.

Donations can be made directly to Animal Control during the hours of 8 a.m. to noon on Mon., Wed. and Fri. and during Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon to 4 p.m. The shelter is located at Landfill Rd. off Hwy. 421, follow the shelter signs to the end of the road.

Or call me at 263-8468 and I will arrange to pick up your load of blankets for the dogs. Blankets that are lightweight, fluffy and dry easily help very much.

Please help in this simple but important way to make the life of a homeless pet more comfortable and humane. Please remember to spay/neuter your pets–it keeps your pet healthy longer and makes our community a safer and cleaner place.

Georgia Ayscue
VP Animal Guard Society
263-8468

A call to decrease second-hand smoke

To the editor:

I am writing this letter to call your attention to the most significant safety issue on campus. For more than three years I have been talking about this issue with the Administration in order to protect Appalachian State University employees. We have made some progress but it is not sufficient.

The problem I refer to is exposure to second-hand smoke from cigarettes.

In the building where I work (Whitener Hall), we posted two non-smoking signs at the main entrance to the building so that students, faculty and staff would not have to walk through a billowing cloud of cancerous smoke as they enter and exit the building. We also designated a smoking area at the back of the building. Unfortunately, neither of these two mechanisms have worked. Indeed, it is outrageous to see smokers lighting up and congregating right under the signs, as if either they cannot read or they simply do not care about the harms they are causing.

Their smoke drifts into the building, seeps into the hallways and stairwells of the building, as well as our offices and classrooms. It also causes illness among the students, faculty, and staff. I am allergic to the smoke (because I was exposed to it as a child when my father forced me to breathe in his smoke in the car and in the home), so I have been sick numerous times over the past five years since coming to ASU. When I visited the doctor the last time, he asked me,”Do you smoke?” I do not.

Tobacco smoke, whether inhaled directly from a cigarette or by second-hand exposure, contains carbon monoxide, arsenic, tar, nicotine, acetaldehyde, benzene, formaldehyde, nitric oxide, chromium, lead, and hundreds of other chemicals. At least 43 of them cause cancer! I realize that smokers can kill themselves if they want, but they have no right to force me to breathe in their smoke.

I ask smokers to not congregate around the entrances of campus buildings. And I call on the Faculty Senate, Student Government, and Administration to take this problem seriously. As a criminologist that has studied crime on campus, I can say without any doubt that this is literally the greatest threat to the safety and well-being of the users of the campus.

I’ve moved my office to the basement of the building to escape the smoke while in Whitener Hall. However, I still must enter and exit through the entrances as well as walk through the halls and stairwells which are often filled with smoke.

Therefore, I call on ASU to develop a policy on smoke-free entrances and to enforce it for the safety of its students and employees.

Dr. Matt Robinson
Political Science and Criminal Justice
robinsnmb@appstate.edu