TJ thinks he died and went to heaven: His new home features loving human companions, lots of furry playmates―and air conditioning!

Dogs who are forced to live outside, whether on a chain or in a pen, suffer a lot of hardships. Depending on the weather, they can swelter in the heat or spend all day shivering in the cold. They get wet when it storms and have to cope with scary lightning and thunder. Even with adequate shelter—which is not the norm—fending off all the insect life that attacks outside dogs is a losing proposition. Flies eat away at the tips of their ears, fleas drive them crazy with itchiness and can give them tapeworms if they happen to swallow one, mosquitoes buzz around their heads and can inject them with heartworms, and ticks suck the life blood right out of them as well as transmitting Lyme disease. Intestinal parasites rob them of nutrition, and heartworms destroy their hearts.

But their callous owners also destroy their hearts. Dogs are pack animals, and forcing them to live separated from their family (their pack), especially when alone and isolated, is even crueler than all the physical discomfort and harm. Loneliness and frustration are the prevailing themes of these sad dogs' lives.

I had a sheltie neighbor named TJ who lived right across the street from me—always outside. His one consolation was that he had a fenced-in yard and wasn't chained. But he had spent his first five years living this way, with a family that gave him very little attention. Yet, in spite of his plight, what a loving, sweet, friendly dog he remained! I began to invite him over to my house to play with my dogs.

That's when I started noticing his health problems. He had a toenail that was so long, it had formed a curlicue, his thick fur was matted, and he had a bad case of diarrhea. I cut his nails, cut out the mats, and cleaned him up the best I could, but I insisted to my neighbors that he go to the vet because of the diarrhea. I was shocked to find out not only that in all his five years, TJ had been inside a vet's office only once before but also that my neighbors thought that was normal.

So at the vet's, I asked for a complete checkup and was appalled but not terribly surprised at the results: heartworms, hookworms, and a raging kidney infection. I presented the bill for his checkup, antibiotics, and hookworm meds as well as the projected bill for his future treatment of the heartworms and kidney infection to TJ's "daddy," and TJ's daddy suddenly didn't want to have a dog anymore. I asked him why he had gotten a dog in the first place, and his response was that he liked the way the yard looked with a dog in it.

TJ was lucky because he ended up in a wonderful new home found through a well-run, local sheltie and collie rescue group. He now lives indoors with three other dogs, a cat, and a very loving human family who have done everything in their power to treat his medical problems, which have eased quite a bit but remain significant. TJ's kidneys were badly damaged from the prolonged infection. I feel certain that a primary cause of his infection was the fact that his former family was so negligent about providing him with drinking water on hot days. More than once, I went over to get TJ and found his water dish bone dry.

And that is the trouble with keeping a dog outside. People who don't care to keep their dogs close to them tend to be the kind of people who don't really care about their dogs, period, and thus don't pay enough attention to them to keep them healthy and happy. Oh, they'll say that they care, but they really mean "when it's convenient."