(Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection - Editor's Notes by Christina Myer)

On March 18, the Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association made a post on social media that fired me up enough that I was immediately looking for what I could do about it. Short of adopting Waffles — who appears to be an adorable pit bull mix in his photo, and who looks large enough that I could not in good conscience add him to the menagerie already in my home — I was drawing a blank.

Waffles, according to the post, had been discovered by the owner of a building where previous tenants had left the dog alone in a sealed off, dark basement. When I say sealed off, I mean the only access to the outside world the dog had was being fed through a hole in the ceiling. The door was screwed shut, according to the post.

The original post implied the person responsible for the dog’s imprisonment and abandonment may have understood they had done something wrong, as that person was believed to have been spotted trying to return to the scene and then running when they spotted the Charleston Police Department Humane Officer and KCHA staffers. The post has since been edited, so perhaps the person they saw was not the responsible party.

Still, it’s hard to believe ANYONE would do such a thing to an animal, much less a dog as smiley and lovable looking as Waffles is in subsequent photos attached to the post.

And that leads me to just about the only tool I have when I decide I need to “do something” on a grand scale. I can write a reminder about the responsibility that comes with choosing to bring a pet into a home.

In some places, dogs who look like Waffles have a bad reputation. People write laws to “protect” humans from the dogs. This is despite humans being the reason dogs are made dangerous in most cases — no matter the perceived breed of the dog.

What if it was the other way around? What if there were laws in place to ensure that (assuming the dog is being acquired through a formal adoption process, of course) the human is the best person to give the dog a high quality of life? What if there was some sort of pet-ownership evaluation or test that a human had to pass before being able to take home a pet?

I’m being a little dramatic, and probably preaching to the choir, but the number of animal cruelty cases I see because so much information passes in front of me as part of my job makes me worry a little about humans.

We’re all familiar with the idea that children who demonstrate an ability to be cruel to, or even kill, animals have a higher likelihood of violent, abusive criminal behavior. It would seem as though an adult capable of such behavior would also be waving a red flag, right?

Should we be concerned about the state of humanity if cases like Waffles’ (and worse) appear to be growing more common?

Is there a way to do better for both pets and humans before it ever gets to that point?

Experts with a better understanding of the situation than I have are surely looking for those answers. And lawmakers ARE doing a good job of strengthening animal cruelty laws.

I suppose I should hold on to that, rather than fretting that humanity seems to be going to the dogs.

Christina Myer is executive editor of The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. She can be reached via e-mail at cmyer@newsandsentinel.com