Needing people

Jennifer Vanderau
Cumberland Valley Animal Shelter

(4/2025) Did you ever see those bumper stickers that say, "The more people I meet, the more I like my dog?"

Some days that statement is more true than others. I’ll tell you, I’ve had a week where I feel like gluing thousands of those all over my car – and I don’t even own a dog! Maybe I can see if they have a cat one. Man, a lone cabin in rural Montana (with television, cable and an internet connection, of course) is looking sooooo good right now.

Barbra Streisand sings that people who need people are the luckiest people in the world. Really, Babs? Some days I’m not so sure.

People can be quite the conundrum – tough to figure out and occasionally difficult to handle. I’ll never forget when my sister took a cruise a few years ago. She said she became frustrated because she couldn’t get away from anyone. She was trapped in the middle of the ocean with no where to go.

I understood her plight, actually. Maybe we’re both isolationists at heart – we grew up in the country, after all, so it’s possible – but there are some moments in life where you just need a minute to yourself, you know?

I have a feeling that the animal-lovers who read this column have some idea what I’m talking about. Like the previously mentioned bumper sticker, sometimes an evening alone with our pets is just what we need to unwind from a stressful day. I know some nights that’s the perfect solution for me – even if I do have to run around the house trying to keep some of my felines from fighting with their siblings. Ugh.

On the other hand, do you remember that Twilight Zone episode, where all poor Henry Bemis wanted to do was read, but no one seemed willing to let him? He locked himself in a bank vault on his lunch break to get some peace away from people, just in time to survive an atomic bomb attack. When he emerged, he found himself alone and ironically, he couldn’t take the isolation. I think Mr. Bemis, at that moment, would have wholeheartedly agreed with Streisand.

I read a piece of fiction a few years ago that had the two main characters survive the apocalypse and become literally the only two people left on the planet. That’s it. Everything was still here – McDonald’s and Target and hotels – it’s just that the people were gone. The author did a magnificent job of really giving the reader the sense of remoteness and being completely alone. It was freaky.

So, technically, I suppose it really is people who make the world go around.

In fact, I’ve seen presentations that talk about how very much we need people. We are hard wired to seek out human connection, so too many days alone can actually affect your health.

People can be frustrating, horrifying, exasperating, appalling, apathetic, disgusting and cruel. Yet at the same time, they can be encouraging, thoughtful, attentive, sympathetic, inspirational and unselfish.

I think learning to accept all of that – and the plethora of other adjectives I’m sure you could add to both sentences – and live with the idiosyncrasies of people is a big part of the human condition.

Sometimes people will disappoint you, and yet other times, people can be surprisingly delightful.

Since I started working at CVAS, I’ve seen that first hand. Ours is a peculiar job. People can be incredibly frustrating, but at the same time, you need them. It’s people who give and people who adopt and people who go above and beyond for their animals, but it’s also people who abuse pets and drop them off with no information or throw them away like garbage.

See what I mean? It’s a real challenge and some days it’s tough not to let that back-and-forth get you down.

But, in some ways, that’s also life. It’s yin/yang. There’s good moments and bad moments. There’s frustrating people and there’s incredibly sweet and altruistic people.

Maybe it’s learning to find balance in those two opposing forces.

So I think what I’ll do is get just one of the bumper stickers and on the bad days, when people are bugging me, I’ll look at it and know that there are others out there, like me, who know what it means to some days like their pets more than the humans who also inhabit the planet.

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The Cumberland Valley Animal Shelter accepts both monetary and pet supply donations. For more information, call the shelter at 717-263-5791 or visit the website www.cvas-pets.org.