3825 Proper Street
Corinth, MS 38834
(662) 284-9787
Last Updated:
03/07/2010 10:48 PM © 2010 CACHS
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News
Latest News Items:
Make Animal Cruelty a Fel -- Monday January 18th, 2010
Friends of animals in Mississippi, there is currently a bill before the Mississippi Senate (SB2623) that will revise the animal cruelty statute in this state and provide for significant sanctions compared to those now available. Animal cruelty is now only a misdemeanor in our state, but if this bill is made into law, certain acts of cruelty could be deemed felonies. Please contact your state Senator and Representatives and ask them to support this bill. You can read the bill at http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2010/pdf/SB/2600-2699/SB2623IN.pdf
Author to donate proceeds -- Tuesday June 16th, 2009
By L.A. Story
Staff Writer for the Daily Corinthian
t appears to have been an instinct rather than a pre-meditated mission that has led Daniel Taylor, online columnist and author of the newly released book "Critter Chronicles," to be the keeper of 24 animals at his home in the Wenasoga community.
Taylor furthers his unplanned mission by sharing the proceeds from the sale of "Critter Chronicles" with the Corinth/Alcorn County Humane Society.
Taylor, 54, a native Corinthian, will be the first to admit he is as surprised as anyone at the turn his life has taken with the animals he has rescued and the furry family he has accrued.
"My family has always had animals ... dogs and cats ... but I spent most of my [adult] life without dogs and cats," Taylor recalled. "A few years ago, I moved back to Corinth and I had a neighbor who had trouble keeping up with all her animals and I started helping her out and in the process I sort of wound up with a few of my own."
However, helping out a neighbor is not the only way Taylor collected his new friends. The author admits that a few of his rescues found their way into his heart and his home. To date, he has 11 dogs and 13 cats that have found a happy home with him on his 16-acre homestead.
Taylor also notes he has not kept all of the animals he has rescued - his book "chronicles" many touching animal rescue tales - and he encourages people to take animals they find, don't want or cannot take care of, to the local animal shelter. He has taken most of the animals he has rescued to the shelter.
"They are just what they say they are - a shelter. They are a humane society. The whole point is that the animal shelter is not a bad place,"said Taylor. "I have been impressed with how the shelter was able to take the animals in and how many they do manage to adopt out."
The book, "Critter Chronicles," evolved from Taylor's featured, weekly online column of the same title found at the Daily Corinthian's website - www.dailycorinthian.com. The column itself came about after Taylor began telling his animal stories on an online pet owners chat group.
Professionally, Taylor is a computer programer, and he noted that he has his "nose stuck to a computer the majority of the time." It was through computer time that he found an online chat room for pet owners. He said he began reading stories and then posted a few of his own stories, after people began asking him how he got so many animals. The feedback from his work was positive.
Taylor said he wanted to use his stories to help encourage people to support the Corinth/Alcorn County Humane Society and he e-mailed Zack Steen, the Daily Corinthian web administrator, about possibly running his stories every once in a while in support of the shelter. Steen took a look at Taylor's work and decided it needed to be a weekly feature.
"Daniel basically e-mailed me and told me about what he was doing and why and I thought it was pretty unique and most of the stories were true ... or at least true to his situation," Steen explained. "I think he is an exceptionally good writer and I began running it [Critter Chronicles] as a web exclusive. Soon, I started getting e-mails every week about how much people enjoyed reading his stories.
"The feedback was not just from local people, but people from all around the country ... those stories are getting out and really touching people's lives. I guess, me being an animal lover, if I'd went into this without being an animal lover myself ... then I might not have seen the potential, but I think this book will really help his name get known and more importantly, it will help the Humane Society get some much needed funds."
The local Humane Society manager Keith Mays agreed, saying that the local shelter is badly underfunded.
The collection "Critter Chronicles," is an quick read set in separate stories that can easily be read at short intervals or at one sitting.
Taylor's writing style is engaging - filled with sensory detail that lends a healthy dose of realism and serves to bring the reader into his world - and he tells the stories with the flare of a natural story teller, often saving a big declaration at the end of a story. His own personal tales are interlaced with tales of little known facts of shelter animals that became famous. Such renowned animals as - Morris the Cat, Ol' Yeller and Benji. Currently, Taylor's "Critter Chronicles" can be found at Spice of Life Books and Gifts, located at Harper Square, and Downtown Books, located in downtown Corinth.
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