Her bottom line has four feet

Bill White

September 4, 2008

I asked Liz Jones one time to look in on a friend who had a problem with cats. We'll call her Donna.

Donna had about a zillion strays, in her house and prowling outside, and they kept breeding. Her house was a wreck, and she was clueless about what to do about it except scrounge for more cat food.

Jones, executive director of the animal welfare group Peaceable Kingdom, had spent almost two decades in the Lehigh Valley dealing with situations like this one. Nonetheless, her visit didn't work out so well.

Jones kept telling Donna things she didn't want to hear. Donna finally ordered her to leave. ''She's crazy!'' Donna concluded when she called me to complain.

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Even by the standards of an animal welfare community rife with feuds, strong personalities and conflicting philosophies, Liz Jones has inspired very strong feelings, pro and con. Her pioneering efforts to promote low-cost spay-neuter and off-site adoption have yielded tremendous results, but she kept telling people things they didn't want to hear and doing things people didn't want her to do, and she wasn't particularly diplomatic about it.

''People either love me or hate me,'' she told me the other day, ''but I've reached the point in my life where I know my bottom line always has four feet.''

Jones, 54, is a Wharton School MBA who left the corporate world and devoted herself to a cause and a lifestyle that could charitably be described as hand-to-mouth. I've known her for years, and I have many stories to tell.

The time the Lehigh County Humane Society prosecuted her for cruelty -- ultimately unsuccessfully -- because of her run-in with a local vet over a seriously ill dog she rescued from an Ohio high-kill shelter and tried her best to save.

The time she called me in tears because some idiot had dropped off a cat behind Peaceable Kingdom in a sealed plastic container on a hot day. By the time she found it, the cat was dead and the inside of the container was scarred from his frantic efforts to escape.

The time I found her prowling behind the Hotel Bethlehem, trying to trap a family of stray cats. The time she proudly unveiled the Roving Adoption and Neutering Van that her father had helped her buy and renovate for clinics and adoptions. The times she has threatened to give up and leave for a fresh start elsewhere. All the times I heard from critics of her methods, her shelter, her personality.

The Lehigh University journalism class I teach interviewed her every semester for a writing assignment, and I never knew which Liz would show up. The funny, upbeat storyteller? The in-your-face animal advocate? The weary, even teary, warrior, fresh from another setback? She wore her heart on her sleeve.

You may have noticed I'm speaking about her in the past tense. That's because as I write this, Jones is on her way to Africa, unless there was a change of plans. Two trips there convinced her that she had something to offer animals on the other side of the world.

She'll spend the next couple of months figuring out if that's where she's meant to write the next chapter in her life, promoting spay-neuter in Tanzania, volunteering for a cheetah conservation group in Namibia or helping protect elephants in Kenya. Maybe all of the above, along with continuing to write grant requests for Peaceable Kingdom from long range. Energy never has been her problem.

''I'm at a fork in my life, a definite fork,'' she said. ''All these years I've been a caregiver. I want to go just do somethingÂelse. I never wanted to just go sit on a beach or something. I want to do something.''

She confessed to being weary, proud, frustrated and excited. But not scared. ''Maybe I should be, Bill, but I'm not,'' she said.

Courage never was a problem, either.

I wouldn't be surprised if Jones leaves more than one African convinced, ''She's crazy!'' over the next couple of months.

But I'll be even more surprised if she doesn't find a way to make a difference.

bill.white@mcall.com 610-559-2146

Bill White's commentary appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.