Few actions draw more public outrage than the mistreatment and neglect of animals, but it's easy for owners to abandon their pets, by either dropping them off at a shelter or simply losing them on the streets. But where the owner's responsibility ends, a shelter's responsibility begins, and most people never get a glimpse of the amount of work that goes on in animal-support sectors. Elizabeth Hess' Lost And Found hopes to remedy that ignorance with its troubling tales of animal abuse and compassionate rehabilitation. The book provides a simple, clear-headed document of the year Hess spent working at the Columbia-Greene Humane Society in rural New York, which cares for over 5,000 animals a year. As can be expected, Hess' heartstrings were pulled every time she walked into the shelter, and once she began to volunteer, her commitment to the livelihood of the put-upon creatures only increased. She discovered that the world of animal shelters, like any other workplace, has its own group mentality that often manifests itself in us-against-them scenarios. In this case, the "them" is animal breeders (and their "puppy mills"), deluded "collectors" (who hoard dozens of stray animals in tiny and ill-suited homes), and a constant stream of incompetent and sometimes malevolent pet owners. Hess' book isn't just pro-animal propaganda: After all, who would argue against the humane treatment of animals? Instead, it provides an educational look at the lives of the innocent dogs and cats that are carted around from owner to owner in a desperate attempt to keep them from being destroyed. Long before Hess even addresses the complex issues of euthanasia in Lost And Found's final and most powerful chapter, she has made it clear that were it not for the work of the shelter's volunteers, hundreds of perfectly healthy pets would be destroyed. Lost And Found is a touching and informative memoir that highlights the unselfish souls willing to take responsibility for the folly of others, and ably addresses the issue of animal abandonment.