Imagine for a minute that you live in a large house with a lot of rooms.

Early one morning your doorbell rings, and someone is standing there with an energetic young dog bouncing around on the end of a leash.

“I’m moving and can’t take her with me,” the person says. “You take her.”

So you put the dog in a room, and you give her food and water.

The doorbell rings again, and someone else hands you a box containing a very pregnant cat.

“Here,” says the person. “I found her, but I don’t want her.”

So you put the cat in a room with food and water and a litter box.

The dog barks to go out for a walk, but before you can do that, the doorbell rings and someone gives you two puppies.

“Somebody abandoned these at my farm,” she says.

You put the puppies in a room with food and water. One promptly knocks over the water dish. The other one pees on the floor.

The first dog is still barking to go out, and the cat has delivered her first kitten.

The phone rings. A teacher wants you to talk to his grade school class about animal care. You set a date and take the dog out.

By the time you return to clean up after the puppies, someone has left two very elderly cats that belonged to his recently deceased grandmother. He can’t keep them. Four more dogs have been left, too. One is vicious with the neighbor kids who teased him; the other is obviously ill.

The pregnant female has delivered two more kittens, and you discover you’re out of cat litter and need to buy more, but the phone rings. “Where is your report?” a voice asks.

The day moves on and on in this manner. By dinner, when you close your door for the last time, you have taken in 12 cats, 10 dogs, a rabbit, a ferret, three hamsters and a bird. You have agreed to give two talks and have been yelled at by several people who are angry that the authorities took away their vicious or abused animals. You have treated three sick and wounded animals, fed and watered everyone twice, walked the dogs at least once, cleaned all their rooms several times, and even bathed a few of them. You also went out to check two cruelty cases.

Tomorrow will be identical, except at day’s end you will have twice the population but no more money to care for them.

By the end of the month, you and 15 of your friends will have some 900 animals in your immediate care. You will have done 1,800 loads of laundry in endless pursuit of keeping them clean, dished out 30,000 pounds of food and purchased 3,200 pounds of litter.

By year’s end, roughly 7,000 pets will have passed through your home, and many times you will have wondered how you will pay those friends who have helped you care for these critters. You can’t give them much, but their assistance with the animals is crucial to keep things running.

Fortunately for all of you, this is pretend. But for the Lawrence Humane Society, it’s reality. Money is always in short supply, but house pets come in abundance.

Want to help? Here’s our favorite fun way for everyone to join in: We invite you to join us again this year, 6 p.m. Sept. 29, for our Pawsible Dream Live and Silent Auction, our single largest fundraising event. This year’s auction promises to be our best yet, with more and even better items to bid on.

This year we’re offering trips to Las Vegas and Orlando (Disney World, SeaWorld, Kennedy Space Center), and closer overnight jaunts to the Kansas Cosmosphere and dinner and a stage show in the Little Apple. We’re auctioning fine wines, KU basketball tickets and a rousing head-to-head competition to prove who’s the biggest KU and K-State fan in town, with the winner taking away not only an ultimate fan package but also two tickets to the annual football rivalry between the schools.

Our generous auction donors have given us furniture and home accessories, original art, collectibles, books and movies, baskets of holiday goodies, and great tickets to sporting events.

Come browse through our fine selection of jewelry. We’ve also received an incredible array of kids items and gift certificates for pet supplies, restaurants and services of all kinds.

Want to know specifics? Visit us online at www.lawrencehumane.org and click on the auction link. You’ll go right to the items we’ll be offering at the Pawsible Dream, and the full auction catalog will soon be there, too.

The evening of the event, come meet KLZR radio celebrity Carson, who will emcee the live auction. As always, you can nibble your way through our hors d’ouevres table and enjoy your favorite beverages.

Every cent raised at the Pawsible Dream goes to the care of the shelter’s animals. Tickets are available online or at the door: $25 for single entry, or $40 for two. Phone us at 843-6835 for tickets or questions.

We hope to see you at 6 p.m. Sept. 29 at the Lawrence Holidome, 200 McDonald Drive, to celebrate that special bond we share with pets of all kinds. Brings all your friends and plan to bid often and generously as we all work to keep the Lawrence Humane Society our state’s premier “go-to” animal shelter.