Visions of Canine Retaliation

Our dog Aimee has it hard. She's sleeping still, two hours after we've gotten up. When the mood hits her, she'll get up and dance around her food dish, as if trained to do so for the circus. On occasion, she delivers a brown package in the living room and receives some harsh tones, a smack on the rear, and is constrained to her bed for all of five minutes. But this post isn't about my dog and her rough life.

I don't expect to get the warm fuzzies when watching Animal Cop atrocities, but shocked, outraged tears have never been on the menu, until last night.

His name was Trouble. A orange brown mutt that was tied up outside for weeks and forgotten. Instead of a chain, these negligent, torturous souls used a combination of thin wire, chain link, and jumper cables to secure him to the fence. There was no slack on this makeshift lead, restricting the dog the same tiny area at all times, requiring him to sleep in his own excrement.

At the beginning of this six week, outdoor adventure, he was a puppy. While puppies grow, restrictive makeshift collars don't. The chain, wire, and jumper cable dug a two inch deep gash around Trouble's entire neck. The tangled mess of metal was painfully resting on his exposed spine.

Only a single visit was required before the cops rescued Trouble. After being sedated, the embedded chain was carefully pulled bit by bit from the gash, flesh coming away with each scrap of metal. It was at this point when I started gasping, tensing up, and crying. I wanted to hit record on the Tivo, but decided that I didn't want to be personally responsible for anyone else witnessing this.

Trouble came around nicely. His neck encompassing open sore was still very obvious, the vision of his protruding rib cage had been blurred by a healthy diet, and his tail happily wagged whenever the camera was present. When he bit into the plastic hand interfering with his meals, it was decided he would not adopt well and was euthanized.

There must be adoption candidates who could handle dogs that need extra attention. Candidates that occupy houses without kids and are competent adults capable of debugging certain tendencies, and normalizing a troubled dog's demeanor. This is most likely a situation when it's easier said than done. I'm upset Trouble didn't recover and experience the good life. I suppose the few weeks spent in recovery was good living, compared to what he knew as life.

There was no resolution to the Trouble story. The owners were never brought to justice and It's probably wise of them hide. I have moments of bliss as I imagine them dying, tied to a fence.