A word of warning – this is a particularly vile and horrific tale of an episode of animal cruelty, so don’t go on to the next paragraph if you don’t want to. I usually try to avoid reading such things when I run across them because they break my heart and I can’t take it, but it was too late and my brain had already registered it when I came upon this one in my hometown newspaper. I would link to the story (which was really just a news brief from the sheriff’s report of that date), but the paper requires registration/subscription for most such things so there’s no point in me linking it.
The Henry County Sheriff’s Department was called out to a home in Buchanan, Tennessee – a community down by Kentucky Lake and a few miles outside of my hometown of Paris – about the death of a man’s dog. A teenager gave the Sheriff’s Department the information that the nine-month-old Golden Retriever puppy had been tied to a tree and attacked and killed by a pit bull.
The report said three suspects were spoken to, all of whom denied involvement (of course), but one of them was the owner of the suspect pit bull, and the puppy was found dead in the woods behind that suspect’s home. Although the paper didn’t say, due to the way the report was worded and the fact that the information was supplied by a teenager, I am kind of assuming the “three suspects” were probably also young people.
Well, goodness knows since I’m such a softie for animals anyway, I’m horrified, and who in their right mind wouldn’t be? It was a nine-month old puppy, for goodness’ sakes. It was still basically a BABY. Close to fully grown, yes, but still a very young dog, basically a baby dog.
I look at this old and in failing health 14-year-old clown of a dog underneath my desk right now, who I literally helped birth, and these four dingalings running around my house who I would have also birthed four years ago if their mama hadn’t gone into labor while I was at work. And then I think of that poor little nine-month-old baby – a Golden Retriever, for the love of whatever, one of the sweetest, most gentle breeds on the planet!! – who must have spent his last moments horrifically terrified and in an incredible amount of pain. For NO good reason except for the entertainment and the sick whims of some people who obviously need some very serious psychological help.
And don’t get me wrong, there’s no “pit bull outrage” here. It’s not that pit bull’s fault, it’s the fault of whoever its owner or owners are and the fault of those involved in this horrible act of violence. You won’t see me calling for the outlawing of pit bulls – if I had children, I would have no hesitation about letting them be around The Most Famous Pit Bull in Nashville (I won’t link, we all know who I’m talking about). Supervised, of course, but then I’m not going to let any young child of mine be around ANY dog fully unsupervised. I myself would gladly share a bed or a couch with TMFPBIN. She’s a lovely dog and much more well mannered than my brats.
Granted, pit bulls are a breed that are capable of severe damage or worse but heck, so is Dobie – and it would be more than a little overconfident and a reach to even just state that Dobie would be the Forrest Gump of “killer dogs”. I’ve seen him make mincemeat out of pigs ears and fleece chewmen, but only in the case of someone trying to hurt or kill me might his natural instinct kick in to attack, and even then the amount of damage he might cause is questionable if not totally non-existent.
My young ones are a little more in touch with their instincts about being protective – well, except Daisy because she’s a girl and never has needed to be with her three bumbling brothers and Uncle Dobie around, and Bruiser’s actual instincts in that direction are pretty debatable too. When he growls, he doesn’t know what he’s growling about, he’s only growling because his brothers are. But let another dog be in their territory of the back yard (even ones that they’ve seen outside their back yard and could care less about), or were someone to be trying to hurt me or Daisy, yeah, they’d go after them.
Still, Petey is my only real fighter and the only one capable of anything at all. I’ve had my hand right in the middle of things when Bruiser and Buster were fighting with another dog, and right in the middle of their TEETH at the time, and I can tell you there’s no real danger there with those two.
Not to mention the fact they all live with cats who are much smaller than they are. Petey could SIT on little Missy and kill her, but he’s also the one that is most frequently scared to death of the prospect of being about to get beaten up by Audi the white cat, who regularly tires of all their BS and goes after them. And doesn’t have any front claws.
But my real point here is ANY dog can be trained to be vicious and mean and attack and kill, and this episode with this poor puppy in Buchanan was just not this pit bull’s fault. It’s the sick person or people who trained that dog to be that way, and the fault of the disgustingly sick persons involved in this episode who got their kicks out of orchestrating it.
Granted, larger dogs by virtue of their size and general makeup are capable of causing more damage, but you can train a poodle or a Yorkie to be vicious and bite and attack. The dogs I have been most scared by in my life were the Chihuahua who lived next door when I was small, who was just plain mean (though not trained that way by her elderly owners, she was just mean, period) and a former co-worker’s two Schnauzers, who were known to sink their teeth into the ankles of people who unfortunately turned their backs on them. One would do better to be more wary of the small breeds than worrying about most big dogs; it’s the little ones you’ve gotta watch out for. And ANY dog is liable to have a negative reaction if they are surprised or messed with.
But this one that is suspected of killing that poor little Golden Retriever baby obviously had been trained to attack and kill, which is wholly the fault of the sick people responsible for training it that way and for putting that puppy in that position.
Reading about it will likely give me nightmares for a long time to come; I am having difficulty shaking the image from my head, knowing how terrified and in how much pain that poor dog must have been in. But what probably bothers me even more is that I fear this episode will wind up not further investigated and fully prosecuted dependent upon the results of the investigation, and basically swept under the rug.
From what was reported in the paper, I think the evidence is already pretty much NOT in the suspects favor, and there are animal cruelty felony laws in this state and – at the very least – I think those responsible (or their families, if they’re minors) should be subject to the maximum fines, and those responsible ordered into strict psychological counseling, both of which are possibilities under current Tennessee animal cruelty laws.
Like I said, I don’t know for certain if the suspects in the case are teenagers or young people, though I suspect they are. And we all know of the tremendous evidence collected over the years that serial killers and other violent criminals often have a past history of animal abuse in youth.
If it were up to me, I think I’d probably just as soon tie the three to some trees and let a pack of wild and hungry bears or wolves or lions or tigers at ‘em. I’m not sure if people who would do such a horrible thing deserve much better than that.
Or at the very least (and obviously more reasonable and no more killing involved), the same scenario under the care of an expert animal trainer. Let those responsible feel the terror that that nine-month-old puppy felt in its last moments on earth, even if they’re going to get to be untied and live to tell about it another day.
In any case, I’m just sick about this and sick that people that live in my home county could be capable of such a horrific and vile act – my home county which used to be a place where nobody ever locked their doors or their cars before meth addiction became epidemic in rural West Tennessee and the meth heads started stealing everything they could get their hands on. It just makes me sick.
I really do hope the Henry County Sheriff’s Department will fully and truly investigate the case, and will fully prosecute it if they can. Or if that doesn’t work, I hope the puppy’s owner will take those suspects and/or their families to civil court and sue them for everything they’ve got and win, and that court-ordered psychological counseling will be a part of it.
It shouldn’t be a case of “oh, well, they just killed a dog”. At the very, very least, these people responsible are seriously mentally ill and need help. I hope they get it and I hope this case doesn’t just get swept under the proverbial rug.
And maybe if spmething does get done about the case, I can stop thinking several times a day, every single day, about and being horrified and sick to my stomach over what that poor terrified little puppy, who was still basically a baby, must have gone through. ‘Cause right now I am having a horrific episode of my own, remembering what I read in that in that article over and over again.
Petey, around four or five months:
Daisy, around four or five months:
Dobie, around four or five months:
I just can’t even imagine the terror. Nor do I want to. That Golden Retriever puppy was only a little older than they were when these were taken, and I just can’t even imagine the horror.
