You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The frozen dog.
I only visited with the animal for a minute.
But I felt profound sadness.
I never touched the dog.
It was so weak, I didn’t want to touch it.
“It has scabies,” a voice says from the background.
The animal was so disoriented, I was afraid it would fall out of its cage at the shelter.
“You want to see Maggie?” my contact at the animal control says.
“Sure. Who is Maggie?”
“Maggie is the doge we rescued the other day.”
He pinches his thumb and fore finger together.
“She was this close to death.”
He punches a code into the door lock and we enter the restricted area.
I see veterinary equipment and animals in sterile cages.
Some of the dogs wag their tails. They seem healthy and want to play.
Some of the animals lie in their cages, eyes shut, not interested in visitors.
We get to the cage with Maggie.
She is a large dog, but she is skinny and frail.
The first thing I notice is her sagging skin.
She looks like a furry accordion.
She is brown with a wisp of white on her chest.
She is not moving when we arrive at her cage.
“Is she ok?” I ask.
“She was pretty bad,” the officer says. “Her owner’s a real d***. He told us when we arrived that she had heart problems or cancer, that’s why she couldn’t move when we arrived.”
He says the animal was discovered in 5 degree temperatures, clinging to life.
“It’s like her paws were stuck to the ground,” the officer says.
The owner relinquished ownership of the dog to animal control officers thinking it would absolve him of sin.
But the investigator tells me the case will be presented to the Grand Jury.
“Animal cruelty,” he says. “Guy’s a d***.”
“Maggie,” someone says from the rear trying to get the brown dog to stir.
She lifts her head, groggily, slowly.
She looks heavily medicated, and very weak.
She tries to stand in her cage, but almost falls over.
I am concerned.
“She’s actually doing much better today, than she was, ” the officer says.
I look at the dog’s face. It is old and tired with matted fur. I look for Maggie’s eyes but I cannot find them. Her eyes are recessed in her skull, hidden behind so much loose, saggy flesh, I can only find holes where eyes on a healthy dog would be.
“We thought we would have to put her down,” the officer says.
I suddenly feel like going to the owner’s house, stripping him naked, spraying him with water, and making him sit outside for an hour.
Maybe he needs a taste of his own medicine, I think.
We leave Maggie to go in search of other Maggie’s who might need rescuing.
It’s so easy to love an animal.
Why do people find it so easy to be cruel.
Maggie will survive. And the good news, she will be her own best evidence in the case against her former owner when the animal abuse case goes to court.
That’s fitting irony.
Get strong Maggie.
Life’s Crazy™