I'm pretty sick and tired of the lurid headlines about 'pit bulls' (many of which are about dogs that are not in fact 'pit bulls'), but this is one I'd actually like to see.
The picture at left is from the Facebook page of No Kill Now. It shows the abused pit bull Oreo just a few minutes before her execution. Her executioners were none other than the ASPCA, headed up by Ed Sayres.
Like many people, I don't see an irredeemably aggressive dog in this picture. Or this one. Or for that matter, this one. Nor do I see anyone wearing body armor. All the people in these pictures look pretty darned defenseless. Were they or the photographers in any danger? I doubt it.
I look at that expressive face and I see a dog uncertain about her future. She's been through a lot in her short life, thrown six stories and survived. The time leading up to that event had to be confusing, and undoubtedly psychologically painful. What kept her going? I think of her as a puppy, loved and cared for by her mother. In these pictures, she still has a puppy's face. She looks like she's wondering what will happen next.
These bipedal ones, you have to watch them, you never know what they will do next. They're unpredictable.
She has an open, inquisitive face, the face of an intelligent and soulful animal whose innate tendency is towards joy. She still has that face in these pictures, despite what she's been through--her mother's love, the warmth of her littermates, the carefree play of puppies, the terrifying rage of her 'owner', the incomprehensible hell of being pitched off of a roof, the moments in midair, the incredible pain of hitting pavement, the crunch of breaking bones, the awful cry she made upon impact, a sound so awful that you feel it in your bones, the people crowding around her, the ride in the back of a van, the veterinarian, anesthesia and surgery, waking up, her front legs in casts, her broken rib pinned, the kennel, the way sound reverberates off of the hard surfaces, the smells, the people. Always people, lots of them. They come and they go. They mutter things in a language she doesn't understand. Can she trust any of them? Hitting the ground after being launched into midair with rocket fuel of rage knocked the wind out of her. It knocked out some innocence too. She's wise to these shifty primates, that makes it hard for her to trust again, even though she wants to. She must choose wisely. Choosing poorly would be too much.
She's a terrier, she's nobody's fool. She knows that trust, once blasted away, has to be earned back. Some things can be accomplished on a tightly prescribed schedule, but working through trauma is not one of them. That takes time. It takes patience. And it takes trustworthiness. Dogs can smell b.s.
The ASPCA is wealthy. It is evidently not patient. It is not trustworthy. An organization's actions and persona reflect that of its leadership. Ed Sayres makes half a million dollars a year as the head of the ASPCA. He is evidently neither patient nor trustworthy. I must also conclude that he lacks empathy for people and animals, and therefore has no business heading an organization whose stated mission is to protect animals, a mission that is fundamentally based on empathy and the human-animal bond. There was no excuse for killing Oreo in the face of a qualified sanctuary ready and willing to take her. Where a true leader in the humane movement would have shown empathy, humility and cooperation, he had nothing to offer but spitefulness and self-serving tripe.
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