I have been watching a dog die a slow and sad death. I don' t even know the dog's name or if it is a male or female. While no one has run over this dog or killed it by some other horrible means, it has had a life of terrible cruelty.
Every day or so, I would pass this medium sized dog tethered to a dog house by a short chain of about 5-6 feet. A quiet dog, not asking for anything and not even raising its head to see who I was or that I was interested in it. Some days, when it was bitterly cold and snowing, all I could see of him was a lump of snow and frost on the ground beside the dog house. Other days, he would be standing on unsteady legs looking towards the house, as if someone was going to come out and pay attention to him.
Over the years, he became more fragile and sad looking, with his coat long, dirty and unkept. The dog house with a dirt floor and not even a light bulb to keep him a bit warm. On rainy days, he was there, cold and wet and lying in the mud. His caretakers, if that's what you could call them, did feed him and give him water but they couldn't have given him any love, or they wouldn't have left him there, alone and sad.
I looked for him each and everytime I drove by. And the last 3-4 days, he hasn't been there. I know in my heart that he is gone. All that remains of this dog is some dirty snow, where he once laid there, waiting, waiting for the inevitable call of a time when he wouldn't wake up or when the caretakers took him to the vet to be put down.
His people, the caretakers would have cried and said how they loved him so much. But how could they and treat him so badly. I can only hope for a special hell for people who abuse animals; and make no mistake, this was abuse. I can only hope that they do not get another dog. I don't think I could bear years of watching another dog go through the agony.
I give Maddy an extra hug and kiss when I think of him and hope that he is indeed, in a better place.
This is our little angel, Maddy Mae Brown.
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