(Additional back story available at “Puppy Love?”)
The beginning of my mission to find my old mama dog, Indica, a new boyfriend turned out to be a little harder than I'd first anticipated. Amigo was a great dog and Indica got along with him just fine but it didn't take me too long to realize he'd be more comfortable staying where he was, at Hope Rd. Vet Clinic.
From there I, along with my mother, ventured out to the Humane Society who shares a building with Amarillo Animal Control. My hopes for adoption failed there as well but I'll write more about that at another time.
By the time we got to the SPCA it was near closing time so we really didn't get to spend the time I wanted looking through the kennels. I found a small, black and white, male pit bull who seemed calm enough (which is rare in a kennel setting) but when I asked if I could take him for a walk a woman told us he'd already been adopted. Fiddle-sticks.
I think all that happened on a Thursday. Although slightly disappointed that I hadn't found Indica a new boyfriend, I knew that the pieces would fall together when it was the right time.
This is Indica -
On Saturday, I headed up to PetCo where a rescue group from Dalhart (about an hour and a half away) does adoption events every weekend. I had called them earlier in the week but they never called me back. Instead of making the drive, I decided to wait until they came to me. I had looked at the dogs available for adoption on their site but knew better than to think they'd bring the ones I wanted into town. I had specifics in mind: I wanted a male (because 2 females won't get along as well) slightly larger than Indica (so she doesn't beat him up) who was past the puppy stages (for a multitude of reasons) and I wanted him to be a pit bull.
Before I continue, I feel the need to explain the necessity of the pit bull part. I never thought I'd be the kind of person who sought after “a dog like that.” When I was young, I didn't know much about them other than the stereotypes the media has so generously bestowed upon society.
Somewhere around 15 years ago, a man (er, well, an upright walking mammal with a penis whom I affectionately refer to as 'The Nazi') came into my life who fit those stereotypes to a T. Just a meat-headed, ignorant piece of shit who wanted tough looking dogs to distract people from seeing his own multitude of insecurities. He was as mean to the dogs in his life as he was to the people who tried to care. Before I knew of the evil that seeped to his core, he moved in with me and brought Indica and her 5 newly-born puppies. She was only about a year old. I'd always had a dog at one point or another in my life, but having pit bulls in my house was a whole new level of responsibility. I had to learn the hard way – and so did they.
Four of the puppies eventually found new homes. Because of The Nazi's relationships with people of very little moral character, I'm almost positive 2 or 3 of them wound up being fought. I didn't know the signs to look for; this was a whole new world to me. Once the puppies started teething, Indica whapped one of them on the head. I guess it cracked his tiny skull because his head started swelling. That poor little baby screamed bloody murder for days. The swelling only got worse. Eventually, The Nazi finally felt bad enough for the puppy that he drove him out to the country and shot him in the head with a .357 – that was one of the only times I ever saw that monster cry.
Along with Indica, he brought Houdini, her boyfriend. Not only was Houdini small (maybe 35 pounds) his face also bore the scars of being fought. The Nazi said he “rescued” him from a shelter in Hereford. I'm still not too sure how much of that story I believe. He always kept them chained up to poles in the back yard. Normally I would have fought this but there was about a 6-8 month stretch where I was in a drug induced coma. Not only was I not thinking rationally, I was more concerned with my personal safety than that of any pets; I was being beaten on a regular basis, sometimes to the point of hospitalization. The dogs would have been too, so in a weird way it was actually safer for them to be in the back yard. Honestly, I kind of forgot about them – they weren't MY dogs. During that winter, both dogs figured out their chains were long enough to reach the chicken coop for a fractional amount of shelter. Houdini froze to death in that chicken coop right next to Indica and is now buried in my back yard. The moment I realized what a horrible shell of a person I'd become and the unintentional misery I'd inflicted, I sobered up and vowed that no animal under my watch would ever have to suffer like that again.
About a year later, one of The Nazi's friends had stolen a batch of pit bull puppies, but he was homeless and was living with them in the back of his truck. One kept following me around the yard, never leaving my side. He just wanted to be in my lap and I could tell when his eyes met mine that he could see into my soul. I decided this was my new dog. He was soon stricken with Parvo; luckily, a stripper The Nazi was boffing on the side offered to pay for the vet bills to help save him. The vet told me on three separate occasions, “I'm sorry, but this dog isn't going to live.” For weeks while he was on an IV, I went to visit him every day at lunch and took off early every evening to go sit with him and cry and wallow in his vomit until the vet's office closed. He DID live and I named him Darwin.
I was closer to Darwin than I had been to any animal in my entire life. He had a better temperament than Indica which wasn't really her fault – The Nazi had trained her to be aggressive, to attack, and to kill random things. She's better now that she's old and I've been working to regress the negative influences for 15 years. She and Darwin were like Bonnie and Clyde – they got into EVERYTHING together, especially trouble.
During one of our later break-ups, I left Indica with The Nazi (because I was positive he'd never let me have her) and took Darwin to my mother's house. I came back home to get some clothes for work the next day, intending to stay at a friend's house and he asked me where “his” dog was. I said, “He's not your dog.” I got thrown onto my bed, pinned down, punched in the face, and asked again, “Where's my dog!?” I answered again indignantly, “He's not your dog.” This time, he took a lit cigarette and began to burn my eyelashes after another punch. “Bitch, I'll fucking kill you. Where's MY DOG!?” I stayed calm although my teeth were clenched, not really caring whether I lived or died, “HE'S NOT YOUR DOG.” I got punched again and could smell the the lashes of my other eye being singed with Camel ashes while I felt its red-hot cherry growing ever closer to my eyelid. He asked yet again. As the blood from my face intermingled with the spit and tears running down my cheeks, I said one more time, “He's. Not. Your. Dog.” This continued until he realized I would not be broken. Not this time. Bruised and battered once again, I finally escaped the prison-type confinements of my own home.
When I finally got rid of him for good, The Nazi eventually made the only humane decision he's ever made in his life. He knew that Indica and Darwin were inseparable and to take one from the other would only cause them both harm. As a compromise, he decided to take one of the puppies from their last litter together (she only had repeated litters because he refused to let me get her fixed; the last batch of 11 puppies was born 3 days after the SWAT team blew my house up and she got fixed while he was in jail for that). Not surprisingly, that dog is now dead. I heard he made his son dig the hole in which that dog would be buried – while the young boy had a broken arm. I can only assume this was to teach him how to be a “man.”
Darwin and Indica flourished for over a decade together. They were happy and so was I. I had not only learned an otherwise unattainable amount of knowledge about their specific breed, but also of humans and how they treat this particular kind of animal. I had now saved two dogs from an inevitable destination of fighting pits and my soul rested well at night knowing that they had wound up with the cushiest lives they could have ever imagined. Turns out, they're actually the ones who saved ME.
One day at the vet, I noticed a lump on Darwin's side. I had taken him in to see about something on his ear (he had a multitude of health problems but always seemed happy, no matter what) but as soon as the vet walked in I said, “Our priorities just changed.” While I was on a road trip the previous week to visit my brother, Darwin had developed a tumor. We gave him all the medication they could think of and he just kept getting worse. He finally went into surgery and on that day a tech called me. “You should go ahead and come up here.” I broke no less than half a dozen laws speeding to the vet's office that day. They kept his heart beating and his lungs pumping until I showed up. In as little as two weeks, the tumor had eaten its way through his ribs and into his lungs. There was nothing more they could do. Although he was knocked out from the anesthesia, I prayed to every god imaginable that he could hear me say, “It's ok, buddy... mama's here... I love you... you don't have to hurt any more.” When they unplugged the machines, I cried like I'd never cried before. I've lost family members without missing more work than the time it took to go to the funeral, but when I lost Darwin I called in for 2 straight days. “I just can't do it.” I lost him on December 8th, 2009.
Rest in Peace, Buddy-
These two dogs had been the most loyal, dedicated and loving animals I never knew existed. The problem is, because of their stigma, they have nowhere to go in this town. Animal Control puts them down, no questions asked, without so much as a temperament test. Even the SPCA has gotten to where they won't take any in because of liability concerns.
Once the popularity of any specific breed gains attention for being dangerous, more people seem to want them. They get bred beyond reason and control and their incident numbers skyrocket. It began in England with the Bloodhound in the 1800s, then moved onto the Doberman after World War II because they were so prominently displayed in propaganda as being vicious alongside the actual Nazis. The fear mongering pendulum soon swung toward the German Shepherd and eventually, in the late 1970s, to the Pit Bull. They multiply exponentially due to back yard breeding by people who want to make a quick buck from the “tough guy” up the street who will most likely in turn abuse, neglect or completely abandon them once they figure out they're not as mean as they expected. Now, I had a chance to save another one.
Back at PetCo, they had a circle of pens lined with hay out in front of the store, each containing a variety of cute little furry faces. They repeatedly hopped up and down making tiny, yippy puppy noises as if to say, “Take me home!” A little female black lab nearly leapt into my arms. She was deliciously sweet and obviously starved for attention. They all were. One of the adoption event's coordinators came up to me and said, “She wants to go home with you!” Of course she does. But she's adorable enough that anyone would adopt her. She had hope. I was looking for a much more difficult project.
I explained to the woman we'll call Amber (because I forgot her name and that sounds close enough) my list of wants and mentioned that I'd seen 104 adoptable males on their website. I'd narrowed my selection down to about 2 or 3 because I specifically wanted a pit bull since it's so hard to find them good homes with responsible owners. I said I knew they'd only bring the cutest puppies because it was impossible to transport a couple hundred dogs, most of whom nobody wanted. She looked at me and said, “We have A THOUSAND.” Are you serious!? The Dalhart Animal Rescue started with some 4th grade kids who began picking up strays, taking them to a local vet to get vaccinated and fixed, then gave them shelter and food. I know their hearts were initially in the right place but now it's clearly overwhelming. Amber told me that there are nine volunteers who work there. NINE people taking care of a THOUSAND dogs. She said when she started she had a section where she cared for about 60 dogs; now her responsibility has easily more than doubled. Those dogs can't possibly be getting any significant amount of individual attention. They're probably lucky if they each get fed daily. I wanted to be able to help them but it was unreasonable to think I could make that drive every day.
She told me about a few dogs she thought we'd like but none of whom actually fit my description. Indica gets to make the choice here, not me, and I'd rather not make a 3 hour drive on a “maybe.” I decided to keep looking around town.
One suggestion was that I look at Craigslist. Some of you may be thinking “that's dangerous!” but since Amarillo is nearly a decade behind the rest of the planet on any social curve, I really don't think we have a section of people about town who want you to pee on them before they rape you. But I was gonna be careful anyway.
The amount of pits people were offering on Craigslist was staggering. People either just couldn't keep up with them anymore or they were moving and couldn't take the dogs with them. I made several inquiries via text and got few replies. Most people had already gotten rid of the listed animal and seemed slightly irritated at my attempts. Well, if you'd take down the add, maybe people would quit contacting you!
One woman called me back and the story was such that I couldn't ignore her pleas for help. It was late in the third week of November; her neighbors had apparently skipped town and just abandoned 2 of their 3 dogs. Rent was due on the 5th and when their land-lord showed up they weren't there. This neighbor lady didn't figure out the dogs had been locked in the garage until the 12th. They had no food, what little water they had was frozen, and they were covered in piss and shit, as was the garage. Did the owners just leave town with hope someone would figure it out eventually and save them? Due to the circumstances, it seems to me they essentially left those dogs there to die.
According to Texas State Law:
(a) A person commits an offense if the person intentionally or knowingly:
(1) tortures an animal;
(2) fails unreasonably to provide necessary food, care, or shelter for an animal in the person's custody;
(3) abandons unreasonably an animal in the person's custody;
[etcetera]
(c) For purposes of this section:
(1) "Abandon" includes abandoning an animal in the person's custody without making reasonable arrangements for assumption of custody by another person.
(d) An offense under Subsection (a)(2), (3), (4), (9), or (10) is a Class A misdemeanor, except that the offense is a state jail felony if the person has previously been convicted two times under this section.
If I knew how to get these people prosecuted, I would. Unfortunately, I don't know who they are, where they went, or how to even go about the paperwork. Rest assured, one day I WILL be working with Animal Cruelty investigators and I WILL figure out the hoops to jump through. Probably not for the aforementioned shit-bags but for someone equally deserving.
The neighbor lady and the land-lord had no choice but to chain the dogs up in the back yard of the vacant house. They had little igloo houses for some shelter (when they hadn't knotted up their chains too tight to get into them) and the lady had been bringing food and water to them on a fairly regular basis. She had 4 dogs of her own and must have been spending a fortune on feeding them.
I had mom, my little sister Heather, and Indica in tow. I took Indica back to meet the 2 dogs and naturally, they were more than wound up. They had no way to release any energy aside from running in circles until they choked themselves out. They were only about a year old, one male, and one female. The female was immediately aggressive towards Indica and that just flat-out wasn't going to work. I handed Indica to Heather and decided to take the male for a walk to see if I could calm him down. Nope. I was gonna have to have at least a two mile jog in me to make a dent. Not only must our new companion have an acceptable energy level for me, Indica wasn't going to stand for a puppy jumping on her non-stop. It broke my heart to take that little boy back to his chain.
The neighbor lady knew we couldn't call Animal Control because the dogs would be put down immediately. I told her, “Well, as a last resort, we could call the SPCA.” She said, “I already called them. They won't even come out to look at them.” (This is how I discovered they, too, were abandoning this specific breed.) The Dalhart Resuce place will take a pit but they're clearly over capacity. She said she called every other resource either one of us could think of, and that the closest pit bull rescue group was in Dallas but they'd already decided that the 4-5 hour drive was “too far to just pick up two dogs.” I told the woman I'd help spread the word as much as I could. I couldn't help them and there was nobody to call. I cried a little bit on the way back to my truck.
When I got home, I remembered a message I'd failed to return from a friend of mine we'll call Faye. She'd been trying to get a hold of me for about a month concerning her neighbor's dog. I didn't know how to help when she'd first contacted me but now that I was actually looking for a dog, I gave her a call.
Faye and her soon-to-be-husband, Joe, had been watching this dog wither away in their neighbor's back yard with no attention and very little food for about a year. The household consisted of mom, dad, and three young boys. The seven year old was in charge of feeding the dog and I think we all know how responsible a kid that age can be. Most times when parents put their children in charge of feeding an animal and the child forgets, someone more responsible steps in and feeds them. That didn't seem to be the case here. He was also covered in bald, bloodied, scaly patches of mange and had received no medical treatment.
I loaded Indica into the truck and went to scout the situation. I pulled up in my friend's driveway and Joe came out the door. He said, “Nobody's home right now, let's go visit.” The dog was surrounded by a 4 foot chain-link fence visible from the street and wasn't tied up, so he didn't seem to be a fence-jumper. That was good news. He was super friendly and not aggressive AT ALL. Faye and Joe would go next door to love on him when they could and assured me he was just as sweet as he seemed. He put his front feet on the fence and let me love on him too. There was nothing in the back yard but a tree and a lot of dirt. I said, “Where's your water, buddy?” Joe said the kids had told him he eats and drinks in the garage. I said, “But the door's shut.” When they remembered to give him food and water, they denied him access to it. I brought Indica over to the fence to see how she'd react to him. There were lots of new smells to discover along the way, so she didn't seem to interested in him at first. His eyes lit up and his tail began to wag – he was desperate for a new playmate. I asked Joe what the dog's name was. “Bevo.” Well, that's weird but we'll go with it.
Operation: Repo-Bevo was now in effect.
I came home and called mother for a briefing of the situation. She said, “Ok, well, let me know when you need me.” A couple days later I went to her house to borrow an additional leash. I couldn't find Darwin's old one anywhere and figured I'd probably donated it to someone in need and forgotten about it. While mother was rounding up equipment I got a text from Faye, “No one's home right now, btw.” Shit. “Mother, it's go-time.”
Armed with merely an old leash, dirty jeans, a bag of sandwich ham from mother's fridge, and my senior-citizen accomplice, we loaded up in my truck and drove into the sunset to find us a dog.
Gravel and broken tree limbs creaked and crunched under my tires as we crept up the alley. I parked a couple houses down in order to more efficiently conceal my vehicle. In a surgeon's “scalpel” tone, I barked at mother, “Ham!” and instructed her to move into the get-away-driver position.
As I snuck up to his enclosure, I heard the dog bark, but only once. He could probably smell the ham as soon as I exited the truck. I tore off a chunk and fed it to him through the corner of the fence. As I moved toward the gate I realized he was still eating it and I'd probably given him too much. Now he doesn't give a shit that I'm at the gate. Dammit. Once I opened the gate he finally cared enough to come check out what was going on. He was thoroughly appreciative of the ham but every time I reached for his collar to attach the leash, he would run away. He doesn't know me and dogs can sense tension. He couldn't tell I wasn't there to hurt him. I went back to the truck and said, “Mom, this isn't going to work.” We figured it might work better if I wasn't trying to hold ham in one hand and grab his collar with the other while trying to leash him. We went back to the gate and mother continued the ham-feeding. He gobbled it up like he'd never seen ham before. He might not have. No matter how wide we opened the gate, he never would come past the fence line. He ran away one more time and I heard something in front of the house. I didn't know if it was the neighbors making noise or if it was the residents of the lot returning home. I smacked mother on the ass, “GO!” She either didn't hear me or her reflexes are getting slower because she just stood there trying to feed the dog some more. “MOTHER! It's time to LEAVE.” She finally said, “OH! Ok.” We trotted back down the alley and drove away.
A few minutes later I got a text from Faye. “How's Operation: Repo-Bevo coming?” Sadly, the mission has been aborted. She told me her neighbors had indeed returned home so it was a good thing we got out of there when we did. I explained there were just too many things that weren't right about the situation and I felt horribly guilty. Honestly, I had begun to think about just going up to the people's front door and simply asking them if they didn't want the dog. But then if the dog in question should happen to come up missing, I'd pretty much just made myself the main suspect. I'll sleep on it and get back to you.
On the afternoon of November 22nd, Faye called again. She'd just spoken with the neighbors and they were more than happy to relinquish custody of the dog. Thank Gawd! I got Indica loaded up, went to fetch mother and we were on our way.
When I pulled up in the neighborhood, I first walked up to Faye's door. I had forgotten they were moving that day and didn't realize they wouldn't be home. Bevo's owner came up to me and said, “Are you here about the dog?” Yes, I am. He took me straight back to him. It was love at third sight.
Apparently dude's sister asked him to dog-sit for a while and just never came back. The family never wanted the dog in the first place and with three children, he'd become too much to handle. I saw the sincere regret in the man's eyes and could tell he wasn't a bad person – he was just in a bad position. I asked him if I could take Bevo for a walk with my mama dog and not only did he agree, he handed me his leash.
I had mother walk Indica while I tried to wrangle Bevo. The man told me “I only get to walk him every once in a while.” You might not be a bad person but you're a horrible liar. I don't think this dog has ever been on a leash before but I did my best. Within a span of about 3 blocks I was winded and in pain. I wouldn't consider myself anywhere close to peak physical condition but this was, without a doubt, an extra strenuous exertion. It's time to turn this party around.
When we got back, Faye and Joe were standing out front along with the man, the mom-person and three boys. I hugged Faye and said, “I've finally got my new boy!” Because the energy was completely different, the dog was more than ecstatic about the exchanging of owners. The mom-person looked at me and said, “I was just praying last night that Jesus would send us a miracle, and here you are!” Well, I wouldn't call it a miracle as much as I would good timing, but you're welcome. I thanked them for being so kind and assured them that he would be very well taken care of.
As soon as we dropped Indica back off at the house, I took the dog to my vet to make sure his mange wouldn't spread and schedule an appointment to get him neutered. I don't think I realized how huge he actually was until he was in my lap.
The vet needed to make an additional file for my new fella. “What's his name?” Mother answered, “Bevo.” NO. No, no, no. We are NOT keeping that stupid name. He was used to answering to it so I didn't want to pick something completely different like “Charlie” or “Hank”. After about a 3 second deliberation, I figured out something that stuck.
“His new name is Beau.”
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