Just Deserts

Around this time last year I wrote a story about some pit bull puppies (“I'm All Ears”); I went to the shelter to look at them and to see if the statement I'd heard, “They have the worst ear crop jobs I've ever seen,” was accurate. What I found that day was so infuriating, it spurred me to take the entire next month off work to do legal research on animal cruelty laws in Texas.

The torture those puppies endured should have been a state jail felony. I went back to the shelter to ask the “higher ups” in charge of Animal Control (what it was named at the time) if they'd filed any cruelty charges against the “owner” of these puppies. They hadn't, and told me that the man would be allowed to come back and reclaim them because “Those dogs are his property, he can do anything he wants to them.” Really? Is that your final answer? “You can't prove those puppies weren't taken to a vet.” Oh, yeah, because the guy told you he took them to a vet, you're just going to take his word for it? Does it honestly look to you like a vet did that? He can't prove he did take them to a vet. Because he didn't. I even found a witness but that didn't matter because people in management positions at the time didn't want to do the paperwork. I was told I had to have a picture of the man with the tool in his hand, IN the act of cutting those puppies apart, in order for them to have the “proof” they needed to file charges.

That litter of puppies is what got me to City Hall to make sure our laws got changed. That litter of puppies is why it's finally illegal in this town to perform surgical procedures on animals in your kitchen.

I wish I'd written more about our fight against the injustice that the animals here have suffered for FAR too long but I was too busy trying to get things done to stop and write a story about it. I say “our fight” because I didn't do it alone; the bonds I forged with the people behind the scenes – who were working just as hard as I was with little to no credit - are some that will last the rest of my life. Part of that story is that the people who gave me the answers I didn't like, the people who didn't want to fuss with paperwork, the people who told me that cutting dogs apart with no anesthesia was “no big deal” (the previous Director and Assistant Director of what was formerly known as Amarillo Animal Control), have now “retired.” We ALL celebrated that day. Well, I'm sure they didn't; I'm sure they're both still plotting my assassination, but don't ask me if I give a $#%*.

This is the ONE dog who made it out of that litter with her ears intact. I met her when her owners called me to do a training session with her. She's so sweet and so smart; she accomplished the equivalent of three lessons in her first hour.

It's because of her that I know who mangled her other ten siblings and left her mother dead and rotting in a trash can. Well, it's because of her I knew his “street name.” I couldn't figure out his real name on my own, but the officer who called me to come look at the dogs initially found his “Christian given” name from the paperwork when he came to reclaim the dogs they'd confiscated. Even with this knowledge, there was nothing we could do; he already had the dogs back.

It is a FACT that people who breed dogs for fighting - or as it's sometimes called in the streets, “entertainment” - are statistically likely to be involved in other illegal activities. It is a FACT that people who abuse animals are likely to be involved in other acts of domestic violence against women, children, or anyone else who might get in their way. It is a FACT that I wish more "justice" was served to these people. It is also a fact that this is not often the case.

Except for today.

Looks like “Freeze” done went and got himself popped by the po-lice. I'm thinking about printing out his mugshot and having it framed. I'll hang it in the laundry room and smile at him every time I walk out the back door to pick up dog turds.

Here's the highlight of the article from the Amarillo Globe News:

“Federal authorities have charged an Amarillo man with cocaine trafficking.

Michael Robert Carver, 29, was charged Tuesday in Amarillo’s U.S. District Court with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances.

Carver, alias “Freeze,” was among at least four defendants indicted on federal methamphetamine trafficking charges in Amarillo in May, according to redacted federal court records.”

(For the rest of the article, click here: Amarilloan faces drug trafficking charges)

We had to go the long way around to get there, but it seems as though justice might FINALLY be served. Even if he'd been charged with animal cruelty, he probably would have just gotten a slap on the wrist because torturing dogs is “no big deal” to a lot of people in our local legal system. Still. Even after all the work we've done, there's still plenty more left to do. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the prosecutors don't consider cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking in the same light - “No big deal.”