The Best and the Worst of People

This was supposed to be a feel-good entry. I was still on sort of a high from last Friday afternoon's shelter tour. It made me so proud to show off our hard work and to demonstrate what a difference our program is making. To illustrate that point, I was going to write about today's session in the park with Trouble (above). In her months with us, she'd gone from ill-mannered and a bit bratty to a dog that can now control her impulses, even enjoying a quiet moment of affection once in a while. I was planning a clever title for the entry. Something about Trouble actually being her middle name.

But as is my routine, when I got home from the shelter, I sat down at my laptop and jumped online. I checked my usual handful of sites, and against my better judgement, clicked on a headline I knew better than to pursue. I could barely get through the story, I felt so sick. Sick to the point of thinking I was going to vomit. I began having those non-sensical thoughts one has when one hears something terrible, like trying to figure out a way to take every meal I'd ever overeaten and somehow transmit it to that starving dog. It didn't matter that it wasn't possible, that it doesn't even make sense.

Amazingly, the dog did not die -- the story has a happy ending. But I'm not satisfied. I want the man responsible for this to pay. Because we live in a society in which cruel and unusual punishment is not acceptable (even when appropriate), my wish that he be made to starve to half his normal weight will not come to be. So instead I will point readers here and support organizations that make more of an impact than one anonymous blogger.

It's been hours since I first came upon the article; it's taken that long for me to get my head around it. It occurs to me that I haven't eaten since I left for the shelter at ten o'clock this morning. Not even a full day, but I'm suddenly uncomfortably, painfully hungry.