TheBanyanTree: Killer Dogs, A Love Story

[Pam Lawley]

i DUNNO if I could ahve picked thqat poor kitty up - double bagged hands or
not!!

On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 1:51 PM, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com>wrote:

> Killer Dogs, A Love Story
>
>
>
> This is not an amusing tale, so don’t laugh. This is a story of death and
> mayhem, and what happens when creatures venture into unknown territory.
> It’s
> also a tale of redemption and the struggle of the human spirit to survive
> in
> a world of chaos and destruction.
>
> Or not.
>
> Anyway. I live happily with one husband and two dogs. Last night charming
> husband was away for his one night a week in Seattle, and I was out late.
> Not late for some people, but late for me, who is never out much at all. I
> was at a fabulous birthday dinner, and met lots of wonderful people, and
> got
> to sit next to the birthday girl. It was a great evening.
>
> Then I drove myself home. I was looking forward to getting home because I
> always look forward to getting home and it’d been a long day. This was
> especially true since I’d taken the day off and hadn’t done a lick of work.
> (What is a lick of work? I don’t even lick envelopes – I get the
> self-sealing kind so I don’t have to.) It was a nice night out and was, as
> it typically is at 10 pm, dark. It took just over an hour to get home.
>
> The dogs, who had been left out in the back yard while I was gone, weren’t
> their usual barky selves when I pulled up. They know the sound of our
> vehicles, and the UPS truck, and bark enthusiastically when they hear any
> of
> them. The UPS driver doesn’t appreciate it much, but it’s not as if they
> jump over the fence and attack him or anything.
>
> I thought this was odd. They never go anywhere without me or charming
> husband.
>
> I went into the house, and then heard one of them scratch at the back door.
> I’ve asked them not to scratch at the door, but I might as well ask birds
> not to fly. I opened the back sliding door and let them in. They ran in as
> they usually door, in a hurry, which is only allowed if they’re feet are
> clean. Since it’s been dry, they rushed in, told me how happy they were to
> see me, ran around for a few seconds , and then asked to go back outside. I
> thought this was odd since they’d been out long enough, six hours anyway,
> that whatever needed to be done outside should have been done.
>
> Then they came back again, and wanted back out again. This time I looked
> out
> in the back yard. It’s extremely dark out there, at least during the hours
> when the sun isn’t up. We have only the back porch light, and it doesn’t
> illuminate much of anything. But I saw something on the ground. Or did I?
>
> There’s no grass in that section. The dogs have made sure of that, and
> we’re
> going to put river rock in the area this year so they can run back and
> forth
> all they want and not kill anything. It’s the area right outside the door.
>
> It could have been a shadow. It could have been wet dirt next to dry dirt,
> though how just that one area got wet . . .  maybe someone peed on it? In
> the shape of a dead animal?
>
> Highly unlikely. I got a bit closer. Not that I wanted to, mind you.
>
> Dead animal, with long black tail. Or long tail. Hard to see what color it
> was in the dark, but it looked to be all black. And not moving. I wouldn’t
> expect it to be moving, had it been in the yard any length of time. And it
> wasn’t.
>
> I made the dogs come back into the house. At this point they weren’t
> bothering said poor animal, but running around as if the night were still
> young and they were ready for an all-nighter.
>
> They came back in, and were disappointed when I wouldn’t let them out
> again.
> Too bad for them. I told them I was very disappointed in them, to which
> they
> responded, “Yeah, but did you see what we DID?”
>
> I called charming husband in Seattle and told him what had happened at the
> homestead. I don’t know why – I needed to tell someone because I was
> feeling
> a bit queasy about having a dead animal of some sort in my back yard. And I
> was afraid it was a cat.
>
> I love cats. I love dogs, and have them, and I don’t have cats, but I bear
> them no ill will. One of the dogs, Ash, doesn’t either – he bears no one
> ill
> will, but he doesn’t know cats and thinks they’re toys. Honey, on the other
> hand, bears much ill will toward cats. I chalk this up to her abusive
> puppyhood before I rescued her. I think she was severely traumatized by a
> renegade kitty, which would explain her aversion to cats.
>
> So I was sad.
>
> Charming husband advised me how to proceed in the morning. I had no
> intention of venturing back out in the dark to figure it out. “Put on two
> pairs of gloves,” he said, “And, if you need to, there’s a clothes pin you
> can put on your nose.”
>
> The gloves I can understand. We have a box of the medical laytex gloves
> that
> we use for sensitive medical procedures and other things that go on around
> here. But a clothes pin? Why would we 1) have a clothes pin, and 2) why
> would I want to put one on my nose?
>
> “But that’s going to really hurt my nose,” I said, stating the obvious.
>
> “Yeah, but you won’t be able to smell anything.”
>
> “I don’t care, I’m not putting a clothes pin on my nose.”
>
> “Okay, but just in case.”
>
> Where does he get these things?
>
> After sitting up for a couple of hours watching reruns of Criminal Minds,
> in
> which many people dye gruesomely (and this does not bother me in the least
> –
> these are fictional tv people, after all, and even so, they’re still just
> people, not cute little kitties or doggies), we went to bed. I told the
> dogs
> to keep their distance from me because I was not pleased. They were so
> tired
> from their adventures they didn’t really care anyway.
>
> This morning they started making “go outside” noises, as in, “Let us out
> right now! We left a toy out there and we want to play!”
>
> I told them no way and suited up. The big plastic garbage bags were not
> where they belonged. In their place was a box which once held big plastic
> garbage bags, but it was empty. So I took a smaller kitchen garbage bag ,
> double gloved, and ventured outside, telling the dogs to stay put. They
> actually did so, which was a huge surprise.
>
> I approached the poor dead kitty, for kitty it was, carefully. Not that I
> thought it might jump up and attack me after feigning death all night, like
> some demented kitty in a slasher movie, but to show respect. I then
> apologized to said kitty for its tragic fate. I told said kitty, who had
> actually been quite lovely in real life, that I thought she was a lovely
> kitty, and that I would seek revenge on her behalf.
>
> Perhaps that last phrase isn’t quite true.
>
> Kitty had a hole in her side, a big gaping hole, as if someone had cut into
> her with surgical precision and then decided, halfway in, to just start
> ripping out intestines.
>
> I picked up kitty by her pretty black tail. She was stiff as a board. For
> all I knew, someone had thrown her into the yard already dead. I’m not sure
> who would do that, or why, but I’ll take any sort of implausibility as a
> sign my dogs aren’t killers.
>
> Getting her into the bag was a bit tricky, but nothing my years of
> accounting hadn’t trained me for. I then double bagged kitty, and took her
> out to the garage for charming husband to dispose of. If I’d had yellow
> crime tape I would have marked the scene of the crime, but I’m all out.
>
> Then the dogs were free to go outside, and they rushed to where they’d left
> their new toy and then looked at me, disbelief on their little doggy faces.
>
> “Life’s tough,” I said, “Get used to it.”
>
> Their response was to look at me with that “What the hell?” response I’m so
> used to from them.
>
> I hope kitty wasn’t someone’s much beloved pet. I’m not in the mood to go
> door to door asking if someone has misplaced their kitty just so I can
> announce, “I found it! And it’s dead!” Of course, then I could hand over
> double bagged kitty. My insensitivity knows no bounds.
>
> I have a very plausible scenario for how kitty ended up in our backyard.
> Work with me here. I think kitty is new to the neighborhood, and therefore
> didn’t realize that this is one of those yards she should avoid. So she’s
> out doing her thing, walking along the fence perhaps, when suddenly, due to
> poor nutrition and a reluctance to exercise, she experiences a massive
> heart
> attack. And then plop, she falls into the yard, already dead. I’m going to
> go with this one I think, because it helps to alleviate my guilt. I know
> the
> dogs didn’t leave the yard to go out hunting. Despite their best efforts,
> they’ve yet to figure out how to get out. In this one thing, we’re smarter
> than they are. It’s not much, but sometimes it’s all we’ve got.
>
> The dogs are grounded for the time being. No play dates, no Internet
> access,
> no telephones. Just wait till their father gets home.
>
> --
> Monique Colver
>