Meeting Persephone

Anne, over at 'The Gods are Bored', posed a question to her readers regarding "The Dark Side of Pet Love" and what should be done about aggressive pets and their owners. I made a very short comment that I struggle with this issue and would need to post on my own blog about it because my comment would have otherwise ended up as long as her own post if not longer. So here is my take on the issue.

When I was young we lived in a very family-oriented neighborhood. Around us were young families with lots of children and many of us had pets. My family had always had dogs. Usually small dogs that came from the same bitch - we'd had at least 3 of her puppies over my early childhood. Our next door neighbors were nice people with two young girls and a black lab tied to the back of their garage facing the alley.

Their dog was really his dog - a bird dog he used when he went hunting and otherwise paid little attention to. His name was "Duffy" and he was tied to the back of the garage every day of his life that he was not being used for hunting. He was fed, watered and largely ignored other than when he was to serve a purpose. It was the first working dog I'd ever encountered and was too young to understand the difference between a pet and a working animal and nobody bothered to explain the difference to me. Don't get ahead of me here....

It was the summer time. I was about six years old and there was a little girl who lived down the street who came over to our house to play all of the time, she was within a year of my age. When bored with games of tag, dolls, charades, and performing our own plays we searched for other things to do. I spotted Duffy out in the backyard of our neighbor's house and he looked hot and lonely. I thought it would be nice to go give him a little attention and so that's what we did. We would pet him and give him kisses and he tolerated it quite well. This went on for a few days and all was well. We'd then go back to our playing and leave him alone. Good deed done and happy dog in our wake thanks to the attention we paid him. Or that's what we thought.

A few days after our attempts at cheering Duffy began, we'd once again run out of the things to do and went back to see him. It was terribly hot outside and he was trying to find small bits of shade to lay in to stay cool. He looked so miserable and his fur felt like it was on fire. I petted him quickly and he stood up. I planted a kiss on the top of his head but felt bad that he seemed to be trying to entertain us when he really just seemed to want to rest so decided that I'd leave him alone. My small friend wanted to give him a pat and a kiss as well but I'd already started to leave. Behind me I heard a blood-curdling scream and saw my friend's face trapped in the jaws of Duffy. I took off running for her house to get her mother, screaming the whole way down the alley. I heard another scream added to mine and looked to see my friend chasing behind me with blood dripping down her now unrecognizable face. We were met in the alley by my friend's mother who promptly began screaming herself and rushed inside for a towel. My friend's face was covered by the towel, another mother had gotten her car, and before I realized what was happening, my friend and her mother were speeding off to the hospital.

I felt horrible about what had happened. Of course trying to give Duffy love was my idea and as the older child I considered myself wholly responsible for the entire thing. My friend came home from the hospital and I asked if I could go see her and say I was sorry. My mother wouldn't let me. I never saw my friend again. Her mother moved them away from our neighborhood and I was left feeling like the most hated girl in the world. Many children weren't allowed to play with me after this event and Duffy was ordered put to sleep so the neighbor hated me too. The rest of the summer was very lonely for me and I tried to steer clear of everyone. My parents' relationships with our neighbors became very strained as well.

30 years have gone by and remembering that story is just as painful now as it was when it happened. A girl's face was forever changed, a dog lost its life, and I .. well it doesn't matter. But when I encounter stories about dog's attacking people and people rush to put the dog to sleep, I am reminded of this time in my own life. I am not as eager to have a dog's life ended as I'm also not as certain that they would repeat that behavior but I know that few of them are given the opportunity as the general position is that you put the dog to sleep.

When I think about it I struggle. It's hard to remove the blame I, and most of my neighbor's including Duffy's owners, put on me. So it's also hard for me to say unequivocally that a dog should be put to sleep knowing that it's not always the dog's fault when something like this happens. Maybe Duffy's owner should have been put to sleep? Maybe the two little girls who tried to encourage behavior from a dog should have been put to sleep? Maybe the girls' parents should have been put to sleep for not keeping them away from this dog? We rush to kill the dog and there is seemingly no consequence for the humans involved other than guilt or anger or scarring. And most of these bites are non-lethal. The victims usually live but the dogs don't.

I'm really not saying that the dogs shouldn't be "put down" because the fact of the matter is, I don't know. We kill dogs for biting but not cats, hamsters, or birds. We put human beings in jail who kill, rape, and molest but we don't "put them down". Even when human beings are more likely to repeat their behavior. Are dogs likely to repeat? We don't know because we don't give them the second chance to find out normally. People will line the streets protesting putting a human being to death for heinous crimes even when it has become pretty clear that when a human being crosses that line once, they are more likely to cross it again and again.

Why do we value human life over animal? Frankly I'd rather spend time with my animals than with a lot of humans. I know I'm not the only one. But when a dog bites, even non-lethal non-deforming bites, we rush to protect the human life and get rid of the dog. Why is this such an easy automatic decision?

My grandmother has a hateful little poodle who has bitten or snapped at countless people (her own grandchildren and great grandchildren included) and my grandmother, somehow, has never been forced to do anything about it. Is it because of the dog's small size? Do we just fear those dogs that are large enough to do real harm because we cannot dominate them as easily?

I have a friend who believes whole-heartedly that if a dog bites, it should be put to death immediately. That same friend is adamantly opposed to the death penalty for human beings.

We domesticated a species for our purposes and when they don't behave the way we want, we kill them. On the other hand we insist on protecting the lives of murderers, rapists and child molestors. Because they're human? We seldom see what causes a dog attack (which seems to be the one defense for animals) but we have a great deal of knowledge about the human behaviors I've stated. Human beings can be very broken and incapable of rehabilitation but we spare them the fate that we hand out impulsively to dogs.

I struggle with this question of a life for a bite. I don't have an answer that works across the board. All I know is that I'm bothered by it. I struggle with it. I can't bring myself to come up with an automatic answer based on popular opinion. I wonder why the automatic response is the accepted response. I also know that I can't just do that - perhaps that is my own guilt from my long past youth. Maybe it just seems like a blinding contradiction in the value of life. I don't know. I struggle with it and I'm ok with struggling.