To the editor;
As a cat-person, I typically leave the dog-issue news stories and anecdotal letters-to-the-editor to the dog-people; however, atypically beginning to peruse one missive starting to mention “dogs strangling themselves to death by entangled chains …,” I nonetheless had quite enough.
Obviously, (in)humanity’s superior-minded nature has allowed our collective conscience to abuse, slaughter and/or even torture animals -- much including barbaric leg-hold traps!
As for pet dog abuse, I recall a hot summer day at a fishing-boat wharf, where my (late) father and I watched through Dad’s boat’s front window the large ‘pet’ dog tethered to its absent owner’s boat deck before us helplessly bake in the sun for a few hours in the unrelenting heat.
Dad held his proverbial breath waiting for the animal’s owner to do his job as a pet owner, but only for so long – it was rather surprising because he was an intensely mind-his-own-business type. Dad finally filled up a clean, gallon-ice-cream bucket with fresh, cold water and carried it over to the dehydrated animal that, quite unsurprisingly, lapped up about two thirds of the content. When the owner did eventually come, Dad, suppressing a lecture about treating one’s pets, conversed with the skipper for a while, casually slipping in how thirsty the guy’s dog was that day.
Perhaps the bliss of ignorance of just how that dog owner treats his ‘best friend’ when nobody’s looking may be all a person can sometimes do when matters are unfortunately beyond one’s control.
Frank G. Sterle, Jr.
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