Loving Animals: Toward a New Animal Advocacy

Conclusion: Trouble In The Pack

I’VE TOLD LOTS OF STORIES IN THIS BOOK BECAUSE I believe affective connection is the basis for mass change, and because those connections are often best displayed through narratives. Just as I was finishing this book, an event at my house drove home the critical importance of “being with” animals in a way that is based on affect. So let me end this book with one more true and heartfelt story. It illustrates well, I think, why paying attention to affect is so necessary. It happened Easter weekend 2009. My next-door neighbor and I often host “Dog Park” and open the gate between our yards to let our dogs play together, happily, exuberantly, as dogs will. We had done this hundreds of times before. On that particular day, for reasons beyond human comprehension, the pack of medium- to large-size dogs ganged up on my little old beagle, Daisy, and almost killed her. If you’ve never seen a dogfight, it will be hard to comprehend the emotional intensity involved; it’s like something out of a horror movie where people that otherwise seem civil start attack another smaller, older, weaker person for what looks to you like no reason at all. Just to kill her, because it’s fun. That’s what happened that Saturday. I wasn’t outside when the fight started, but my neighbor says the reason for the fight was imperceptible. It was as if a CONCLUSION TROUBLE IN THE PACK 205 wind blew through the yard and everyone all at once decided to attack the defenseless old animal, to eliminate her from their ranks.These were dogs that had successfully cohabitated for over three years. There were no fosters or outside dogs; nothing at all had changed.They all knew each other well. But on that particular day, something in their affect shifted, and that shift changed us all. I heard the fight from the bathroom and went running out in my robe. My neighbor was yelling already, but I started screaming, and most of my dogs responded immediately. Jerome, Duncan, Chester, and Hattie pulled away from the pack immediately, but my pit bull mix Jubilee and my neighbor’s Plott hound, Calvin, refused to release Daisy. They each had an end of her and were biting her, pulling her apart, she was bloodied in many places, howling terribly. Everyone who works with multiple animals is taught never to stick her hands into an animal fight; when a human is bitten by an animal, the law gets involved, and the consequences are much graver. So my neighbor and I grabbed sticks and chairs and screamed and cried at Jubilee and Calvin. After a few minutes (which seemed like hours), both dogs released Daisy. She lay on the ground, bloodied and moaning. Within a few seconds, though, to my total horror , Jubilee went back after Daisy for one more bite. A young, very scrappy teenager visiting my neighbor, who didn’t know the unwritten rule of animal management, emerged and took control of the situation. She grabbed the screaming beagle from Jubilee’s jaws and took her inside. It is a miracle the girl didn’t get bitten, and I am forever indebted to her. If Holly hadn’t intervened, Daisy would certainly be dead now. I took Daisy to the vet immediately. She had multiple bite wounds that would require drains. “A lot of damage,” my vet said, as he shook his head. I was pretty much numb for two days, not knowing what had happened , or how to think or feel about it. I actually don’t remember that Easter at all. I picked up Daisy from the vet on Monday. Almost immediately it was clear she wasn’t going to be able to be around the other dogs without supervision. It wasn’t just Jubilee (the one who had inflicted the majority of the wounds) who seemed excessively curious about her drains and wounds; all the dogs did really. I didn’t know if they were smelling blood and responding to some innate attraction, or if as a pack they really had decided to remove Daisy, and now they were just looking to finish 206 CONCLUSION the job. I wasn’t really even sure they intended her harm; we never came even close to anything like a fight, but the tension was palpable...