Friday, July 13, 2012

Dog whispering

(audio and video to be added shortly; 
i just had to purge this from within me right now, now, now)

We got new neighbors on or about March 1, 2012.

A young couple of some sort of darker ethnic descent...and their puppy.

On day one, my husband mentioned that it sounded as though they were somewhat rough with their dog.

"Oh," said I.

The dog's name is Kilo, a beautiful white pit bull.

I learned the dog's name the weekend they moved in.

Boom!  Bash!  Bam!!  The walls vibrated with what sounded and felt like impacts...punctuated by the screams of a dog and the curses of a seething man.

"I'm gonna kill you Kilo!"

Ya know...my family...we are cat people.  My mom didn't allow any animals in our house growing up...and only once in my adulthood did my husband and I venture into dog territory; the end result wasn't pretty.  The dog's name had been "Go Away", which our good friend Robert T. Moore named her before his suicide.  We took the dog in -- a Rottweiler mix; I named her "Ladylove" because of her sweet gentle disposition, and I loved the dog because of Rob.


But what did I know about dogs?  She seemed so stupid and was always licking herself, and my husband kept training her to beg for food.  I will never forget the day that Lady first went into heat -- I was thunderstruck to see blood dripping from her nether regions!  I mean, I thought God cursed HUMAN women with menstrual blood...ya mean to tell me ALL FEMALES OF EVERY SPECIES WERE CURSED WHEN EVE ATE THE APPLE??? And when Lady bent her head and began to lap up the blood she was dripping behind her, I nearly fainted.  


My husband and I argued about how to train the dog, and how to walk the dog, and at one point, our marriage stood upon shaky ground because of our disagreement over the dog.  We ended up giving the dog to the Humane Society because...well, just because we couldn't properly care for our dog -- at least, not the way she deserved to be cared for.  I spent years and years dreaming about the dog and feeling guilty about yelling at her and not walking her and keeping her chained in our yard. 

Ladylove was one of the three dogs I have loved in my lifetime.  The second was a dogt named "Little Man"...a red-nosed pit bull dog that lived at the trailer behind me in Stratmoor Valley.  That was the hardest winter of my life:  the winter of no electricity, no heat, no running water, no car, no husband, no children...and each day I thought I might die from freezing or heartbreak.  Little Man was the only bright light during that winter of my discontent...then, one day, someone stole him out of my neighbors' yard.  I wept and wept, and prayed for his return, but I never saw Little Man again.  I, too, dreamed of him for years afterward.

Kilo is the third dog I have ever loved.  I have listened to his pitiful cries and moans and screams and sobs for four months now, and am literally being driven insane by the sadness of the sound.

The perpetrator...the dog's master...waits until his young girlfriend has left the apartment.  Then, he shuts the dog up in the bedroom for six, seven hours...refusing to let the dog out.  Kilo waits, quietly, patiently, until the onset of the urge to relieve himself. Then he begins to whine -- just one whine, so as not to bother anyone.  One whine turns into two...and into three and then four; the dog begins to bark, low and quiet, as though he is asking his owner to please open the door and let me out.  But the asshole doesn't.  The dog becomes increasingly frantic, barking out of the window now for someone to please help him because he has to go so bad and doesn't want to make a mess on the carpet.  But of course no one comes.  The dog's barking reaches a pitiful crescendo before morphing into a mournful wail, and then sobs.


Who knew that a dog actually sobbed?  I didn't know.  I wish I never knew the sounds that dogs can make...whether incessant barking, howling after a fire siren, or begging for its life...

I press my ear up to the wall...listening.  The dog's "master", a 20 year old thug POS, eventually saunters into the room to find what I imagine is a wet spot and a warm turd on the carpet.  I envision the dog hiding under the bed, terrified of what's about to come; I myself begin to tremble...like the dog, knowing what's about to happen, and praying it will be brief...

And then it begins.  Though I want to so badly, I can't pull myself away from the wall, listening as the owner roughly drags Kilo out from under the bed by his paws and begins to strike him in the face with an open-handed slap again and again and again.  I hear the dog snort and hmmpf, and I can see him in my mind's eye, squinting and wincing...a look of fearful expectation on his face.

My imagination runs wild from the sounds that I hear:  it sounds like the owner holds the dog's snout shut while tormenting him -- with what, I don't know, but he doesn't stop until Kilo begins to yelp.  The owner lets loose his snout, because the noise the dog is making is music to his ears.  Kilo yelps and runs for his life, galloping through the apartment in a vain attempt to escape.  The owner follows him, hissing under his breath as he grabs the dog by the scruff of his neck and begins shaking him violently.

Sometimes, Kilo will growl at his owner at this point; other times, he doesn't.  The beating he receives is always far worse if he does growl.  "Oh, you think you gonna growl at ME?!?" says the thug with outrage.

He begins to punch the dog -- it's the only explanation for the wailing that comes next; the punches are followed what sounds to be the owner slamming the dog;'s head into furniture, into doors and walls...into whatever is nearby and will hurt the dog.  Then come the body slams -- yes, what I'm saying is that the owner picks the dog up over his shoulders and then throws the dog down with all his might; what else could possibly cause such loud bangs and crashes?  The whole of our apartment shakes each time the dog makes impact.  The sound of the dog getting kicked in the side and stomach is enough to make any person weep.  I've heard the sound of a dog getting hit by a car before -- and that's the sound Kilo makes...a horrible, nightmarish belching sound; breathless; terrified.  And so so very very sorry for making that mess on the carpet...


The owner begins to stomp the dog, causing the most awful screams and howls and yelps; by now I am weeping along with the dog, who shrieks his canine emotions with every blow.  The owner does not stop beating Kilo until the dog is nearly silent -- I imagine a broken rag doll of a dog, tongue lolling out of his mouth...a dazed and baffled expression on its face as the owner winds down the vicious attack.  Panting -- both man and dog are by now winded.  After a moment or two, the owner takes the dog outside to do its business.  I am astonished to see the animal standing...to see the animal moving without a visible limp...Though I am hidden behind my curtains, I see the dog glance at me quickly before the owner takes him back inside and shuts it back up in the bedroom.


Of course it goes without saying the owner DOES NOT pick up after the dog -- so, as if forcing everyone within screaming distance to eavesdrop on this poor animal's torture weren't enough, we neighbors must then tiptoe through the grass or else end up with tortured dog poo on our feet.


Don't ask me why I haven't called the police:  my husband and I believed we had literally overhead the dog being killed the first day our new neighbors moved in; indeed, in my haste to get to the phone, I leapt off our bed and caused one of our laptops to fall off the bed and onto the floor, breaking the screen.  The police came and talked to the people; they looked at the dog, and then they left.  Later that day, the dog took a more severe beating.  Indeed, every time we have called the police, and at this point, we have called at least seven times, they leave without taking the dog, and I can't for the life of me figure out why.  I don't know why the dog isn't limping, or bleeding...I don't know why the dog is still alive.

I am not a dog person; I think dogs are really dumb and smell bad and are a lot of needless trouble.  But I love this dog Kilo so much.//

I went to the Humane Society once about it...took the kids with me and everything.  We waited two hours to talk with someone, only to be told by the responding officer that there was nothing they could do; the audio I had didn't prove anything -- how were they to know I didn't have some kind of beef with the dog's owner?  How were they to know the sounds were of my neighbor's dog, and not someone else's?  I told him I didn't care about dogs, I don't even like dogs really, but the sound of the dog's screams were such that I couldn't sleep or eat or think out of pity for the poor dog...and later, at home, I wept afresh for the poor dog.

Other neighbors have complained.  Today, I complained to the leasing office...and finally got through to a number where someone sounded like they actually cared.  I was told that animal control would visit the apartment some time today and check on the animal.  I cautioned him:  if you need me to call you when the abuse is actually taking place, please let me know, because I will; I will wait until its happening so it can all be proven, because the police have come out again and again...but they leave the dog to remain in its awful hell, and I cannot bear the thought of the dog's next beating, which will surely be worse than the one before it...

My name is Spydra.  I'm a cat person who loves a white pit bull dog named Kilo.  I am a dog whisperer, for Kilo whispers to me; he also screams and cries and sobs.  I whisper back to him through the paper-thin walls, encouraging him and letting him know that we love him and that he's not alone.

But he is alone, and there's not much else I can do about it, and I don't know what else to do except pray.

Please pray for this beautiful, mild, sweet-tempered dog; please pray that he is removed from these people, and that the perpetrator is punished -- please kick his ass if you know him.

Thanks.

No comments:

Post a Comment