My Feelings on Animal Abuse

This is a picture of Patches the day we brought her home from The North Shore Animal League.
These comments are in no way directed at the people at North Shore Animal League, they are a wonderfull organization, and all of the people there love animals and take amazing care of them.


Patches was very lucky in that she only spent a few hours at North Shore. Someone had dropped her off there the same day we adopted her. She was only in her cage 1/2 an hour before we first saw her.

We fell in love with that face and those floppy ears, and it broke our hearts to see this dog so afraid, and even being so afraid of her new surroundings and still giving us so much love and being so gentle with people she had never known before.

A day or two after adopting Patches my Mom (being home during the day, and becoming one of Patches' best friends) offered to take her to our vet for a check-up. This is when our suspicions were confirmed. The vet, which we had known for years, asked my Mother where we got Patches, and if we knew the previous owners. He knew right away that we had not raised this dog from a pup.


Well my mom told him where we had gotten her, and the vet told her that he was fairly certain Patches was about a year old and that she was probably abused for the majority of that time.

There were clear signs that she had suffered from distemper as a puppy and was never treated for it, and with how hand shy she was he also felt she was probably hit a lot.

We really started to notice things from this point on.

The fact that she didn't bark at all. Initially we figured that was because she was part Besengi (a barkless dog). After about 3 months when she finnally did feel safe enough to bark, we figured she was probably too afraid of what would happen to her if she did bark.

I also had guessed she was probably hit with a some sort of stick or tube, because I was playing with her one day, and mind you this was months after we had gotten her, and had an empty paper towel tube that I went to give her to play fetch with. As soon as she saw it in my hand her tail went between her legs and her ears went down, and she crawled under the couch to hide, not making the slightest sound.

It took me almost an hour to get her to come out, and she was shaking the entire time like that first day we met her.

I could go on for pages and pages on the different things that we have noticed to confirm our suspicions that Patches was abused as a puppy, but I just want to say two more things.

First off, we have had Patches for just about two years now, and I believe she is as happy as a dog can be. She, without a doubt, rules the house and gets so much love from everyone that meets her, and gives just as much back. I can't imagine a more perfect dog. She is healthy, loving, protective, loyal, friendly, and happy.

Lastly, to anyone that has ever abused an animal, (especially if the people that dropped a scared, 1 year old dog named Rosie off at North Shore, on Jan 29, 1996) ever read this page. I think that you should be locked in a cage and beaten. How could you hurt an animal that just given a chance, would give you so much love. How could you...

If anyone out there reading this is thinking about adopting an animal, please stop and think about these few things first:

Are you going to to be able to deal with when it decides to wake you at 3:00am to go out?
Are you going to be able to deal with training it, and the misshaps it will have on your brand new rug?
Are you going to be able to devote enough time out of your busy life to spend with it?
Basically are you prepared to rearrange your life and take responsibilty for a life that will depend on you for everything?

If you answered "No," or had to think about any of those questions, You may want to re-think getting a pet.......

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