As I stood in the middle of a field today, holding a pheasant as he breathed his last breath, I wished that I could wave a magic wand and banish those people to a different world where others would not suffer as a consequence of their thoughtless behaviour and attitude....
The poor pheasant had been mauled by an out of control dog, off lead and charging around the farmers fields, no where in sight of it's owner. The owner was meandering around without a care in the world as I tried to do a hill training session. I politely mentioned to her that the farmer was perfectly entitled to shoot her dog. Her response was to shrug her shoulders and say "oh well, I know that...he can if he wants". As I stood mouth open aghast that she actually did not care if her dog got hurt, she continued to talk about how she was perfectly entitled to let her dog loose wherever she pleased and it could do whatever it wanted....
After she had gone I went to where I knew there were pheasant pens and I had seen the dog run towards. Sure enough there was an injured bird that had been attacked. As I held him in my arms, tears flowing down my face, I knew that my training session was over for the day. Motivation drained from me just like the life blood of the poor little pheasant.
Earlier in the week I had been out running with Kroi. I saw a large pointer dog come charging across the field, evil intention clearly planned. I stopped dead and stood beside Kroi. Sure enough the dog attacked Kroi without hesitation. I intervened and ended up bitten as well. By the time the dog's owner finally reached us I had resorted to punching the dog to stop him attacking Kroi. It worked as he realised that he had a very angry human and husky to now contend with. And the owner's response? "Never done that before, I am sure he was just being playful"... Funny thing is, Kroi still has a puncture wound on his neck from the last time this dog attacked him when the owner's son was walking him...
Last week I was alerted to a cruelty case involving a Husky mum and her litter of pups. I will spare you the details of the suffering that this poor mum and her young family had endured, but thanks to the heroic efforts of one vet, some of the pups may survive.... The mother did not make it. A poor girl that had been "puppy farmed" for years and suffered severe abuse and neglect and gave her life to save her babies. Someone owned this poor dog, they did this to her.
For four years I have run parkruns with my little team of huskies. We have made every effort to integrate with fellow parkrunners at events up and down the UK. Always respectful of other runners, always run in full control, safety paramount at all times. I have run nearly 100 parkruns, made so many friends and earned the respect of a great many people.
My team of huskies and I are no longer welcome at parkrun. Not because of anything that we have done, but because of the selfish and disrespectful behaviour of other dog runners. Other people allowing their dogs to be out of control and a danger to themselves and others....
The sad thing is, all of the above have one thing in common. Irresponsible dog owners. People that do not deserve to own the wonderful creature that is a dog. Perhaps a little harsh, but considering they are in charge of a living creature and also a potentially dangerous weapon it is very worrying indeed.
I do believe in second chances and learning from your mistakes, but sadly I do not think any of the above examples represent people capable of that. Why? Because they don't actually believe that they are doing anything wrong......
(image courtesy of cartoonspace images)
