A Letter to the Asshole Who Abandoned My Dog

This is a letter to the asshole who abandoned my dog at the dump when she was 4 weeks old.

I have been writing this letter in my head for a few months now and I've considered writing it from a few different vantage points:

1. You're an Evil Monster
2. You're Too Dumb to Bother With
3. I'm Trying to Be More Zen So I Love You Anyway

All these let you off the hook more than I would like, so I'm going to go with this:

You're a grown up, you most certainly DID know better and karma's a bitch (I AM trying to get a bit more zen).

This is my dog Kayloo*:


She is about 10 months old now. She is gentle and loving, she farts like a trucker and she likes nothing more than to chill out on her cushion knowing that the rest of her pack is a few steps away.

A bit on how Kayloo's life started out:

She was born. 3 or 4 weeks later the human (or one of the humans) associated with her life picked her up, took her to the dump and left her to fend for herself. In October. In Canada. She was there for a few days until someone found her and brought her to the vet clinic. This is what she looked like.

I am trying to be level-headed and keep myself from saying things like WHAT THE HELL KIND OF ASSHOLE LEAVES A PUPPY AT A DUMP!!! Seriously, what BRAND of asshole to you have to drink to go and pull something so incredibly horrible?

Level-headed, level-headed...

EVERYONE within a 100 kilometer radius would have had a better idea on what to do with a puppy than you did. I have taken the liberty of coming up with a (much shortened) list. You could have:

• given her to a 3 year old child. Even a kid would have known what to do;
• put her in a box and randomly choose any doorstep, any doorstep at all and they would have been less asshole-ic than you;
• I dunno, maybe you could have dropped her at any one of the 50 vet clinics we have in the area?

You could have even done any one of these incognito since clearly you did not have the BALLS** to own up to the fact that you didn't want to take care of YOUR RESPONSIBILITY in the first place (and YEAH, she WAS your responsibility. Maybe if you were a little more conscientious about your dog and you got her fixed this wouldn't have happened in the first place. Oh, but I guess that would mess with your side job BREEDING AND SELLING dogs that you pass off as PURE BREEDS. Heaven forbid you should have to deal with a mutt).

Ever hear of a guy named Gandhi? He said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." GANDHI IS NOT IMPRESSED.

To give an indication of what we are dealing with here, the American Humane Association estimates that 9.6 million animals are "destroyed" in the US EVERY YEAR (The Humane Society of the US estimates 3-4 million). That is the cumulative effort of thousands of careless individuals such as yourself. Do you know what "destroyed" means? It means killed. Based on these numbers, thousands of dogs that aren't even a year old and are PERFECTLY HEALTHY could die every day because YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.

That's right. Every single dog that is euthanized in the ENTIRE WORLD is now your fault. That's what happens when you do stupid shit.

To summarize:

You're a grown up
It makes me sad to think of how horrible your parents, grandparents and/or teachers must have been to teach you that something so deplorable was an ok thing to do... Whoa, hang on! This isn't your kindergarten teacher's fault! This is YOUR fault. If you're old enough to get in your van and DECIDE to head over to the dump, you're old enough to make a better choice.

You knew better
Don't even think of trying to blame this on rap music or video games.

Karma's a bitch
The next time you stub your toe, or have a bad dream or open up your Ikea box and realize that you are missing a CRUCIAL bolt, but you are already half way through building it so you have to take it all apart (which is impossible) and drive 2 hours back to Ikea to get the bolt and then 2 hours back home only to realize that you've put one of the panels on backwards... remember this: You deserve it.

You deserve it.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Kayloo just came into the room looking for Mickey because she likes to do everything that he does. She is doing her best to swallow a Kong whole and every now and then she drops the Kong on his head to keep him interested in the game.

Dogs don't care what happened a year ago... let's be realistic, dogs don't care what happened 20 minutes ago. So, she's ok. But I really do believe what Gandhi said about the relationship between a nation and its animals. And we can do better. We WILL do better.

I would like to finish off this post with one last message to my Boneheaded Puppy Abandoner:

Na, na, na, na, naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! All of your future Ikea projects are going to look stupid and you are probably going to get slivers and stub your toes while you're at it!!!

I didn't say the message was a mature one.


* Kudos to John on his fabulous photographic skills!
** I use "balls" here in the male or female "balls" sense. This is an equal opportunity rant. I would be happy to crush the male or female who did this.

Follow up: I have received a lot of feedback about this post. First of all, thank you for your passion and for sharing your stories. If you haven't already checked out the comments section, I would highly recommend it. For better or worse I have learned about "burn piles," dogs left on the side of the road and in dumpsters, and caring for dogs discarded after fights and experiments. I have been shocked more than a few times today, and I've been googling like mad! Thank you for educating me and for engaging in this discussion. I look forward to many more chats to come!

I've started Kayloo & Friends to collect your stories. I hope you'll check it out and join our pack!

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That'll Do

The dogs just got back from chasing John around the track for around an hour and are waiting for dinner.

The grand master plan was to pose them ever so cleverly with a bottle of pinot John and I had just finished. Turns out they weren't at all into my photo shoot plan and would prefer to practically play dead.

Mickey is almost falling asleep sitting up. They're so cute when they're tired...

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Flowers Are Pretty

Flowers are pretty. See? Even dogs think* so.

* "Think" meaning, "Aw, I think it's so pretty that another dog/person peed/spit/sneezed/threw up right on this flower here."

Perfect Little Furry Cherubs

Here they are after a long walk in the woods. Peaceful. Sweet. Perfect little furry cherubs. When they are like this I can almost remember what they were like when they were wee pups (Kayloo and Mickey).


And this is what they are really like:



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A Good Adventure

Here we have the dogs on an Adventure. Never mind that Mickey can keep himself occupied for 10 minutes nosing around a blanket... here the pups are on a REAL adventure. I think on this particular walk the dogs took down a bear and a wild boar and a squirrel and a Sasquatch. Hang on... they didn't get the squirrel. Vicious creatures those little vermin are...

And below we have the Ever Growing Kayloo being Good (check out how much smaller she was!). Look at those ears! She almost flew away just the other day...

The Wonderful, Cold Beach

I love going to the beach. I hadn't been to a beach when it was cold until I was in my 20's- I think I was in Australia. For a girl from the interior of British Columbia a cold beach is a novel phenomenon. The only large bodies of water around my home town were lakes and you certainly didn't willingly drive a half hour to seek them out when you've just finished thawing your car engine with a hairdryer.

This is Kayloo's first time and she is sticking close by Mickey, much to his chagrin I'm sure.

16lbs of Holy Terror

When Kayloo first came into our home we were worried that Mickey wasn't going to be high energy enough for her. Kayloo would nip at his tail, his nose... his entire head. She'd bounce around, nudge him and then lay on him in a final attempt to get his attention. Mickey would run in the other direction with his tail securely between his legs, ignore her entirely or stare at me with pleading eyes. I am fairly certain he was saying something along the lines of: Are you KIDDING me? Why oh WHY is she touching me and how did she get in here anyway? And then slowly, ever so slowly Mickey became less shy and blossomed into a wee, fuzzy, 16lb, brown bundle of HOLY TERROR. I am not kidding. He was a growling, humping pain in the butt and he only calmed down after we ran him on his exercise wheel thing for half a day. And then he'd blink and be back at it again.

These pictures are taken before Mickey became Evil. Below you can see Mickey is plainly saying*: I see that you have put your paw in my eyeball. Again. We've talked about this. I hate you.

*Don't humanize your dogs people. It's weird.

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Kayloo's Home Visit (or Puking at the New Home)

Before I begin, I would like to say that I've been getting a bit of (jealous?) feedback that I may have gone on & on & on about the Victoria Pet Adoption Society. To you Jealous Feedbackers I say: (Victoria Pet Adoption Society) What do you mean (Victoria Pet Adoption Society)? I don't really get (Victoria Pet Adoption Society) what you are getting at. Weird (Victoria Pet Adoption Society).

Moving on... This was Kayloo's first time at our house for the "home visit" portion of the adoption process. First, we met Kayloo at the Society and a few days later a lovely woman from the Society came to our house so she could evaluate if we were crazy and to what degree we would freak out if she promptly puked all over our carpet (which she did). Apparently we did alright because a few days after that we were allowed to come and pick her up. Fantastic!

And there is Mickey in the very background to the left. I've heard that it is a good sign if dogs ignore each other.

Merry Christmas Mickey!

Here we have a crooked scan of the Christmas card the puppy daycare took of Mickey on Christmas Day. I know, horridly unprofessional (a scan... gasp!)- but I just had to include this picture. What kind of mom would I be to include a Christmas picture of the black and white one, without including a Christmas picture of the brown one? I'd start getting feedback that I was racist, I am sure. Will you look at the PAWS! They are TURNED OUT people! He looks slightly concerned, his head looks way to big for the rest of him and I am sure he is aware that he is not quite pulling off that little 'kerchief. Classic. Love it.

Merry Christmas Kayloo!

The Victoria Pet Adoption Society took Kayloo to see Santa Claus. That is just fantastic! I can just imagine what she would have been like too- Kayloo is a dog who is liable to lick you to death so I am sure his beard wasn't the same after meeting her. Nowadays Kayloo likes to lick her guests for the following reasons:

• you just got out of the shower
• you have bare feet
• you just put lotion on
  
• you had salmon recently... or a few weeks ago
• it's Tuesday
  
• you put your hand anywhere near her snout
• she is saying good morning to you for the first time that day (or the 2nd or 3rd)
• she turns her head & suddenly realizes that your face is in licking distance & remembers that she hasn't yet tried to get her tongue up your nose today
• + a few other reasons I can't remember right now
  

Introducing Miss Kayloo

Little Miss Kayloo. At this point she had not yet made our home brighter, but she was melting hearts all over. Of course she was! Kayloo was abandoned when she was 4 weeks old and the fabulous people at the Victoria Pet Adoption Society brought her back to her perfect, shiny puppy dog self. How evil do you need to be to abandon a puppy? Sigh... she is so gorgeous...

Giant!

Mickey trying to sleep on the little cushion but he is having difficulty because of how freaking humongous he is. He is a giant, gargantuan dog! Remember how small and cute he was? Like here and here? He could practically digest an entire horse whole now. WHOLE I say!

Diesel

Here is a shout out to Diesel the Chocolate Lab puppy. I was certain he was pretty much a genius. I mean, he was 5 minutes old and he peed right on that special little pad! Handy!

CIBC Run for the Cure/Mafioso

"Running" for the CIBC Run for the Cure. Everyone kept on looking at me like I was evil or something for not carrying him more than I did. It was raining & I heard murmurs of "he's too cold," "poor little guy," and "she should be carrying that little dog." Right. Didn't they know I was training him to run on a Mickey-sized exercise wheel so he could, all on his own, create enough electricity to run every gadget in our house + the 50 storey apartment building down the street? I would have picked him up if it wasn't for that, honest people.

He kind of looks like he figures he is somebody, doesn't he? Fergehd abowdit.

Small as a Button

I am putting this one in, out of sequence, because... omg, look at how little he was! He used to fit under the couch- he'd kick things under there and then go in after them. I distinctly remember one of the last times he did that- he got stuck for a good couple of minutes. And then barked and snarled like the couch had a personal vendetta against him. Probably did.

Sears Model

Here we are cruisin' at the ocean. Kind of looks like he has a Sears pose going on there, doesn't it? If only he could point & squint off into the distance.

A Genius I Say...

I taught him to play this game where he sits at the top of the stairs, I stand at the bottom and he "throws" the ball down to me. My dog is a GENIUS I tell you! Never mind the fact that he eats cat doo and spent the first 5 months of his life running into the SIDE of the couch each time he tried to scale it... but still, clearly a genius. That little statue in the background (not chewed on... yet) was given to us by friends in Holland. I LOVE it. It's from Bali and is called Calm or Serene or Shauna FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CHILL OUT. Something like that.

Monkey

You can tell just looking at him that he's a cheeky monkey, can't you? I'm sure right before this he hung out on the couch chowing down on my dinner and shortly after he went and peed on the floor. And then proceeded to bark for a half hour.

Helping Mom Pack

I was about to go out of town for work & Mickey decided to jump into my suitcase to help me pack. I think at this point traveling for work was still a novelty, but I have the sneaking suspicion that sometime shortly after this my interest in work travel came to an abrupt and obvious end. I mean, COME ON people! He is a puppy & he is SITTING IN MY SUITCASE! And he is cocking his head! Who can resist that? A puppy... and a suitcase... and the ears...

Safe in his Crate

Mickey is crate trained. Sometimes it takes a Kong lace with cocaine (i.e. Rollover) to get him in there, but he goes in and he no longer cries about it. There was a time when we couldn't get him out of his crate. Sigh... those were the days...