A Little Too Late

Butter and Deuce found a dead dog this morning. I cried. And cried. And cried. Some neighbors helped me.

That is the short story. The long story has holes in it, because we can only presume what happened. I took the dogs to the park for about 1 hour, and then I stopped at Old Navy to get some jeans or pants or something. It took a while longer than I thought it would, since the maternity pants all looked liked crap and then I figured I would just get a bigger size regular pant, but had to find the right fitting jeans. And I was reminded of why I prefer expensive jeans when I could not find any that fit my body type. But of course, I am not going to spend $170 on a pair of expensive jeans knowing I am going to grow out of them quickly, and hopefully only where them for a little while on the way back down. Anyway, so the dogs were waiting for me a little longer than I meant for them to.....But they slept in the car, and it was cool outside, so no worries.

Then we parked outside our home. They both PULLED me to this car across the street. Very unlike Butter at this stage, and unlike them both after a good trip to the dog park. I looked under the car and saw a puppy - probablty 9 monts old? - with its eyes open and mouth open, and tongue kind of hanging out. And even though I knew it was dead, I really really really really wanted it to be alive so I could help.

I rushed the dogs into our building, and then came back out just with my cell phone and car keys. I touched the puppy, and found out what I already knew. I just started crying immediately. It's poor eyes were open. It was not injured -- it clearly was not hit by a car or anything. And it had a collar on -- a new, pink collar. I hoped that there was a number on it that I could call, and the puppy's name. But there wasn't. She wasn't dirty -- she was not a street dog. She was someone's dog.

A man walking his dog helped me, and was very nice and empathetic while remaining detached and composed (how do people remain detached? I can never can.). Two young men on the street also helped. One had seen the dog the night before. A girl had dropped her off to someone's apartment in his building to be taken care of. Another girl who lives in that building came out, and said she saw the dog outside last night, peeing blood. My guess is that the person who was supposed to take care of this dog put it outside because it was sick -- and didn't want the dog peeing blood in the house. I could be wrong, but my gut tells me that is what happened. I wish we would have seen the dog last night. I would have helped it. I would have taken it to the vet. It obviously was sick, and didn't go too far despite being abandoned outside. It kills me to think that it just laid down under this car and died, in pain. I am so mad about it.

So what do you do with a dead dog? What I did was cry, and call Derek's friend Manny, who works for sanitation and would know what to do. And I left a sobbing message on his voice mail. The man who was helping me was able to get a hold of animal control, who transferred him to sanitation, who said they would come get the dog. The two young men put the dog into a bag, and I cried. They tried to make me smile, and in a way they did because they were upset that someone clearly just left the dog out there too. But I just kept crying.

When Butter dies, I don't want to put him into a bag. I don't want to call animal control or sanitation. It felt so inhumane, and so sad. It felt like it was inappropriate to grieve, but the dog deserved someone to grieve for her.

All my energy has been sucked out. I know the puppy was dead for longer than just one or two hours. She probably died in the middle of the night -- so even this morning when I left for the park, had I parked in that direction -- it would have been too late. I still wish I would have found her when she was still breathing. It might have been helpless at that point -- but at least she would have known the touch of someone who really wanted to help her.