The Princess Diaries
scrappybadger May 18th, 2007
I love dogs. I’ve tried to figure out what it is about them, and I can successfully list the things that I most like about them. Nearly all dogs are kind, forgiving, loyal, easy-going, and all but the very emotionally disturbed dogs enjoy the good times to be had in doing the simplest things. They are, in some ways, similar to humans in their desire for companionship and love of treats, but they are much different than us as well. Dogs so often seem to me to be better versions of ourselves as they are usually more flexible than humans and not only get along with, but also grow to love, even the most unlikable humans. I’m good with the lists, yet I still can’t quite put my finger on what draws me to dogs, to what makes me love canines so fast when I have the hardest time trusting and loving people.
Maybe dogs help me like myself better. They accept faults and imperfections easily and often without really seeming to notice. I’m not sure, but, whatever the reason, I love dogs, so it isn’t difficult for me to grow attached to ones that happen to come into my life. So it was with Princess. She was, as I hope to say about hundreds of other dogs later in my life, the easiest dog in the world to love. Our neighbor bought her as a Valentine’s Day gift for his wife in 2005. She was a tiny, white nugget of energy, and I went over to pet her every chance I got. I didn’t like the neighbors, but I faked it in order to coo over their oddly-named newest edition. As Princess grew up she visited us occasionally, running over to see Luna (who greeted her with not a little grumpiness) or jumping on Piig or on me. Like most dogs, she was happy. She was happy when it was sunny, when it was rainy, when she was being petted, and even when the neighbors chastised her for leaving her yard.
It was hard to pet Princess because she barely stood still long enough to get your hand on her in anything approximating a good head rub. She ran fast and trampled more than one of our flowers in the process, but we didn’t care. Her happiness was infectious, and Piig and I liked to see her. As much as we told them that we didn’t mind her coming over and that in fact we liked it, the neighbors grew increasingly stern with Princess. She’d been on the losing end of a skirmish with Luna once and they didn’t like it, but their admonishments primarily seemed to grow from a need to control every dog that lived with them. Princess was screamed at, threatened with raised fists, and chased into the house whenever they caught her sneaking into our yard. Unfortunately, the city we live in is like most others in that there is little to do when you see an animal being abused. I called the authorities to ask about reporting dog abuse, but the voices on the other end of the phone always sounded the same — either nonplussed or disinterested. Plus, we were afraid of making it worse for Princess and for bringing retribution on our own dog in the form of poisoning or something equally as horrible.
We stopped encouraging Princess to come see us in an effort to ease the abuse. I would tell her hello as she sat on her front porch alone, but I never gave her any of the subtle clues that would let her know that I wanted her to come jump on me and lick my face. I was sad; I wanted to rescue her from what I knew was a pretty horrible life, and I wanted, for my own sake, to see her again.
Last summer two of the 20-something men in the house would tie her to a bush in the front yard, leaving her there all day, bored and lonely. I routinely snuck over with dog bones, rawhides, and whispered apologies for being too scared to take her — for not being brave enough to save her. While their parents were at work, the two men started squirting Princess with a water hose. She used to chase their sprinkler and carry it around the yard in her mouth, so at first the water hose seemed to her like a game, but it quickly became something else. After a few minutes she grew frustrated with the steady stream of water in her nose and mouth, a stream of water that she couldn’t control by walking away from it. This otherwise very quiet, well-behaved dog barked. And she barked. It didn’t do any good; they continued squirting until she lunged for them, held back by a 4 or 5 foot chain that tethered her to the bush. I ran to the kitchen window day after day watching but not knowing what to do.
I thought they were training her to fight. Their brother’s pit bull had the tell-tale scars on her face, and I was sure that Princess was in for a similar fate. Thankfully, I was wrong; she was spared that cruelty when they decided to mate her with a new male pit they’d gotten from who knows where.
It was like she was made for watching over little puppies. She doted on and mothered them, and we saw less and less of her as she spent most of her time inside with her puppies. Though she seemed content to watch over them, the strain of a very large litter took its toll on her body. She developed a bad skin condition and never regained either her pre-pregnancy weight or the healthy look that she’d had just a few months before. Her happiness was less evident, too. She still wagged her tail in response to the slightest show of affection, but she seemed defeated. They’d beaten and yelled the spirit out of her until she didn’t really seem to know what to do with herself.
That was the hardest time for me to see Princess. I was worried when more than a few days went by without catching a glimpse of her, but when I did see her it made me sick. I was angry at what they were doing to her and angry at myself for not stopping it. Every single time I saw her I apologized to her. I mostly did it without saying anything, so I’m not sure if she got the message or not. Eventually I stopped seeing her altogether, and everytime I asked Piig she said it had been a little while since she had seen her too. One day a couple of months ago I saw the grandmother outside with their male pitbull, so I smiled a nice, fake smile, chatted for a minute, and then asked about Princess. I wanted to know how she was.
There have been many times in my life when I was angry with someone, when I wanted to yell or walk away and never talk to them again, but there have been very few times when I was nearly overwhelmed by the urge to go fucking crazy, to run up and pummel someone to the ground. That day was one of the latter, and as that woman told me that they’d “had to put her down” for being aggressive — lunging and barking like they’d trained her to on that bush — I wanted to lose control. I wanted to beat every single one of them to a bloody, useless pulp. I wanted to see and hear their pain.
When I think about it now, euthanizing Princess was the most humane thing to do. She was miserable, abused and unloved, and she didn’t deserve to live like that more than the two years that she had already endured, yet it all seemed so unfair. It wasn’t right that the short time she had was spent in such a hellish house, that once her hair started to fall out and she lost some of her cuteness that she was thrown away. Everything in the world felt wrong at that moment.
For several days I couldn’t stop thinking about what it had been like the day they killed her. That’s what it was — they started killing her almost from that first Valentine’s Day and it didn’t end until they had someone else push poisons into her veins. I wondered if anyone told her goodbye. I wondered if she was alone when it happened. (Since most people don’t want to be faced with the responsibility of killing an animal, the chances are good that only vet staff were with her.) I wondered if she was scared and if she liked or hated the vet. I wondered if she knew what was happening.
And I wondered if she knew I loved her.
Today was my birthday, and I got goodies! Piig got me a bottle of plum wine (which I’m lately in the habit of ordering whenever I get the chance), a subscription to Bark, and Pigeon – a book all about a very underappreciated bird. Perfect gifts!
