Two weeks ago, I had the kids write short autobiographies. I told them that they should include some of their strengths and accomplishments but that readers also want to hear their struggles, challenges, flaws. “That’s what people can relate to,” I said. As usual, I wrote a piece to use as an example. One of my struggles is I get overly sentimental about dogs, I wrote. I explained how I feel really sad when I hear about dogs being hurt or put to sleep.
One of my students piped up, “That’s what they do at the shelter. They be killing dogs for no reason.”
I practically leapt at her. “The Durham shelter takes in over 6,000 animals every year, and fewer than 1,500 get adopted. What are they supposed to do with the rest? How are they supposed to take care of them? They do the best they can. They put down the ones that can’t be adopted. Not for ‘no reason’.”
On Thursday, my girl inside Durham APS called because she had the whole story on DW. He had shown a lot of problems in the temperament testing: along with the barrier aggression, wildness, excitability, difficulty following commands. They said he would have to go to a one-dog family, but with the heartworm diagnosis, they weren’t going to keep him around long.
He needed someone to walk into the shelter and say, “I have no dogs right now, and what I’m looking for is a black pit bull, preferably with issues. Behavioral and medical, if possible.” No one did.
I asked them to reconsider; could I please foster him? They said no.
On Friday afternoon, they put DW to sleep.
I was headed out of town with some girlfriends for the weekend, so I swallowed hard and wiped my eyes. I went and lifted heavy things over my head at the gym, and then I put my emotions in a box and locked it in my house here in Durham. My friends and I drove up to my childhood home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We tried on my high school prom dresses, ate Mud Pie at Pepper’s, giggled at gaudy things in the antique mall on King Street, and hiked the Boone Fork Trail.
Then I came home, and when I unlocked the door, the box expoded open.
They killed my boy. Not for no reason. For lots of reasons. I know there were lots of reasons. And I know they know so much better than I do about these things, but I loved him. For lots of reasons.
I’m so sad.
I’m so mad. At them. At myself.
I can’t believe he’s dead, and I can’t stop hugging Redford and Violet, and I can’t, can’t, can’t get the lid back on the box.