Posted By: Elaine
Date: Monday, 5 January 2004, at 5:41 a.m.

In Response To: How Many Animals Will Freeze to Death Tonight?

I am so glad to read about this at last because I know it is all true. I've had Shorty now for many years and though his cropped ears look pretty funny he doesn't mind because he is warm and happy after being sooooo cold ....and sooooo unhappy.

Just a baby really when he was put on a short wire on a concrete patio outside his cruel owner's sliding glass doors where he could see them and cry to them to bring him in and play and cuddle with him which his dear doggy puppy heart wanted and needed so badly. I walked my dog past his house every day for months and told the people that he was crying because he was so lonely, but they just pretended not to understand and yelled at him for crying. I believe to this day that they hit and kicked him too because I saw him cower when they came out. The cruelness of doing this to any living creature, but especially to dogs who are born wanting and needing to be our friends and to love us and to be near us always ...and to a puppy! This is just incredible to me even now that the whole family could ignore his cries for help, even be angry at him for crying. Like I say, I am glad to be able to tell Shorty's story at last because even all this time later I still want to go back and heave bricks through the sliding glass doors!

Anyway winter came and they left him there. It was a really cold snowy winter that year, the temp went down to -12. There was a porch over the patio so he didn't get snowed on but the concrete must have been brutal. They got him one of those useless plastic igloos which he hated being forced to stay in to stay alive so he only crawled into it at night, but all day he sat on the frozen concrete staring for all he was worth into the house he was never allowed into. They never even looked at him!

I called the SPCA of course, but you know the story better than I do...food? water? shelter? Can't do anything! To hell with the fact that this pup was going to freeze to death to say nothing about the cruelty of life on a chain even if it WAS going to be a short life! What was anyone supposed to do who is not as cruel as these people and the SPCA, someone with even a tiny bit a decency? (I'm not boasting, it doesn't need much to be better than these people and the SPCA.)

So... a friend and I went one night to get him as it was clear that he was going to die there, that one day I would see him frozen to the concrete, a little Dalmatian statue in a yard which is all that these people should ever be allowed to own. It wasn't easy as the snips we brought were dull and the wire was tough, and Shorty was leaping and barking with joy the whole time and we were inches from the huge window, but once started we couldn't very well stop so we carried on making a hell of a racket. Old granny came to the glass doors and shrieked but my friend just gave her the finger and cut harder. The wire went all around his neck and was padlocked (it was already choking him and would have grown into his neck soon...thanks SPCA!)

Long story short... We got him and he had to have the bottoms of his ears surgically removed because they were dead from being frozen. My friend kept him while I found a new home miles away. Shorty may look a bit funny, but boy is he one happy dog... no thanks to the SPCA!