Gotza’s Happy Ending

2001

In 2003, I was up North on business, in Fort Good Hope, just below the Arctic Circle, staying at a bed and breakfast. It was 70 below with the wind-chill factor and I was snug in my bed when I heard a dog howling.

Below my window there I saw a pup, not more than a year old, chained to a dog house. I hurriedly threw on some clothes and brought him into my room where he spent the night snuggled in bed with me.

In the morning I offered to buy Gotza and was told to put him back.

I don't suppose a day passed that I didn't think about that pup. I plotted and planned and exhausted myself with the futility of just removing him from a place that had to be flown in and out of.

Last month, July 2004, I was back in Fort Good Hope, hoping that my words on how keeping him chained was cruel had made a change for the better for him. There was no hope for Gotza in Fort Good Hope.

There he was still, but this time in oppressive heat and so covered in mosquitos that I thought for a moment that he had changed colour.

This time my offer of $100 was accepted though. It took two days and three flights and a stop-over in a hotel in Edmonton, but he's with me now.

As you can see by the photos, he's a dear boy who was not ruined by the cruelty he was subjected to. If only they were all as lucky at Gotza.

Barry Faires,
Vancouver
(Go to Barry's page)


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