Since I started this blog as a personal style blog all of my posts have been what else, personal style posts. But today I want to take a minute to honor a sweet and beautiful boy as well as express my thoughts in regard to puppy mills and animal abusers. I know, not exactly light-hearted fashion related fare so I get it if you click elsewhere.
The sweet faced boy pictured here is Pawl. He is a two year old English Bulldog that we adopted in July from our local Humane Society. He had been rescued from a cruel, and in my opinion, vile and evil human being who kept him tied to a wall in a garage for the entire two years of his life. Pawl had been starved, regularly beaten and never socialized as a puppy. Unfortunately, the consequence for abuse of this nature constitutes little more than a smack on the wrist in most states.
The paperwork acquired from the man he was rescued from indicated he had been purchased at a pet store that is notorious for selling puppies acquired from puppy mills where the dogs and pups are forced to exist in heinous conditions. Appallingly, puppy mills aren’t illegal and are supposedly overseen by the USDA on the federal level and are under the jurisdiction of varying state laws. Unfortunately on site inspections don’t happen often enough. Sadly, 21 states have absolutely no laws in regard to commercial dog breeders.
Pawl found his place in our pack of dogs rather quickly and in our hearts instantaneously. He was classified as a special needs dog, but we didn’t care. We loved him unconditionally. We worked with both a wonderful vet and an excellent dog trainer to try and get Pawl where he needed to be behaviorally. After my husband and I witnessed some highly unusual behaviors, testing was done and it was determined Pawl was having psychomotor seizures. The vet prescribed medication and we immediately started him on it.
His seizures seemed to decrease, but then ten days ago his behavior rapidly deteriorated. He attempted to attack our oldest son and bit my husband while he was trying to contain him. The next day he tried to bite me while I was trying to stop him from attacking our sheltie. After speaking with our vet, the trainer, and the Humane Society, it was determined that Pawl would have to be euthanized after a ten day waiting period because there had been an open bite.
For the last ten days we have kept him isolated in the kitchen with no contact with anyone, but my husband and I. We have spent every moment we are home, in the kitchen giving him all of the love and affection we could. For the most part, he remained his sweet, silly, lovable self. There were indicators when the switch was going off in his head and the aggression was forthcoming so we would leave him alone until he came back out of it.
Sunday morning we had to say goodbye forever to our sweet bully boy. It was one of the most heartbreaking experiences of my life. He was only two and just a baby, but he never stood a chance due to the horrible way in which he entered this world and then at the hands of a heartless and horrible man. I can only hope that in the future laws are added or changed that treat these crimes as the true atrocities they are.
Rest in peace my sweet bully. I hope so much that you knew how much you were loved and that the last three months made up at least a little bit for the previous year and nine months of your short life.
