Smokey Mountain Breakdown

For Friday ARK
The phone rings and I rush around looking for the handset. I find it just before the answering machine picks up saying, "Hi, you've reached Old Maid's Aerie and the home of Rosie's Cocker Rescue Referral...." There are dogs barking in the background of my message. My dogs are very jealous of the time I spend on the phone and they always seem to find occasion to bark. So my outgoing message barks at you.

"Hello? Are you the cocker spaniel lady?"

The voice is soft. And stressed. You know how you can sort of tell how people are emotionally by how they sound over the phone? They actually tell people who work in customer service to "make" like they are smiling when they talk. Those people never listen.

She sounds bad. But most people sound bad when they call me for help. I get worried if they don't.

"Yes, that's me. How can I help you?" I ask, sounding calm.

The tears start to flow over the phone line. The sad story emerges as it has so many times before. It's not a new story. It's a story that we in rescue hear all too often.

The woman is in a domestic abuse situation. The abuser is abusing the family pet as a way to extract the maximum amount of damage to her and the children. Because the bastard knows how much she loves the dog...how much those kids love the dog.

She is calling me because she is prepared to give up this family member rather than see it kicked, beaten or mistreated any longer. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine facing that sort of choice?

I tell her what I need. I need photos and the various stats on the dog. I need her to email this information to me so that I can put an alert out.

The sad thing is, I rarely hear back from these women. I don't know what happens. She has either stayed in the situation and the dog has been killed by the abuser or she's surrendered it to the animal shelter. Anything rather than have the abuse continue.

So when I get an email from Bethany Poe, a graduate student with UT's College of Social Work, letting me know about Tennessee Senate Bill 0196 and House Bill 1161 which would allow women who want to leave domestic violence situations to include their pets under their Order of Protection...my ears pricked up.

'Cause, I gotta tell you...I don't want to ever get another one of these phone calls ever again. I don't want to be the person standing between the anguish and the agony of a family facing this choice. Protecting these non-human family members shouldn't be in question. Did we learn nothing from Katrina? Did we learn nothing from the people who died rather than leave their non-human family members behind? Did we learn nothing from the dogs and cats who died in those attics along with their people? I don't see this as being too much different.

If you are in Tennessee or a Tennessee blogger, I urge you to spread the word about these bills.