Killing a Dog

The dog had been sitting in the same spot for over 28 hours when I first noticed it. Most likely, it had fallen off the ridge next to the church, breaking its back and leaving it paralyzed. In the first hours, it had yelped and screamed, disturbing the sleep already hindered by the fact that I was sharing two sleeping bags amongst three people.

"You have to kill it," Bryce said. But he had left that afternoon, and the dog, no longer yelping, was forgotten. When I noticed it, it was sitting in a pool of water left by a broken pipe, eagerly lapping up the water. From my position, the dog looked comically as if it were sitting with its legs hanging into a pool or hot-tub, and my first reaction was to chuckle. I turned away, forgetting about the dog.

It was Neil that brought the dog's true situation to my attention. By this time the pool had dried up, and the dog was becoming badly dehydrated. Its death, when it inevitably came, would be slow and painful. For now, the dog sat undisturbed, brought by a lack of water and understanding to an apparent stoicism regarding its fate.

"We have to kill it," said Neil. I agreed, though with more hesitation, not having grown up on a farm. We continued to repeat this to each other throughout the workday, each unwilling to take the first active step.

Around five, I grew impatient. The dog was now obviously suffering. I grabbed Neil, and encouraged by his sister Layne, grabbed three utensils, not usually associated with killing a dog, but nevertheless useful for such a task. Two shovels, and a massive metal bender, for backup. Neil after all is a massive guy, capable in my estimation of dispatching a dog.

We cleared out the area, guarded by several with knowledge of what we were doing. The plan was simple. Neil would knock the dog unconscious with a shovel. Then we would finish him off with a hefty blow to the head with the metal bender. I stood poised with my shovel, on the off-chance that Neil failed to knock him unconscious with the first strike. This seemed unlikely. It would be quiet, quick, and as painless as possible under the circumstances (for both the ignorant women and for the dog itself).

My stomach quivered slightly as Neil prepared for the blow, shovel extended far above his head. With all force, he swung his shovel down, landing squarely on the dog's head. Immediately the dog began to cry with almost human tones, loud enough to inform any within a half-mile radius that violence was being done upon it. I looked at Neil horrified. Quickly I dispatched a powerful blow myself, with strength that I deemed hard enough to sever the dog's head from its body. The dog merely continued to yelp, louder if possible. Neil struck again. I again made eye contact, and read his anguish, and panic. It was the same as mine. I leveled another blow.

Still, the dog stubbornly yelped, speaking clearly of the injustice it felt was being served. It was not a scream of anger, but of fear and pain.

It was at this precise moment that half of our group drove up the driveway of the church, heads turned towards us, crammed as they were in the back of a truck. It would have been amusing, in a comedy of errors type way, if not for the crunch of metal on bone, and the blood which seeped slowly out of a small spot on the dog's head.

At this point, we had a full audience, among whom stood both men giddy at the violence, and women staring with worried eyes. Not exactly what we had envisioned. The dog had proven to have more life in him then we though, or at least a strangely thick skull. In fact, it was still breathing, the chest visibly rising as it lay, long past reviving. We grabbed three plastic trashbags, stuffing the dog (how it smelled!) into them one-by-one. Even then, it took another ten mintues for the dog to die, the last ragged breaths coming at almost thirty second intervals.

We buried him near the road.