Despite my dismay of cruelty, I am a big believer in balance; without extreme or obvious opposites, it is impossible realize the merits (or horror) of something. But it doesn’t make it any less hurtful…painful…utterly heartbreaking…to see, hear or read about something like Oogy the dog.
Some friends of ours were over the other night telling us about how they saw Oogy on Oprah. To summarize, he was used as ‘bait’ in a dog fighting ring. I’m sure you can imagine what that means, but please…let me just describe it for you just in case your imagination isn’t quite creative enough.
In order to train a fighting dog, trainers will often use other animals as bait. This could range aywhere from rabbits to kittens to puppies to grown/older dogs. These animals are then used as living breathing punching/mauling bags.
They are, at the very worst, maimed in the process…and at the very best killed quickly.
Oogy’s story starts with a severe maiming, as inidicated by the picture to the left. Oogy was a 4 month old puppy when this happened. At 35 lbs, he was chained to a stake and then mauled by a pit bull. The entire left side of his head and part of his face was chewed off right behind the ear. But he didn’t die. The trainer took him and threw him in a cage and left him to bleed out. It was by some odd miracle that the police came and got him to a shelter/hospital in time to save his life.
People make me sick and sad. How can anyone look at an animal and think, “It’s going to be great to see this thing die in a horrible painful way.” It’s amazing to me to think that there are people in the world who have no emptahy towards animals, that animals are somehow ‘less’ because they are not human.
But on the same hand, there are Oogy’s new owners who took him in and made him a part of their family despite his odd looks and his checkered past.
Oogy’s new owners gave back to him what any dog has to offer his or her human counterpart…and that is unconditional love and acceptance. They did not question, they did not judge, they did not turn away. They simply acted and selflessly gave, and in return, they will always have the same from Oogy.
While Oogy will bear the physical marks of the very worst humanity offers, his owners embody the spirtual balance of the very best of what humanity offers, and so shall the two forever be intertwined in constant reminder of what humans are truly capable of.
You can read more about Oogy here.
